THE PIKE. 59 



can touch him, and if it is not very large may 

 hook him so slightly as to spoil all your sport. 

 There used to be a way also of taking a pike 

 called huxing ; but as the use of trimmers is now 

 so generally known, it would be needless for me 

 to insist further upon it. 



I shall now communicate to the reader a me- 

 thod which I have taken more pikes and jacks 

 with than any other way. The hook which you 

 must use is to be like the first hook that I have 

 mentioned, with this exception only, that the lead 

 of a conical figure must be taken away : then, be- 

 fore you fix the swivel on the bottom of the line, 

 put on a cork float that will swim a gudgeon, then 

 put on your swivel, and fix your hook and gimp 

 to it : put a swan-shot on your gimp, to make 

 your float cock a little, and of such a weight, that 

 when the hook is baited with the gudgeon it may 

 do so properly. Your gudgeons must be kept 

 alive in a tin kettle : take one and stick the hook 

 either through his upper lip or back-fin, and throw 

 him into the likely haunts before-mentioned, 

 swimming at mid-water. When the pike takes it, 

 let him run a little, as at the snap, and then strike 

 him. In this method of pike-fishing you may take, 

 three kinds of fish, viz. pikes, perches, and chubs. 



Rules to be observed in trowling : September 

 and October are the best months for trowling, be- 

 cause the weeds are then rotten, and the fishes are 

 fat with the summer's feed. March is the best for 

 the snap, because, as I have said before, they then 

 spawn and are sick, and therefore never bite freely. 



A large bait entices the pike to take it the most, 

 but a small one takes him with greater certainty. 



Always, both at trowl and snap, cut away one 

 of the fins, close at the fins of the bait-fish, 



