PIKE FISHING. 71 



conceivable description meets with due appreciation when 

 these fish are on the run; toads, it would appear, are the 

 only creatures they reject, but a dab of yellow paint will 

 make even these presentable. The spinning art, when 

 skillfully practised is, beyond all dispute, the most success- 

 ful system for extracting these fish; we say practised 

 skillfully, not because skill is actually requisite to success, 

 but merely to point out the difference between the ancient 

 and rude hand trolling, and really scientific spinning, 

 with rightly adapted tools and tackle. 



Spinning with the natural bait claims the precedence; 

 it is practised as follows : A small fish (dace, roach, etc. ), 

 of three or four ounces is taken and placed upon a flight 

 of hooks (the method of arrangement varying according 

 to the particular nature of the flight used) ; one of the 

 most simple and best we give upon plate III., fig. 5. 

 There are other flights, consisting chiefly of a number of 

 small triangles, the use of which we cannot commend. 

 Accidents are far too rife with substantial hooks to make 

 it worth one's while to risk anything by the insufficiency 

 of one's appointments. The complicated nature of most 

 flights renders it extremely difficult for the novice to bait 



the caster, or wind it around the left hand as described on a previous 

 page of the text, or, " by gathering up the line in the palm of the hand 

 by an up and down motion, something like that of a weaver with a shut- 

 tle." The Nottingham style of casting from the reel is identical with 

 that in use by the float fishermen on the salt water bays and estuaries 

 adjacent to the city of New York. A somewhat similar method, barring 

 the use of the rod, may also be seen daily, in the white perch season, on 

 the Delaware River above tide-water. The fishers anchor their boat at 

 the head of a likely " swim " and cast their hand-lines, allowing the float 

 to drift with the current, sometimes for an hundred yards or more, until 

 the action of the float indicates the presence of a shoal of fish. The 

 fishermen, then, by quietly drawing the anchor a foot or BO from the 

 bottom, allow the boat to diift down stream and then softly drop the 

 "killick," when within easy fishing distance of the perch, which are 

 gathered in great herds, as it were, to the number of thousands. We 

 have been present when a score of 1300 perch was made by three lines 

 in a morning's fishing. 



