292 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



of honey, and, without touching the bait with my fingers, thrust it 

 into the box, and coated it with the manipulated nectar. I waited 

 and watched with the superabundant, or rathci superhuman, patience 

 necessary on such occasions, and had almost concluded that my 

 patron's prognostications were about to be fulfilled, when my upper 

 or left-hand float, lying flat on the water, began to glide along the 

 surface in a very suggestive and gratifying manner. 



I struck, not ' ile,' as the Yankee would say, but a game fish, 

 which rushed upward and onward as if eager to cut my acquaintance. 

 I had hardly felt the grip of my first fish when float No. 2 lying at 

 length on the right, began to move in the opposite direction to the 

 struggling captive, which already questioned my right of deprivation. 

 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' and a fish on the 

 hook is worth two in the water. I resolved at once to let my 

 second bold epicure take his hook and his chance. The rod was 

 firm, the line was good, and some 60 yards of it formed a miniature 

 cable between the fish and the shore. My quarry was evidently 

 steeled to the encounter, and soon disappeared round a bend m 

 the bank. 



' Frailty, thy name is woman !' My first-hooked carp pursued 

 the uneven tenour of his way, and showed signs of exhaustion. 

 I looked down at my companion reel and saw that but a few yards 

 remained of the rapidly-running line. I had given it the previous 

 day to a fair enthusiast to place on the winch, and the idea that 

 perhaps it had not been properly fastened, and the fear of losing 

 it altogether, aroused me to a sense of danger and a change of 

 action. Seizing the line with the right hand, while holding my 

 bending rod with my left, I placed it between my teeth, and held 

 on with a nodding grip of desperation whilst I successfully grassed 

 my first-hooked and now defeated opponent. I then brought his 

 roaming companion nearer home and in a few minutes he joined 

 his mate on terra fii'ina. One weighed nearly, and the other jubt 

 over 6 Ibs. 



An editorial postscript to the above will be read with 

 interest, as giving some recent experiences of a thoroughly 

 practical fisherman: 



We also possess a piece of water which holds some carp 

 perfect patriarchs, some of them. In the hot weather they roam 

 about near the surface, and in the spawning season roll about in 

 the weeds like pigs. We have liihed the water almost every week 



