122 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



thing to the sensation produced by his only holding on to the 

 bait The stroke should be as hard as the tackle can bear with 

 safety. I have repeatedly, on the bright shallows of the Avon, 

 been able to watch exactly the effects of my stroke both upon 

 the bait and upon the pike, and I have been astonished how 

 little result of any kind is apparently produced except with the 

 very hardest blow. 



Sometimes, however, and especially where a pike is hooked 

 at the end of a long cast, it is almost impossible for the troUer 

 armed with civilised gear, to strike a pike effectively, and in 

 such cases he must take his chance, never, above all things, 

 allowing slack line for an instant. The argument as to the 

 difficulty of getting a number of hooks to penetrate was, of 

 course, vastly increased with the old-fashioned form of three 

 triangled spinning flights. With such flights it has been calcu- 

 lated that a loss occurs of certainly not less than fifty per cent. 

 of the fish run. 



This may, probably, seem an excessive average, partly 

 because few fishermen keep an exact register of their runs and 

 losses during each day's sport, but of corroborative testimony 

 as to the fact being as stated, there is an embarras de richesses. 

 One has been already given at page 81-2, from a recent writer 

 in the Fishing Gazette. Here is another from the visitors' book 

 at Slapton Leigh Hotel: — 'Oct. 8, 1862 — Mr. Clarke caught 

 ninety-oiie pike — all by spinning — and lost ninety-three others 

 after hooking them.' Robert Salter refers to these losses in 

 his ' Modern Angler,' second edition, page 103, where he says, 

 ' Snap-fishing (spinning) cannot be considered the most certain 

 method of taking pike, because so many are missed after 

 striking them.' Professor Rennie, in his ' Alphabet of Angling,' 

 also mentions the fact, but attributes it to the pike not being a 

 leather-mouthed fish. Salter, who is entitled in some sense to 

 be considered the ' father of spinning,' as Nobbes was called 

 the ' father of trolling,' was, no doubt, a skilful performer, pro- 

 bably one of the best of his time, and his testimony, therefore, 

 may be taken as conclusive. 



