348 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



The upshot of this is, that old spinning-tackle, particularly of 

 brazed hooks, should be always tested before it is used. 



Hooks for spinning-tackle should not have the points too 

 much elongated, as this part of the hook is the most liable to 

 break, and should not be too long or slender ; neither should 

 the barb be too long or too fine either, as both point and barb 

 often come into contact with bony and rough work, and should 

 be constructed accordingly. 



Hooks for pike-spinning in particular should always be of 

 stouter wire than others, as the mouth of the pike is so bony 

 as to require an extra hard stroke ; and it is particularly 

 essential that they should be not too long or fine either in point 

 or barb, and the barb should not be ranked nearly so much as 

 nine- tenths of them are. I have seen triangles with the barbs 

 ranked more than in an ordinary Limerick hook, and when 

 this is the case, if two or three hooks take hold, hardly any 

 reasonable tackle will stand the stroke that is required to 

 detach the hooks from the bait, and to force the barbs home 

 into the pike's jaw. I know the extreme difficulty and force 

 required to ram such a barb through, by having once buried 

 one in the ball of my thumb, and the resistance caused by the 

 badly ranked barb, in my efforts to bring it through and turn 

 the hook out at the shank, was something incredible. It is 

 owing to this fact that eight pike get off out of every ten which 

 are lost when hooked in spinning. Two or three rank barbed 

 hooks take hold, and the barbs are not driven home. You 

 may never get a sufficient strain on the fish to drag them home 

 (no easy matter either), and the first moment a loose line or a 

 turn occurs, away come the hooks. To my fancy, pike hooks 

 in spinning require almost more care and consideration in 

 construction than any others, and probably they receive less. 

 With regard to the shape of the hooks best adapted for 

 spinning-tackle, Mr. Pennell makes a statement which, if it be 

 borne out by long experience, is so striking that it settles the 

 question beyond all argument. He says that the sneck bend 

 hook possesses 100 per cent more killing power than the 

 Limerick bend, and 50 per cent more than either the Carlisle or 

 Kirby bend ; and further, that whereas it requires an average 

 pressure of three pounds to force home a Limerick hook, it 

 takes two pounds and a half to the Carlisle, two pounds and 

 one-third to the Kirby, but only one pound and a half to the 

 sneck bend. Having quoted these facts from Mr. Pennell, I 

 leave them to the angler's consideration. 



