Untitled - RB-Flys

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 

AT LOS ANGELES

OF 

SPORTS AND PASTIMES 

EDITED BY 

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G. 

ASSISTED BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON 

FISHING 

(PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH}

PRINTED BY 

srOTTI:S\VOOI>E AND CO., NEW-STREET .SQUARE 

LONDON

FISHING 

H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL 

LATE HER MAJESTY'S INSPECTOR OF SEA FISHERIES 

AUTHOR OF 'THE MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER' 

AND OTHER WORKS 

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OTHER AUTHORS 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH 

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 

THIRD EDITION 

LONDON 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

1887 

All rights reserved

SH 

pss 

v.Z- 

DEDICATION 

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES. 

BADMINTON: October 1885. 

HAVING received permission to dedicate these volumes, 

the BADMINTON LIBRARY of SPORTS and PASTIMES, 

to His ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES, I 

do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the 

best and keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from 

personal observation, 

that there is no man who can 

extricate himself from a bustling and pushing crowd of 

horsemen, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously 

and quickly than His Royal Highness ; and that when 

hounds run hard over a big country, no man can take a 

line of his own and live with them better. Also, when 

the wind has been blowing hard, often have I seen 

His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and 

partridges and high-rocketing pheasants 

in first-rate

vi DEDICATION. 

workmanlike style. He is held to be a good yachtsman, 

and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is 

looked up to by those who love that pleasant and 

exhilarating pastime. 

His encouragement of racing is 

well known, and his attendance at the University, Public 

School, and other important Matches testifies to his 

being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly 

sports. I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to 

dedicate these volumes to so eminent a sportsman as 

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and I do 

so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal 

devotion. 

BEAUFORT.

PREFACE. 

A FEW LINES only are necessary to explain the object 

with which these volumes are put forth. There is no 

modern encyclopaedia to which the inexperienced man, 

who seeks guidance in the practice of the various British 

Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some 

books there are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on 

Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing, and so on ; but one 

Library, or succession of volumes, which treats of the 

Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen and 

women is wanting. The Badminton Library is offered 

to supply the want. Of the imperfections which must 

be found in the execution of such a design we are con- 

scious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, 

that those who are seeking for knowledge on any of the 

subjects dealt with will find the results of many years' 

experience written by men who are in every case adepts 

at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to

viii PREFACE. 

point the way to success to those who are ignorant of 

the sciences they aspire to master, and who have no 

friend to help or coach them, that these volumes arc 

written. 

To those who have worked hard to place simply and 

clearly before the reader that which he will find within, 

the best thanks of the Editor are due. That it has been 

no slight labour to supervise all that has been written 

he must acknowledge ; but it has been a labour of love, 

and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, 

by the unflinching, indefatigable 

assistance of the Sub- 

Kditor, and by the intelligent and able arrangement 

of each subject by the various writers, who are so 

thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they treat. 

The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may 

prove useful to this and future generations. 

THE EDITOR.

PREFATORY NOTE 

(BY THE AUTHOR.) 

PROBABLY few persons who visited the late International 

Fisheries Exhibition in South Kensington could fail to 

have been struck by the multiplicity, and, to the un- 

initiated, complexity of the engines and appliances used 

in the capture of fish. The observation applies even 

more to the ' 

angler 'a generic term that I have a 

special objection to, by the way, but let us say to the 

fisherman who uses a rod than to the 'fisherman' 

proper, whose weapons are net and hand-line, and who 

'occupies his business in great waters.' 

In consequence of the growing artfulness of man or 

of fish, or both, angling has come to be nearly as wide 

a field for the specialist as doctoring. Each different 

branch has its own professors, practitioners, and students ; 

and its gospel as preached by apostles, differing often 

widely from one another, and perhaps eventually break- 

ing away altogether from old tradition and founding a 

cult of their own. Thus the late Mr. W. C. Stewart, a 

lawyer of Edinburgh 

' 

and a famous fisher ' 

of the North, 

may probably be called the apostle of up-stream fly-

x PREFATORY NOTE. 

fishing, as contrasted with the time-honoured plan of 

fishing ' down : 

' 

fishing, that is, with the flies below 

rather than above the angler's stand-point. Not that I 

mean to assert that Mr. Stewart was by any means the 

first to preach the new doctrine, still less the first to 

practise it, but that he was the first to ' 

formularise ' 

it, to 

give it consistency and shape, and to bring it prominently 

before the angling world. . . . And even then and it is 

a good illustration of the 'specialism' referred to his 

book was (statedly) confined to one branch of one kind 

of angling for one species of fish : 

' The Art of Trout 

Fishing, more particularly applied to Clear Water.' 

