PIKE FISHING— SPINNING. 65 



versal applicability of spinning to all countries and climates 

 and it must be admitted that it fully justifies the high position 

 in piscatorial precedence awarded it by most modern authorities. 



That the pike mistakes the spinning-bait for a maimed or 

 disabled fish there can, I think, be little doubt. No one who 

 has watched the gyrations of a ' mad bleak,' as it is sometimes 

 called, jumping and twisting about on the surface of a stream, 

 could have failed to notice the resemblance between the two. 

 The propensity of all animals, and of fish in particular, for 

 destroying the sick and wounded members of their own species 

 is less amiable than it is indisputable. As an illustration of 

 this I may mention that when I was spinning with a gudgeon 

 over a deepish part of the Thames below Hurley Weir, a second 

 gudgeon hooked himself fast through the lip whilst, it can only 

 be supposed, intent on attacking the first 



The origin of spinning, as we understand the word, has 

 often been discussed and disputed. The first distinct mention 

 of it that I remember to have met with occurs in Robert 

 Salter's ' Modern Angler,' the second edition, which was pub- 

 lished in 181 1. Even as late as Bagster's second edition of 

 ' Walton's Angler,' in 1815, the existence of the art is rather 

 hinted at than described. I quote the following from the ' Book 

 of the Pike ' :— 



' On the Continent some sort of spinning seems to have been 

 known even earlier than the times of Walton himself, for his 

 contemporary, Giannetazzio, writing in 1648, thus alludes to the 

 art as practised by the Neapolitan fishermen for the benefit of 

 the belone, or sea-pike, a fish of the same family as our fresh- 

 water pike, and formerly included in the same. genus : 



Burnished with blue and bright as damask steel 

 Behold the belone of pointed bill ; 

 All fringed with teeth, no greedier fish than they 

 E'er broke in serried lines our foaming bay. 

 Soon as the practised crew this frolic throng 

 Behold advancing rapidly along, 

 Adjusting swift a tendon to the line. 

 They throw, they drag it glistening through the brine.' 

 II. F 



