end of lead to the needle eye measures the same length as the bait from tip of nose to centre of tail. Insert the needle in the mouth of bait, and push it with the lead quite through, being careful to keep in the centre until the eye protrudes from the tail sufficiently to admit loop of gimp passing through it; then turn up the hooks, fixing one of the first triangles in the gill-cover, then fix one of the next set midway between tail and the first set, and complete by making a half-hitch round the root of tail with the gimp, and pass loop through the needle eye. Or the hooks may be detached from the lead and used as a livebait snap. It can also be used for spinning by threading the gimp in at the side, above but rather behind the vent and out at the mouth, by the aid of the needle; then thread through the centre of lead which is pushed into the bait, the triangle of hooks being drawn up tightly, to give the necessary curve to make the bait spin at the same time make a half-hitch round the wire eye of the lead, and pass through the lips of the bait by puncturing them with the needle. Pike-anglers who are acquainted with these tackles speak well of them. CHAPTER VI. LIVE- AND DEAD-BAIT GORGE-FISHING. TH HE use of live- or dead-bait on gorge-tackle is never practised by true anglers who fish in a sportsmanlike manner. A great objection is its cruelty, for the pike swallows the bait and is usually hooked in the stomach, and in its efforts to escape. the intestines are either torn cr dragged up, causing such extreme pain that the fish can give no sport to the angler, but is in fact hauled out like a log of wood. Small fish are so injured that if returned to the water they are sure to die; but snap-fishing is humane and sportsmanlike, because the fish are always hooked in the mouth by this method; they suffer no pain, and only fight against the restraint of their tether; moreover, small jack can be carefully unhooked and replaced uninjured in the water, which may also be said of spinning and paternosterfishing. But should pike have established themselves in valuable trout or grayling rivers, from whence it is desirable to exterminate them by any and every means, and they are looked upon as no better than vermin, then and there, perhaps, gorgefishing is allowable. This volume, therefore, would be incomplete without a description of the modus operandi of trolling, which, in fact, is fishing with a dead gorge-bait. In 1662 Nobbes, the "Father of Trollers," published his Complete Troller, in which he disseminated sounder views and some improvements on the methods previously practised in this department of pike-fishing. Since Nobbes' time great advances have been made in the art of angling; the old-fashioned tackles of our forefathers have been displaced by more perfect ones of modern construction; and for those who care to fish for jack and pikebefore the weeds are down-a day's trolling is possibly (where it is allowed) amusing. As the angler strolls along the banks of some weedy water, he may (as J. J. Manley suggests in his Fish and Fishing) flatter himself "that, etymologically, 'trolling' and 'strolling' have one and the same meaning, as indeed some etymologists aver," making it out to be "fishing as you stroll." Besides the great objection to gorge-fishing (with either a live- or dead-bait), that it involves almost every fish taken, large or small, being killed, there is the great loss of time incurred by waiting for the fish to "pouch" the bait; and then, after a delay of eight or ten minutes to give them time to do so, there is the constant disappointment of finding the jack has rejected, or only been playing with, the bait, or that no jack took it at all, or, maybe, the bait had hung up in a weed. The advice of the old gentleman (in Punch) to the youthful angler at his side who was gorge-fishing, was "Never hurry a jack, Tom." The picture showed the hook of the bait fast in a log of wood at the bottom of the river. Of course a pike angler ought to, and generally does, know when a fish has struck, also when he has struck a weed, or some other subaqueous impediment; and if there is any doubt as to which, he can usually tell by a tentative tightening of the line whether a fish has, or has not, taken his bait; but not to every angler is given that sensitive faculty. However, should there be any uncertainty, a few slight pulls on the line will elicit the fact whether a fish is at the end of it; if there are unmistakable signs of its presence, and the fish moves but slowly about, shaking the line now and again it is probable the pike is carrying the bait crosswise in its mouth, and has not turned it headfirst preparatory to swallowing it. Under these circumstances a slight jerk will usually induce the pike to bolt the bait without further hesitation, when most likely it will move off at once to its haunt; then the line may be reeled up and the gorge-hooks driven home, by giving a smart firm draw (not jerk) with the rod, and the fish be then played to the landing net or the gaff. When an angler is trolling, his bait roves about in rolling gyrations, which is what it should do, to attract the pike, who no doubt mistakes it for a wounded fish swimming with difficulty. To add to these circular motions, some pike trollers before placing the bait on the gorge-tackle cut off one of the pectoral fins and the opposite ventral; the tail fin should be neatly cut off close up to the flesh. Among the most modern gorge-bait tackles is that recommended by Mr. C. Pennell, (see illustra tion below). It consists of two hooks, rather rank in the bends, having long shanks that are brazed together, and terminating in an eye, with lead moulded on to the shanks to weight the tackle. The trace, either of gimp or of twisted gut, with the last nine or ten inches of gimp, should be four feet long, having at its end a small buckle-swivel, or a swivel with a turned-down hook, which is placed in the eye of the gorge-tackle. عرف 4 feet The loop at the top of the ten inches of gimp is attached to a baiting needle; the needle is passed in at the bait's mouth. and brought out exactly in the middle of the roots of its tail, which has been previously cut neatly off. Then draw the gimp through the bait and push the lead into its body, leaving the hooks lying one on each side of the bait's mouth. Pull the gimp tight, puncture the flesh by the tail from side to side, draw the gimp through the hole with the baiting needle; and in the loop thus made pass the end of the gimp, draw tight, and the half-knot thus formed will not slip, but can be instantly undone, when it is necessary to put on another bait. These tackles are much better than the older kind, which have the lead too far down towards the bends of the hooks, and bulge the cheeks and gill-covers of the bait, especially if it is a gudgeon, so that weeds may catch and tear them; also the long stiff twisted-wire shanks. are objectionable, as they make the bait too PENNELL'S GORGE- |