SPINNING FOR THAMES TROUT 207 



prefer this plan, as it strengthens the hold on the tail and 

 makes the bait last longer. The great difficulty, however, 

 which I have always experienced in fishing for Thames trout 

 has been that the hooks are all so small that they take a bad 

 hold on the bait and a worse one on the fish ; and nine trout 

 out of every ten get off after being hooked, solely because 

 we have fished for a fish as large and powerful as a salmon, 

 and often in water as rough and heavy as that which salmon 

 are found in, but with roach hooks to hold him when hooked. 

 Can anything be more absurd ? The fish runs, is hooked, gives 

 one turn over in the stream, or perhaps is hauled about for 

 five minutes or more, and then off he goes, with a very strong 

 reminder that a bait which conducts itself in the fashion which 

 a spinning-bait does is not safe feeding. I could almost venture 

 to assert that there is not a trout of seven or eight pounds and 

 upwards in the Thames but has been served in this way half a 

 dozen times ; and then we marvel that Thames trout should 

 be such shy fish and so difficult to catch, whereas the only 

 wonder is that they ever run at a spinning bait at all, so 

 " well educated " as they are. It was, as I have said, to 

 remedy this that I invented my tackle, and subsequently 

 improved upon it by borrowing Mr. Pennell's tail-hook. The 

 only difference which I make between this tackle and that 

 which I use for pike is, that I employ only one triangle of 

 fair-sized hooks at the side of the bait above the big tail- 

 hook instead of two, and this is attached to the lip-hook as in 

 the minnow tackle, shown in Plate IX, Fig. 7, p. 211.* 

 There are few tackles which hold the bait better together, 

 which keep it in spinning order longer (owing to the big grip 

 which the large hook takes on the tail of the bait), or which 

 are so little conspicuous to the gaze of so shy a fish as the 

 Thames trout ; and, added to this, if the angler hooks his fish 

 he may play him with vigour, as he ought to be played. These 

 I hold to be qualities which are certainly desirable in a tackle 

 where the fish are shy or the streams rough and heavy. 



Some Thames fishers, who like ten or a dozen hooks to 

 their tackles, may say that there are not enough hooks in this 

 to give a sufficient chance of hooking these fish. To this I 



. 



* Instead of the plain single tail-hook shown in the engraving, one of 

 Mr. Pennell's double reverse hooks should be used for large trout ; or the 

 angler can, if he prefers it, use this tackle exactly as it is figured, by employing 

 it and baiting it as prescribed for the pike at page 84. It is an admirable 



kle either way. 



