92 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



threaded on between the loop and swivel. The lead and 

 swivel should be about fourteen inches above the set of 

 hooks. The object of this lead is not so much to cock the 

 float as it is to keep the bait down, and to prevent it from 

 rising to the surface. 



Snap tackles are now legion ; every maker has some fad 

 of his own ; but if you examine them well, you will find 

 that most of them are designed after one of the oldest that 

 ever was made. That old snap tackle we used more than 

 forty years ago in the fens of Lincolnshire, but nowadays 

 the gimp is much finer and the hooks smaller. The snap 

 that I generally use, and I have no fault to find with it, is 

 simply two No. 4-5 or 6 trebles whipped firmly about two 

 and a half inches apart on a fifteen-inch length of oo copper 

 gimp or oo Hercules wire gimp ; these two hooks are 

 ample for a snap tackle. In baiting this snap, one hook of 

 the end treble is stuck firmly into the root of the shoulder 

 or pectoral fin of the bait, and one hook of the other treble 

 is driven under the back fin, so that it gets a good grip of 

 the flesh. 



Some of these snaps, which by the way are known as 

 Jardine snaps, have the back-fin hook movable, so that 

 it can be shifted up or down the gimp to suit the size of 

 bait selected. Some also have only a large single hook 

 for the back fin, others are rigged up with wires that thread 

 through the gill covers, others have only a single square - 

 bend hook simply put through both lips ; while one of the 

 latest snaps is simply a double spring hook that grips the 

 back of the bait. Snap -fishing is apt to be bewildering 

 to the novice ; so many different kinds of snaps are put on 

 the market and strongly recommended that our anxious 

 young angler gets more anxious still ; but he can take 

 comfort from the statement of a very old angler like myself, 

 who can always hook and play and land his fish on the 

 ordinary two treble snaps of the days of long ago ; besides, 

 I always fancy some of these many-hooked and wired 

 affairs are calculated to arouse the suspicions of cunning 



