PRACTICAL ESSAY. 233 



third joints, and greenheart for the top, is an excellent mixture. 

 The rings should be large and upright, in order to let the line run 

 freely through them, and the bottom ring should be of the form 

 shown in the cut, while the top ring should be like that shown in 

 the next cut. The rings are of this form in order to throw off the 

 coils of the line, and prevent them catching. A large check-reel 

 with about 60 yards of strong dressed silk, 8-plait line, is requisite.' 

 The Manchester Cotton Twine Spinning Company make some very 

 cheap and strong cotton lines, which harden in the water and will 

 do without dressing. They also make dressed lines, which are 

 cheap, but the dressing is hard and wears off soon. 



Trolling with the dead gorge-bait is most useful in holes which 

 are weedy or abounding in stumps or tree-roots. The hooks do 

 not catch in anything, and every hole and corner can be searched. 

 The objection to it is that you must give the pike five or ten 

 minutes to swallow or gorge the bait, otherwise the hooks will not 

 catch in him, and it often happens that the pike rejects the bait 

 before swallowing it, and your labour is in vain. 



I should have said that the pike preys chiefly upon small fish, 

 and these are the staple bait for him. The engraving shows the 

 form of gorge tackle, and how it is baited. 



Fig. 3 is the tackle : A the hooks, B the lead, D the gimp trace 

 looped on (gimp is silk covered with brass or white metal wire 

 lapped closely around it, to prevent the pike's teeth from cutting 

 the trace. It is made of different degrees of strength and fineness). 



Fig. 4 is a baiting-needle. Fix the loop of the trace on the 

 needle, and draw it through the fish from the mouth to the centre 

 of the tail, the tail fin having first been cut off. The lead will then 

 lie in the body of the fish, and the hooks close against its cheeks 

 or gills. If the gimp be passed again laterally through the tail, as 

 at H, it will keep the bait secure and prevent it doubling up. The 

 needle is unhooked, and the trace looped to the running-line. The 

 bait is cast into the water and allowed to sink to the bottom, then 

 drawn up nearly to the top, and allowed to sink again. In this way 

 every part of the pool is thoroughly probed and searched. 



