174 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



TROLLING WITH DEAD GOUGE-BAIT. 



The pike, my joy of all the scaly shoal, 



And of all fishing instraments— the troll. — Scott. 



The word ' trolling,' or as it was formerly spelled ' trowling,' 

 from the old English word ' troll,' to move circularly, or in a 

 rollicking kind of way, or perhaps from the French word, 

 ' troller,' to lead about, to stroll, has come to have two meanings, 

 one family or generic, and the other specific. Broadly speaking, 

 any one who fishes for pike may be described as a troller, but 

 in its restritted sense it applies to the particular branch of pike- 

 fishing which we are now considering. 



This use of the dead bait is the only one which can be 

 advantageously employed in pike-fishing, always excepting, of 

 course, spinning. The object effected by them both is, in 

 fact, to impart an appearance of vitality where none, in reality, 

 exists, as it is a fact well known that a pike will not under 

 ordinary circumstances touch a dead bait when quiescent. 

 There need be no hesitation, therefore, in at once discarding as 

 worthless all receipts given by angling writers which involve 

 such a condition. It is doubtful whether they could ever have 

 been of any use. In the nineteenth century they are distinctly 

 useless. 



The origin of the art has been always attributed to Nobbes, 

 a writer of the seventeenth century, and he has been accord- 

 ingly christened ' the father of trollers.' The first edition of 

 his book was pubUshed in 1662, and it contains engravings of 

 gorge-tackle with both single and double hooks not at all un- 

 like, except in its extreme roughness and coarseness, the hooks 

 now employed. In fact, on first seeing them, I was struck by 