It might have been added ' 

and in streams and rivers 

north of the Tweed,' 

for I believe there is not a word 

in the book about the rivers or lakes of England, 

Ireland, or Wales, or how to catch trout in them. I 

say this in no disparagement 

of the author or his 

capital book, but only to illustrate the complexity and 

' 

elaborateness ' 

at which the art of angling has arrived. 

So far from disparaging, it is probable, on the contrary, 

that if all writers on fishing had the modesty to confine 

themselves, as Mr. Stewart did, to subjects they were 

really personally acquainted with, the gentle art would 

not be afflicted with a literature containing a greater 

amount of undiluted bosh to say nothing of downright 

' 

' 

cribbing than probably any printed matter of equal 

' 

bulk in existence. We want a few more Gilbert Whites 

of Sclborne' amongst our angling 

he was a fine fisherman and a right good com- 

Stewart ! 

authors. . . . Poor 

panion, and pleasant days we fly-fished side by side, with

PREFATORY NOTE. xi 

another famous angler (and politician), alas ! no more 

the Johnson of Scotland, 

as he was well called I mean 

Alex. Russel, Editor of the Scotsman, and author of the 

book of ' The Salmon.' He and Stewart were two 

of the finest fishermen that it has ever been my lot 

to know, and I loved them both well for ' 

like and 

difference,' as Mrs. Browning puts it though Stewart 

was very wroth with me afterwards and devoted a 

whole pamphlet to my annihilation, pugnacious ' 

trooping 

Scot ' 

as he was. . . . No 

ever, why I should not write his epitaph 

when he died . . . 

I'd give the lands of Deloraine 

Stout Musgrave were alive again 

moss- 

reason that, how- 

in the Field 

! . . . 

But, some one asks 'Why do you not practise 

what you preach ? You eulogise monographs, and you 

write books yourself which embrace every variety of 

angling and " fishey lore " from bait-breeding to salmon- 

catching.' 

Dear critic (forgive the adjective when perhaps you 

' 

arc in the very act of sharpening your scalping-knife '), 

I do nothing of the sort ; and though it is true I have 

'graduated' in most kinds of fishing, from sticklebacks 

upwards, there are many subjects germane to angling, 

such as fish-rearing both of Salmonidcs and 

' 

' 

coarse 

fish fish-acclimatisation, and several special depart- 

ments of angling itself, where I have need to learn 

rather than to pretend to teach. Consequently 

I have 

thought myself fortunate to be able to secure for these

xii PREFATORY NOTE. 

pages the very 

kind assistance of the eminent and 

scientific gentlemen who write in regard to such special 

subjects with equal felicitousness and authority. Thus 

the volumes of the Badminton Library confided to me 

by the Editor and publishers will not lose either in com- 

pleteness or trustworthiness by my shortcomings. 

Frankly, however, this is not the reason why I have 

sought the able co-operation of Major John P. Traherne, 

Mr. Henry R. Francis, and Mr. H. S. Hall, in dealing 

with the theory and practice of artificial fly-fishing. 

The 

reason is that in some of my former writings I have put 

forward certain opinions on these subjects which if not 

' 

revolutionary,' may certainly 

be called in one sense 

'radical,' and which have not as yet found general 

acceptance amongst fly-fishers. 

Whether the said opinions are right or wrong matters 

not. If I had seen any sufficient reason to alter them 

at any rate in regard to their main outlines I should 

have unhesitatingly avowed it long ago, for I look upon 

a man who says that he never changes his mind as an 

ass, or else as sacrificing truth to ' 

consistency ; 

' 

but 

whatever my theories, and whatever may be their ulti- 

mate fate, I had, of course, no right or desire to air my 

hobbies in the pages of the Badminton Library ; and 

I am sure that my readers will, in any case, be the 

gainers by the substitution of the admirable essays 

alluded to, written as they arc by fly-fishers of long and 

successful experience and in every sense entitled to be 

regarded as masters of the craft. 

o 

To the Marquis of Exeter, Mr. William Senior,

PREFATORY NOTE. xiii 

angling Editor of the Field, Mr. Christopher Davies, 

Mr. R. B. Marston, Editor of the Fisliing Gazette, and 

Mr. Thomas Andrews, I am also under the greatest 

obligation for the very charming and interesting con- 

tributions to which their names are attached. I only 

regret that circumstances should have unavoidably 

deprived my readers of a promised contribution on 

salmon fishing from the pen of His Grace the Duke 

of Beaufort, which would have been warmly welcomed 

by all fly-fishers. 

