DEAD AND LIVE BAITS 85 



aids or makeshifts of any kind, and to practise until he becomes 

 an expert, when he will certainly decline to be bothered with 

 any apparatus of the sort. 



With respect to baits, pike are tolerably indifferent, and 

 bleak, dace, gudgeon, or the young of barbel or chub, may 

 be used for spinning baits indiscriminately, and even a roach 

 can, as I have pointed out, be made to spin well. Bleak and 

 dace of course are the most showy, and being for that reason 

 more quickly seen, are therefore perhaps more attractive. But 

 whatever be the baits, the angler should always take a good 

 supply of them, as so many get cut, torn, and spoilt, that a 

 couple of dozen will not be too many, and sometimes not 

 enough, for each rod in a moderate day's sport. If the angler 

 is not certain about procuring bait on the water he is going to 

 fish, he should never trust to chance ; always make sure in 

 this respect, and thus many an hour often vexatiously lost 

 will be saved, and many an indifferent day turned into a good 

 one. Never mind what your companion may say about being 

 able to catch bait, or the probability that Jack, Bob, or Tom 

 may be able to spare you some. Catching bait is always a very 

 doubtful occupation, and although if you did not want them 

 you might be able to pull out dace and gudgeon by the score, 

 yet when you do want them particularly, they seem to have an 

 instinctive knowledge of the fate awaiting them, and to be 

 resolved to defeat your object. At the best, valuable time is 

 wasted ; while, as for the hypothesis affecting Jack, Bob, or 

 Tom, it never comes true when you most want it to do so ; 

 unless, therefore, you are quite sure of a good supply of bait, 

 take what you require. 



If you are going to live-bait, a large can will be requisite to 

 convey the fish alive to the river (see Plate I, Fig. 6, p. 9, for 

 illustration of a live-bait can), and if it be a long journey and 

 warm weather, there will be much difficulty in keeping them 

 alive.* A small pair of bellows will greatly aid this, for by 

 putting the nozzle to the bottom of the water, and blowing 

 it two or three times, the water is aerated afresh, to the great 

 reviving of the fish. If, however, spinning be the object, you 

 may much simplify matters by getting a supply of dead baits. 

 These may be preserved in various ways, by being either salted 



* In cold winter weather baits will travel by rail a long distance without 

 requiring much attention. Mr. Wright, the tackle maker in the Strand, 

 brought out a useful little apparatus lately, in the shape of a compressible 

 india-rubber ball and a gutta-percha tube, for aerating the water in a bait-can. 



