CHAPTER XV 

 A NOVEMBER DAY WITH THE TRENT PIKE 



The Trent as a pike river Staythorpe meadows and Averham Weir 

 How the pike was landed Snap-fishing down the eddies 

 Spinning the streamy runs " A splendid challenge." 



FROM the Old West River to the Middle and Lower 

 Trent is a far cry ; not only so, but the pike-fishing 

 in the two waters is totally different. In this chapter I 

 propose to take you for a day on the latter river, and give 

 you a practical lesson on how a river like the Trent should 

 be fished for pike. In our last we were on a small, sluggish 

 river that at the best of times has no stream to speak of 

 running down it, and weeds and flags growing everywhere. 



This time we are on a wide and mighty current, that 

 sometimes breaks out of all bounds and goes tearing sea- 

 wards in a raging torrent, swirling out everything that is 

 loose, and depositing huge banks of sand and flood-rack 

 into all sorts of odd corners. Under these conditions it is 

 not to be wondered at if certain places are swept as clean 

 as a barn floor, and eddies and lay-byes, that afford shelter 

 for the quiet-loving pike, are tenanted sometimes with 

 three or four of those truculent rascals, who have been 

 harried by the flood water from pillar to post ; and just 

 when things are quieting down and the stream is getting 

 less turbulent, they are ready and waiting for any tit-bit 

 sent down to them. 



Of course I know there are long periods when even the 

 Trent is extra sluggish ; weed beds in plentiful abundance 



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