For the rest, it has been my 

aim to make these 

volumes as practical as possible ; and if the exigencies 

of this role have involved a certain amount of space 

being devoted to more or less technical matters which, 

however necessary and important, are, perhaps, less 

attractive to the general angling public than to the 

enthusiastic student I hope the other part of the pro- 

gramme laid down by the Editor has not been over- 

looked, and that the following pages will be found to 

be sufficiently diversified with anecdotes and incidents 

of sport to redeem them from being hopelessly ' 

reading.' 

H. C.-P. 

dull

CONTENTS. 

PIKE AND PIKE-TACKLE 3 

BAITS, BAIT-CATCHING, ETC 4 

PIKE FISHING 64 

COARSE FISH AND FLOAT-FISHING GENERALLY . . 205 

BAITS 225 

THE PERCH . 

. 242 

CARP AND TENCH 269 

BARBEL AND BREAM 299 

DACE AND CHUB 308 

GUDGEON AND BLEAK . 324 

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES. 

ROACH FISHING AS A FINE ART . 335 

William Senior (' Redspinner' 1 

). 

NORFOLK BROAD AND RIVER FISHING .... 352 

G. Christopher Davies. 

THE CULTIVATION OF 'COARSE FISH' . . . .376 

./?. B. Marslon, 

THE REARING OF BLACK BASS, AND PISCICULTURAL 

EXPERIMENTS AT BURGHLEY 390 

The Marqids of Exeter. 

INDEX 407

NOTE. 

If it is desired to give a trial to the hooks, tackle, cS-r., recommended 

in the following pages, it is advised that no change of any 

kind should be introduced, and that in case ofpurchases or orders 

from tackle-shops an exact compliance with the instructions should 

be insisted upon. 

Experimental variations and improvements, so-called, are very 

apt to produce results the opposite of ' 

improved? This is specially 

true as regards bends of hooks, and the proportions of spinning 

flights.

FISHING. 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

INTROD UCTOR Y REMARKS. 

I FEEL that some is apology due to what are, after all, perhaps, 

of the title of 

the great body of fishermen, for the second part 

the present volume. 

The term ' 

coarse fish ' 

has been adopted because it seems 

to be that most generally used and understood, and, there- 

fore, best calculated to convey readily a correct idea of the 

contents of this essay. Even whilst employing the expression, 

however, I must record it. my protest against What is there 

coarse, for example, about the perch of gorgeous scaling, armed 

cap-a-pie like a paladin of old, and glowing with half the 

colours of the rainbow ? Or the ' 

arrowy dace,' almost as mettle- 

some, and perhaps even more graceful and glittering than the 

aristocratic trout ? 

A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves, 

Quickened with touches of transporting 

fear. . . . 

' 

' 

Again, when the term coarse fishing is used, have those who 

employ it ever watched, with a sympathetic eye, the consum- 

mate skill and dexterity which a ' 

cockney ' 

display in pursuit of his game, and the gossamer 

roach-fisher will 

fineness of 

every bit of the tackle he uses ? Depend upon it, in the luring 

and landing of a two-pound roach on a single-hair line, there is 

II. B

2 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

called for and shown a c 

fine art,' as my friend, Mr. Senior, ex- 

presses it, which need not shrink from contrast with that de- 

manded by any branch of angling whatever. 

' 

' 

Coarse fishing 

is as great a misnomer as coarse fish ; every kind of fishing 

is capable of being brought to perfection, and of being carried 

out scientifically as well as clumsily and ignorantly ; and 1 

hope I need not appeal to the tenor of all my former writings 

on the subject to assure my readers that I am a strenuous 

advocate for the use of the very finest tackle compatible 

with safety, not in fly-fishing only, but in every branch and 

every department of the art of angling. Indeed I recall with, 

I hope, some pardonable pride and pleasure that after the 

publication of my earlier essays, commentators, more kindly 

and indulgent, doubtless, than critical, were flattering enough 

to give me the sobriquet of the 'Apostle of Fine Fishing.' 

I shall not apologise, therefore, for the fact that in the fol- 

lowing pages considerable space and attention are accorded to 

matters, as some might consider them, of almost trivial detail. 

The 'whole is made up of its parts,' however; and without 

careful attention to details neither neatness nor strength can be 

attained. The difference in killing power between one bend of 

hook and another, slightly varied, is not less than 100 per cent.

THE PIKE (Esox Indus}. 

