io6 ANGLING 



and pet waters, where natural food is plentiful. It would be 

 prudent to reject all stories of pike of sixty-nine pounds and so 

 forth as purely legendary ; such fish may have existed, and may 

 exist now, but there is no authentic record of them. The snaring 

 of pike, which is described amongst the methods of angling, has 

 long been considered reprehensibly unsportsmanlike, and its 

 practice is now confined to keepers — and poachers. In trout- 

 streams which are maintained at vast expense, the pike ranks as 

 vermin, as an enemy to be exterminated root and branch. One 

 of the favourite ways of clearing out these marauders is snaring, 

 and many keepers are very adroit with their wire noose at the 

 end of a long pole. The pike ascend ditches and minor streams 

 in the spring to spawn, and it is possible by wary action at such 

 times to slip a wire noose over their heads, and whisk them out 

 flopping on the bank before they have time to take alarm. 



Trimmering is also considered an unsportsmanlike method, 

 since everything is left to the tackle, and, as is pointed out in 

 the text, neither skill, patience, nor attention is required from the 

 fisherman. The ' ' huxing, " which is described, is an expression 

 which I never heard or met with except in this book and in 

 the dictionaries. It is probably a local name ; its etymology is 

 doubtful, and the dictionary rendering is — " Hux : to fish, as for 

 pike, with hooks and lines attached to floating bladders." This 

 is merely a form of trimmering. 



The gorge-hooks for trolling were not considered questionable 

 until within the last twenty or thirty years, but with the multi- 

 plication of anglers everywhere, increased care has to be taken 

 to maintain the stock of fish, and a size limit is therefore promul- 

 gated by private lessees and modern angling clubs. Any fish 

 below a given limit has to be returned to the water, if possible 

 unhurt, and allowed to escape to fight another day. This is 

 impossible with the deadly gorge-hook, which is absorbed into 

 the gullet of the fish, and cannot be extracted without killing 

 the victim. By common consent, therefore, the gorge-hook is 

 discouraged, and the last set of bye-laws for the Thames makes 

 it illegal. There is something very pretty and very convenient 

 about gorge-bait fishing ; it allows the angler moderate exercise, 

 which cannot be enjoyed by live baiting, and yet does not demand 

 such constant exertion as spinning. To meet this desideratum, a 

 tackle has been invented, by which the method described by Blakey 

 of working the bait, as in trolling, is possible, but the hooks which 

 are used are so disposed that, instead of allowing the fish time to 

 gorge the bait which is seized, the angler strikes sharply, hooks 

 his fish in the mouth, and is therefore able, with care, to release 

 the undersized pike, very little the worse for its experience. 

 This is really the method of "sinking and roving," mentioned 

 on another page as fishing with live bait. The live bait which 

 is there represented as condemned by many anglers is now 

 recognised as a legitimate type of pike-fishing, and the only 



