I70 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



' Select a day when the river is clearing after a flood, and try 

 deep quiet water between streams at tails of islands, or eddies where 

 two rivers meet, for in such places dace and other small fish con- 

 gregate to rest themselves in a flood, and there pike are generally 

 then to be found. 



' Throw out your baited ledger and keep a tight line ; the bait 

 will have 4 or 5 feet in which to pirouette, and after a few minutes 

 may be gently lifted or drawn to another place, and thus all the 

 hole or eddy searched for a pike. You will know when you have a 

 bite, for at such times pike are savagely hungry and fight very 

 hard for their liberty, therefore use strong tackle. 



'In January 1875 after a heavy Thames flood and water just 

 clearing, I was fishing at Sonning, and, finding no sport, either 

 paternostering or snap-fishing, I moored my punt just above the 

 deep eddy at the end of " long withy-ait " and tried " ledgering " with 

 dace for bait. My choice of locality and method proved fortunate, 

 and in one hour I caught 6 pike weighing together 46 lbs., the three 

 largest being 9, 10^, and 13^ lbs., and they were exhibited at a 

 meeting of the Stanley Anglers Society, at which Mr. Wm. Senior 

 (" Red Spinner") was present, and who has mentioned the incident 

 in his work " Waterside Sketches." 



' A. G. Jardine.' 



Before quitting the subject of paternosters, I may mention 

 to those who are interested in sea-fishing, that I have found a 

 gut paternoster constructed as described at p. 165, an exceed- 

 ingly killing mode of fishing for whiting, pout, hake, &c. The 

 use of gut in sea-fishing was comparatively rare, and, so far as 

 the public guide-books are concerned, I believe, entirely un- 

 known until, having discovered the great advantage of it in 

 practice, I brought it to the notice of the fishing world. 



A good illustration of the difference in the results to be 

 obtained when using a gut paternoster in sea-fishing, in lieu 

 of ordinary coarse string lines, &c., was given by Mr. Frank 

 Buckland in one of his works, in which he describes the result 

 of a fishing match held in the Solent between myself, armed 

 with a paternoster and jack tackle, on the one side, against 

 himself and old Robinson Crusoe, as he was locally named, 

 one of the best hands at sea-fishing in Portsmouth, on the 