The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid, 

The scourge and terror of the scaly brood. AUSONIUS. 

Although there is but one species of pike (i.e. Esox htcins} 

found in the waters of Great Britain, and recognised in those 

of Europe, the rivers and lakes of North America produce a 

great many varieties, all possessing more or less distinct charac- 

teristics. Into the details of these it is not necessary to enter ; 

but the following is a list of the principal species which, according 

to American writers, appear to have been clearly demonstrated 

to be distinct : The Mascalonge (Esox estor) and the 

northern Pickerel (Esox lucioides), both inhabitants of the great 

lakes ; the common Pickerel (Esox reticulatus], indigenous to 

all the ponds and streams of the northern and midland States ; 

the Long Island Pickerel (Esox fasciatus\ probably confined to 

that locality ; the white Pickerel (Esox vittatns\ the black 

Pickerel (Esox niger), and Esox phaleratus, all three inhabiting 

the Pennsylvania!! and Western waters. 

Of the species above enumerated the first two are the types, 

all the others following, more or less closely, the same formation 

as to comparative length of snout, formation of the lower jaw, 

dental system, gill-covers, &c. 

As regards the European pike, it seems probable that there 

may be varieties yet to be discovered, as Dr. Genzik assures 

me that he has found some specimens which had teeth like the 

fangs of the viper capable of being erected or depressed at 

pleasure, a circumstance all the more remarkable as the jaws 

also of the fish are furnished with extra bones to increase the 

B 2

4 


size of the gape, very similar to the corresponding bones in the 

viper conformation. 

We have, however, in the British Islands and on the Continent, 

only ' 

' 

one recognised species which ; 

species, according 

to the author of ' 

British Fishes ' 

and some other writers, has 

probably been 'acclimatised.' Personally I am rather disposed 

to believe it to be indigenous ; but I willingly leave the point 

to the researches of the curious in such matters, and to the 

students, if such there be, of mediaeval ichthyology. If the 

fish was really an importation, it could not, at any rate, have 

been a very recent one, as pike 

are mentioned in the Act of 

the 6th year of Richard II., 1382, and also by Chaucer in the 

well-known lines : 

Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe, 

And many a breme, and many a Luce in stewe. . . , 

One of the names by which the pike was formerly known, 

now obsolete, or at any rate used only as a diminutive, is 

' 

pickerel;' which again, when arrived at a certain, or rather un- 

certain age of discretion, becomes a 'jack;' to be finally inducted 

into the full dignity of pikehood. The term 'pike' has been 

supposed to take its origin in the Saxon word piik, sharp- 

pointed, in reference to the peculiar form of the pike's head, 

thus, by the way, furnishing an argument in favour of the 

indigenous character of the fish, in contradiction to Yarrell's 

' 

theory. Skinner and Tooke would derive it from 

importation ' 

the French word/f?ztt, on account, they say, of the sharpness 

of its snout. It is the brocJiet or brocheton, lance or lanceron, 

and becquet of France, the gtidda of the Swede, and the gcdde 

or gei of Denmark, which latter term is nearly identical with 

the lowland Scotch gedd. Ingenious derivations of all these 

names have been discovered by philologists, but they arc, 

for the most part, somewhat fanciful. The luccio or luzzo of 

the Italians, and the term luce or lucie ('white lucic ' 

of Shake- 

speare and of heraldry) are evidently derived from the old 

classical name of the fish, Indus. Here again, however, we

THE PIKE. 5 

get among the philologists, and I will only give one illustra- 

tion from Nobbes, who has been called the father of trollins, 

* O* 

to show how much, notwithstanding the proverb, can be 

made out of how little. This remarkable author suggests 

that the name lurius is derived ' 

either d lucendo, from shining 

in the waters, or else (which is more probable) from lukos, 

' 

the Greek word tot lupus: for as,' says he, the wolf is the most 

ravenous and cruel amongst beasts, so the pike is the most 

greedy and devouring amongst fishes. So that lupus piscis> 

though it be proper for the sea wolf, yet it is often used for the 

pike itself, the fresh-water wolf.' 

The pike is mentioned in the works of several Latin authors, 

and is stated to have been taken of very great size in the 

Tiber ; but it has been doubted by naturalists whether this fish 

the Esox of Pliny is synonymous with the sox, or pike, 

of modern ichthyology. One of the earliest writers by whom 

the Pike is distinctly chronicled is Ausonius, living about the 

middle of the fourth century, who thus asperses its reputation : 

Lucius obscuras ulva coenoque lacunas 

Obsidet. Hie, nullos mensarum lectus ad usus, 

Fumat fumosis olido nidore popinis. 

