368 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



slit, let it unwind backwards and forwards from the 

 arms of the Y, and in this way play the pike until it is 

 exhausted. When the keeper comes round he will see 

 that the line is unwound, and at once realize that there 

 is a jack on the hook. He will steadily pull it in, 

 land it, give it a smart tap on the summit of the spinal 

 cord, and put on another bait to try to kill its mate 

 in the hole. 



A moderately large dace or roach of, say, four 

 ounces, is the right-sized bait. Very small ones are 

 not so good and occasionally kill large trout, and 

 trimmering, say, after the early part of March, is a 

 mistake, as at that time of the year trout are very 

 likely to take the bait and get so injured that they 

 have to be killed. A small pike is a good bait for a 

 large one, but small grayling are not as a rule suc- 

 cessful. A large pike in a hole is sure to succumb 

 sooner or later to the trimmer, and in some cases it is 

 a good policy to fasten a stone or bullet to the line 

 and sink it with, say, a yard of slack line between the 

 bullet and the bait. When the stone or bullet is on 

 the bed of the river the bait will swim upwards and 

 show well at a greater depth than the ordinary 

 trimmer arrangement without a lead. 



In a fishery much infested by rats or water-voles 

 difficulty in keeping the trim- 

 Rats and trimmer mers set often occurs by reason 

 baits. of the propensity of these ver- 

 min of running up the rough 

 withies on to the trimmer-forks, and there during the 



