124 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



be given after your float bobs down before you pluck at 

 him ; with worms on the hook you can strike at once. 



The above hints are for shallower streamy runs. In 

 fishing deeper, quieter water, a paternoster is as good a 

 piece of tackle as can be employed, and these paternosters 

 are made in various ways ; some have one, some two, some 

 three, and I once saw one with no fewer than six separate 

 and distinct hooked tackles on it ; but this latter could 

 only have been the device of a rank pot-hunter. One 

 tackle at once on a paternoster is quite enough for me, 

 unless the water is deep, sluggish, and open, when two are 

 tolerated, one for minnows and the other for worms. 

 Some are made with bone beads ; some have small cross- 

 line swivels, while others have simply an inch-long loop tied 

 in the main gut line, so that this loop sticks out at right 

 angles. I prefer the plain loop into which the hooked 

 tackle can be easily attached ; these loops stick out stiff er 

 than a swivel ; the bit of gut or bristle on which the hook 

 or hooks are whipped should not be longer than three or 

 four inches at the most. I always found in fishing the 

 boughs, submerged roots, and weed beds, and other 

 dangerous places where the best perch foregathered, that 

 one set of hooks at once was quite sufficient, as a hooked 

 fish is bound to hank the extra one round something or 

 other. 



The best minnow tackle is a No. 7 or 8 lip hook and a 

 very small treble, say a No. 12, the latter at the extreme 

 end ; these hooks should be just as far apart as to allow 

 the lip hook to be put through both lips, and the tiny 

 treble in the root of the tail, about a quarter of an inch 

 from where the tail begins. This is far better than using 

 the single lip hook only for tiny fish baits, as you can 

 venture to tighten on him as soon as he runs off. 



Sometimes a small cork float is used with a paternoster, 

 and a small pear-shaped lead at the extreme end ; but I 

 consider a float, when fishing bushes and weed beds and an 

 unequal river bottom, to be a source of danger, and not 



