BAITS 355 



ishing. There is no difficulty in keeping them for some days. 

 If small, two can be employed. 



Slugs and Snails. These are excellent baits for various 

 kinds of fish. Trout are very fond of a good fat snail or a white 

 slug, and chub have a decided penchant for a large black slug. 

 If the belly be slit open so as to show the white, it will be almost 

 infallible. 



Small Frogs are an excellent bait for both trout and chub. 

 In baiting with them, be careful only to take up a little of the 

 back skin on the hook, so as not to impede their motions, and 

 they will be found the more attractive. 



Large Frogs are a capital bait for pike when fish cannot be 

 procured. In baiting, Izaak Walton's directions are good to 

 an extent, viz. put the hook in at the mouth and out at the 

 gills, and then tie one of the hind legs above the upper joint to 

 the wire of the hook. I think, however, a better plan is not to 

 interfere with the gills at all, but pass the hook through the 

 under lip and so through to the leg. 



Rats, Mice, and Small Birds are also good bait for pike. The 

 two first make a good bait stuffed with sufficient lead within to 

 make them swim properly, and one good hook sticking out of 

 the after part of the belly. Failing in procuring the skins, a 

 tolerable imitation of water-rat can be made from a bit of the 

 skin of a cow's tail. But these baits need never be resorted to 

 when live or dead fish can be obtained. The best 



Fish Baits are : for pike, the roach, dace, bleak, and 

 gudgeon ; for trout, a small dace, bleak, gudgeon, loach, 

 minnow, and even bull head. Fish baits should be kept 

 in a corfe with plenty of gratings in it. A corfe is simply 

 a large box made of stout elm or oak timber, and shaped 

 rather like the bow of a boat. This bow has a chain and 

 anchor to it, so as to secure it in its place. There are usually 

 gratings at the bows and on the under part as well as at the 

 back and on the top. The latter two admit plenty of air. 

 The corfe should be kept in a running stream, and in sunny 

 weather it should be put in a cool shady place. It should now 

 and then be cleaned, and the gratings freed from obstructions, 

 and the fish should be occasionally fed with a handful of bread 

 crumbs, chopped worms, or maggots, for fish cannot live for 

 ever upon nothing, though they will live some time. If the 

 fish be thus properly attended to, and the dead and sickly ones 

 picked out daily, they will live and do well in confinement for 

 a long time. Near the mouth of a drain is a favourite place for 



