5?te- 



A variety of artificial baits for pike are sold at the 

 shops of fishing-tackle makers, such as mice, min- 

 nows, and frogs; and pike are not unfrequently 

 caught with a large gaudy composition of feathers 

 about the size of a wren, with glass beads for eyes, 

 and a formidable double hook for a tail. 



It may not be improper here to notice the mode 

 of catching pike by means of a trimmer, which is 

 generally a circular piece of flat cork from five to 

 eight inches in diameter, with a groove in the edge, 

 in which is wound from twelve to twenty yards of 

 strong line. In the centre of the cork a piece of 

 wood is fixed, with a notch in the top for the bight 

 of the line to be slipped in when the trimmer is 

 baited, and which admits of the line being easily 

 pulled out when a fish seizes the bait. The hook 

 used may be either single or double, as in live-bait 

 fishing, and the bait allowed to swim at what depth 

 the angler pleases generally about mid-water 

 where the depth does not exceed four fathoms 

 by fixing a small bullet to the line. Trimmer 

 fishing is mostly practised on lakes and meres, and 

 in rivers where the water is still. Pike are caught 

 in every part of G-reat Britain, and are most nume- 

 rous in the fen-land of Norfolk, Cambridge, Lincoln, 

 Huntingdon. Whittlesea mere, in the latter county, 

 affords the best pike-fishing in the kingdom. Pike, 

 until they are twenty-two inches long, are, in the 

 south of England, commonly called jack. In some 

 parts of Scotland the pike is called the ged: the old 



