180 LOCH -FISHING. 



Having arranged all your tackle, and baited your hooks, 

 place them regularly in a light two-oared boat, and row to 

 the weedy bay. You will now drop them one by one, 

 about twenty yards apart, outside the weeds, between the 

 shallow and the deep.* The pike have been basking all 

 the sultry day in the shallows, and are just emerging from 

 their green covering in search of food. The first object 

 that arrests their hungry eyes and craving stomachs is 

 your tantalizing bait, suspended at such a distance from 

 the surface as to excite no apprehension, and perfectly 

 still. With avidity it is seized and pouched ; down goes 

 the bottle ; scarcely, perhaps, has it disappeared, when 

 another follows its example ; it is nothing uncommon to 

 have four or five all bobbing up and down at the same 

 time. The sport now begins, the angler stretching to his 

 oars, first after one, then another, as they alternately rise 

 and sink. If large pike are hooked, they will often keep 

 their tormentor under water for a minute at a time j and to 

 run the ivhole down is no contemptible evening's exercise. 



THE LONG-LINE FOR PIKE 



In setting a long-line for pike, fix branches of small 

 whip-cord to it, about a yard in length, and three yards 



* Sometimes, when tbe water is unconfined, it is necessary to fasten the 

 trimmers to prevent their floating away. Cut poles of about ten feet, fix 

 a heavy stone, with a piece of twine longer than the depth of the water, to 

 one end, and the trimmer with another piece of twine to the other end of 

 the pole, which lies flat on the top of the water and prevents the fastening- 

 line from dangling near the bait. 



