66 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



of a natural insect with its inside squeezed out. It is thrown 

 like an artificial fly, only it is allowed to sink under the sur- 

 face for a few inches, and worked with a series of jerks. 

 When I spoke against artificial baits just now, of course 

 I did not allude to fly fishing, for that is a separate art. 

 In some districts, the tail of a cray-fish boiled is successfully 

 used for the capture of large chub ; the locust also is a most 

 successful surface bait for chub, and to use it a special tackle 

 is required. These so-called locusts are peculiar-looking 

 insects, on warm evenings they may be seen about tree-tops 

 and hedges, sometimes in considerable numbers. They are 

 about the size of a small humble bee, of a light brown colour, 

 and are covered with a hard shell. When you have captured 

 a quantity of them they can be kept in a perforated tin along 

 with a few leaves, the leaves from an elm are the best, 

 by this means they can be kept alive for several days. They 

 can be used with the ordinary rod, reel, and line of the Not- 

 tingham bottom fisher, some anglers using a float with a few 

 big shots close to it. The locust, of course, has to swim on 

 the top of the water. I don't like a float myself for this 

 bait, preferring to throw them out like an artificial fly. If 

 the angler has a fourteen-feet double-handed fly rod with a 

 fly reel and line, these will be better for locust fishing than 

 the ordinary rod. The fisher need not be particular about the 

 fineness of his tackle, and for this about four or five feet of 

 middling strong gut with a large loop on each end (one loop 

 is to knot the reel line to, and the largest loop is at the 

 bottom, to which the rest of the tackle is fastened). For the 

 extreme bottom tackle take a longish length of fine gut and 

 double it, it will then be a long loop (about six inches long), 

 take then two No. 8 hooks and whip them back to back on 

 the ends of the last-mentioned loop, so that the two ends of 

 the tackle and the two hooks are perfectly fast together (or 

 one of the double-brazed reversed hooks referred to in pith 

 fishing). The angler will require a baiting-needle, and for 

 this purpose a stocking-needle about three inches long and as 

 thin as you can get one, with a nick filed in the bottom of 

 the eye, will be the very thing ; slip the loop of the bottom 

 tackle in the nick that you have filed in the eye of the 



