138 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



if this direction to catch a Pike thus do you no good, 

 yet I am certain this direction how to roast him when he 



Pike* are called Jacks, till they become twenty-four inches long. 

 The baits for Pike, besides those mentioned by Walton, are a small trout; 

 the loarh and miller's-thumb ; the head end ot an eel, with the skin taken off 

 below the fins; a small jack; a lob-worm ; and in winter, the fat of bacon. 

 And notwithstanding what Walton and others My against baiting with a 

 pearch. it is confidently asserted, that Pikes have been taken with a small 

 pearch, when neither a roach nor bleak would tempt them. See the Angler's 

 Surt Guide, 158. 



Observe that all your baits for Pike must be as fresh as possible. Living baits 

 you may take with you in a tin-kettle, changing the water often : and dead 

 ones should be carried In fresh bran, which will dry up that moisture that 

 otherwise would infect and rot them. y enable*. 



It is strange that Walton has said so little of Trolling; a method of fishing 

 for Pike which ha* been thought worthy of a distinct treatise; for which me- 

 tiiod, and for the snap, take these directions ; and first for trolling : 



And note, that in trolling, the head of the bait-fish must be at the bent of 

 the hook ; whereas in fishiug at the snap, the hook must come out at or near 

 liis tail. But the essential difference between these two methods is, that in the 

 former the Pike is always suffered to pouch or swallow the bait; but in the 

 lauer yon are to strike as soon as he has taken it. 



The rod for trolling should be about three yards and a half long, with a ring 

 at the top for the line to run through ; or you may fit a trolliug-top to your 

 fly-rod, which need poly be stronger than the common fly-top. 



Let your line be / green or sky-coloured silk, thirty yards in length, which 

 will make it necessary to use the winch, a* is before directed, with a swivel at 

 the end. 



The common trolling-hook for a living bait consists of two large hooks, with 

 one common shank, made of one piece of wire, of about three quarters of an 

 inch long, placed bark to back, so that the points may not stand in the right 

 line, but incline so much inwards as that they with a shank may form an angle 

 Hi tie less than equilateral. At the top of the shank is a loop, left in the bend- 

 ing the wire to make the hook double, through which is put a strong twisted 

 brass wire, of about iz inches long ; and to this is looped another such link, 

 but both so loose that the hook and lower link may have room to play. To the 

 end of the line fasten a steel swivel. 

 To bait the hook, observe the direction* given by Walton. 

 But there is a sort of trolling-hook, different from that already described, 

 and to which it is thought preferable, which will require another management : 

 this is no more than two single hook* tied back to back with a strong piece of 

 gimp between the shanks. In the whipping the hooks and the gimp together, 

 make a small loop ; and take into it two links of chain of about an eighth of an 

 inch diameter, and into the lower link, by means of a small staple of wire, fasten 

 by the greater end a bit of lead of a conical figure, and somewhat sharp at the 

 point. These hooks are to be had at the fishing-tackle shops ready fitted up. 



TJiis latter kind of hook is to be thus ordered, viz. put the lead into the mouth 

 of the bait-fish, and sew it up ; the fish will live some time ; and though the 

 weight of the lead will keep his head down, he will swim with near the same 

 ease as if at liberty. 



But if you troll with a dead-bait, as some do, for a reason which the angler 

 will be glad to know, viz. that a living bait makes too great a slaughter among 

 the fish, do it with a hook, of which the following paragraph contains a descrip- 

 tion : 



