208 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



Fish fine, as jack, are not fools. Use stained gimp; but 

 strong gut-trucos are to be preferred to gimp. A dace is 

 the best bait both for spinning and live-baiting, as, judg- 

 ing from an observation in Shakespeare's Henry IV., it 

 was supposed to be. generations ago. Spin slowly. The 

 angling-books say also, spin at a uniform pace; but my 

 own experience leads me to recommend short "sweeps" 

 or " drags " (not jerks) from the point of the rod, letting 

 your rod go back towards the bait after each " sweep" 

 and gathering in your line a couple of yards or so for 

 another. I think the style is more suggestive to the jack 

 of a, fish in difficulties than the continuous drawing of the 

 line by the hand with the rod almost stationary. When 

 in spinning, or snap-like baiting, yonr fish strikes you, you 

 cannot return the compliment too quickly and hardly too 

 sharply ; and it is more important in jack -fisting than in 

 any other branch of the art, that your line should never be 

 slack for a moment when you have a fish on. Eemember 

 the bony palate of your capture, and the way he has ot 

 energetically shaking his head, in order to get rid of the 

 hooks. A killing way of jack -fishing is the " dragging '' of 

 (what maybe called) a paternoster through deep water, with 

 one or two baits hooked through the lip about a foot and 

 a foot and a half above the lead. This is pre-eminently a 

 Thames style, and I believe of comparatively recent 

 adoption. Artificial baits do not succeed in many waters, 

 though they answer well in some ; a curious fact, to 

 account for which it is impossible. " Spoon " baits, in 

 " Phantom-Bel " and Hearder's " Plano-convex " baits, 

 are among the best I know. Jack may be taken with 

 large gaudy flies, especially during hot August and Sep- 

 tember days. Almost any kind of salmon fly will answer 



