96 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



as thick as a man's little finger ; it has a large heron's or other 

 hackle for legs ; for the wings, two eyes from a peacock's tail, 

 with a few showy hackles ; wide gold or silver foil ; a tail of 

 various coloured hackles ; and at the head, two glass beads are 

 strung on to represent eyes. This apparatus, which is more 

 like a good-sized hummingbird than anything else, is cast and 

 worked like a salmon fly, and when pike are inclined to take it, 

 it is the most sporting and agreeable way of fishing for them. 

 In shallow pools, where there is very little water above the 

 weeds it will be found the most serviceable. There are many 

 such places which are full of jack, and which it would be found 

 very difficult perhaps to fish in any other way. But it need 

 not be used exclusively in such spots, as it kills well at times 

 even in deep water if the fish are on the feed. 



In some places, particularly in the Hampshire Avon, a 

 rather primitive way of trolling is still indulged in : the tail 

 and the head of a small eel are cut off and joined together, and 

 one large hook being run down through the centre, so as to 

 bend the tail sufficiently, it becomes a by no means ineffective 

 spinning bait, though somewhat of the rudest. I have seen it 

 used on a long horsehair knotted line, with a yard of fine 

 whipcord, one coarse swivel, and a small bullet. The line is 

 coiled round the arm, and no rod being used, the bullet is swung 

 round and then jerked out into the water, being drawn in hand 

 over hand. When a run ensues, the fish is struck and played 

 by hand. This is perhaps the rudest fashion of spinning for 

 pike extant, and must be a relic of the barbarous ages, I should 

 imagine. 



It is no uncommon thing for a pike to take a worm ; I once 

 captured four in one evening with a small red worm and roach 

 tackle, losing two others, which managed to cut the hook off ; 

 and, on subsequent occasions, I took seven or eight more, one 

 or two a day, in the same piece of water. They will also run at 

 anything moving. I was tench-fishing on the same water 

 towards dusk on one of these days, when a fish ran at and took 

 my float as I was drawing it slowly towards me along the 

 surface ; he got his teeth into the cork and could not get rid of 

 it at first, and I played him for a minute or so until he managed 

 to get quit of it. 



Having now told the young angler how to prepare and bait 

 his tackle, and what tackle may be used, with the methods of 

 using them, how to hook, play, and land his pike, I shall tell 

 him where to fish for him. When I say where to fish for him, 



