HOtV AND WHERE TO SPIN. 123 



In former years I myself fished for pike with many of our 

 best spinners on the Thames, amateur and professional, from 

 the late Tom Rosewell downwards, and I can unhesitatingly 

 endorse the fifty per cent, estimate for losses after striking.; 

 Indeed, I should say the estimate erred on the score rather of 

 moderation than of excess. In the case of indifferent spinners, 

 the average of losses would doubtless be considerably greater. 

 It has been already shown that with my tackle the losses after 

 striking have been found to be enormously less, being calcu- 

 lated by several independent authorities as not exceeding one 

 in six, or a little over sixteen per cent, in lieu of fifty. Taking 

 them, however, at say even twenty-five /er cent, the difference 

 still represents one-fourth of the total catch. 

 , . I should think this was a fair average of the losses for a 

 fair average of days, but every spinner knows that there are 

 Qccasions when pike seem hopelessly off the feed and will only 

 take the bait between their lips just by way of playing with it as 

 it were. On such occasions it is very 'difficult to say what 

 the percentage of losses after striking might, or rather might 

 not be. . . , • , , , . , : 



When fishing last year at Leeds Castle with my friend, Mr. 

 Wykeham-Martin, I had an experience of this sort which I shall 

 not forget in a hurry. The water was thick after a flood of, in 

 that part of the country, almost unprecedented dimensions, and 

 this, no doubt, put the fish — with which these beautiful waters 

 are plentifully stocked — off their feed. They merely toyed with 

 and teazed the bait ; nibbled it, flipped at it with their tails for 

 aught I know, did everything, in fact, except attempt to swallow 

 it ; and the result was a proportion of misses to kills, the figures 

 of which I cannot give because, unfortunately (or fortunately ?) 

 I did not keep them, but it was something portentous. What 

 it might have been with the unexpurgated tackle can only be- 

 conjectured. Very likely the couple or brace or so I did even- 

 tually succeed in bagging would have been represented by a 

 • duck's egg ! ' 



No doubt, the great size and thickness in the wire of. the 



