THE PIKE. 71 



most convenient to yourself, strike hard, and hold on, and 

 with all that and every improvement in tackle, nothing 

 will prevent you losing fish at times. If fish are taking 

 well, the hooks are large, and the tackle sound, and you 

 hit 'em hard, you will lose very few ; if the reverse obtains 

 you may lose a good many. 



As to how to play him, do your best, hang on to 

 him, and give no line unless you can't help it ; a slack 

 line is the abomination of desolation, and usually pro- 

 duces desolation. Beyond all, if you can, keep your 

 fish deep in the water, and as far as you are able 

 and that is not very far don't have any of that ill- 

 judged tumbling or shaking on the top of the water. 

 When a pike grins and flies and barks at you, like Mr. 

 Briggs's, on the surface, it is dangerous ; drop the rod 

 point and drown the line as much as you can, and don't, 

 whatever you do, pull at him ; let him have his head free, 

 or it is about ten to one you pull the hooks out with his 

 assistance. The shakers are the worst sect among pike, and 

 the jumpers are next ; particularly big ones will often go 

 to weed. They rush head first into a bank as big as a 

 horse or perhaps an elephant, and grip fast hold of a big 

 bunch with their teeth, and leave you to pull at the weed. 

 It is about a hundred to one here that they do you. All 

 the best pike I ever hooked, say a dozen perhaps, got off 

 in that way.* I imagine that with the help of the weed 

 they chew the hooks into it, and out of them, for you 

 always find weed on the hooks after one of these feats, 



* Except one, and that was a thirty-pounder, lost by the 

 blundering and fright combined of the boatman, after he was 

 dead beat and lying along the side of the boat, perfectly supine. 

 Ay di me ! That was a moment when my language was ornate 

 and varied, I fear. 