The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid, 

The scourge and terror of the scaly brood, 

Unknown at friendship's hospitable board, 

Smokes midst the smoky tavern's coarsest food. 

It seems as if from the earliest times the character, so to 

speak, of the pike has commended itself especially for treatment 

both in prose and verse, and the number of quaint 

anecdotes, mythical legends, and venerable superstitions which 

have clustered round it give the pike a special and distinct interest 

of its own. I confess that to myself there has been always 

something singularly attractive in the very qualities which have 

made its chroniclers more often detractors than panegyrists. 

The downright, unadulterated savagery of the brute attracts me ; 

he is no turncoat, vicious one day and repentant the next.


Nothing that swims, or walks, or flies does he spare when his 

appetite is whetted by the sharp wind sweeping 

The half-frozen dyke, 

That hungers into madness every plunging pike. 

Woe be to his children, or his brother, mother, or cousin, 

grandchildren or great-grandchildren, should they 

cross his 

path ; and I have not the slightest doubt, speaking ichthyo- 

phageously, if not ichthyologically, that under sufficient provocation 

he would tackle one of his own ancestors, even to the 

third and fourth generation. This is all ' 

and is in 

thorough,' 

keeping with the grim muzzle and steely grey eyes which fix 

upon the observer with unwinking and ferocious glare. The 

very rush and flash with which he takes his prey 

has in it a 

fascination, and I have more than once seen a man drop his 

rod from sheer fright when a pike, that has been stealthily 

following his bait, suddenly dashes at it by the side of the boat 

or at the moment it is being lifted out of water. 

The pike, I am happy to is 

say, daily rising in the estimation 

of anglers as a game and, in the largest sense of the word, 

sporting fish. This is partly owing, no doubt, to the difficulty, 

with an ever-increasing army of anglers, of obtaining decent 

trout or, still more, salmon fishing (in fact, a good salmon river 

has now r become almost as expensive a luxury as a grouse moor 

or a deer forest), and partly also because the art is now pursued 

with greatly improved appliances. 

We live in times in which, as I observed in the first page of 

the first pamphlet I ever wrote on jack-fishing, no 'well in- 

formed pike is to be ensnared by such simple devices as those 

which proved fatal to his progenitors in the good old days of 

innocence and Izaak Walton, and were we now to sally forth 

with the trolling gear bequeathed to us by our great grand- 

fathers of lamented memory, we should expect to see every 

pike from John o' Groat's to Land's End rise up to repel with 

scorn the insult offered them. No ! 

depend 

upon 

dwellers in what Tom Hood called the ' 

Eely places ' 

it the 

have

THE PIKE. 7 

come in for their full share of the education movement, and the 

troller who at the end of the nineteenth century would expect 

to make undiminished catches must devote both time and 

attention to refining to the very utmost every part of his 

equipment. 

' 

Every hook in the spinning flight, every link in its trace, 

becomes in his view an object of importance, because it is not 

only positive but comparative excellence which he must aim at. 

Other trailers will take advantage of the latest ' 

wrinkle,' if he 

will not, and the art is not only to fish fine, but, if he wants to 

make the best basket, to fish finer than anybody else, at least 

on the same water. It is perfectly true that when the pike is 

sharp-set he is, as I have said, practically omnivorous, but 

where fine fishing and perfection of tackle come in is on the 

occasions when he is not regularly on the feed, and when his 

appetite is dainty and requires 

to be tickled. At these times 

the man who fishes fine will fill his creel, whilst he who uses 

coarser tackle will, in all probability, carry it home empty. 

' 

But it is not only as regards the basket that fine fishing is 

an object worth aiming at. It is the only mode of fishing that 

really deserves the name of sport ; to haul out a miserable pike 

with an apparatus like a barge pole and a meat-hook neither 

demands skill nor evokes enthusiasm. There is no " law " 

shown to the fish, and not the slightest prowess by the fisher- 

man; it is simply fish-slaughter, not sport.'


PIKE- TACKLE. 

SPINNING AND TROLLING-RODS. 

An idea happily now nearly exploded has prevailed 

amongst trollers since the time of Nobbes of the Dark Ages, 

that a pike-rod should necessarily be a clumsy rod a thick, 

unwieldy, weighty, top-heavy weapon in fact, a sort of cross 

between a hop-pole and a clothes-prop. Whatever our pikefishing 

ancestors may have been in the matter of skill, it cannot 

be denied that their rods and angling gear generally were in 

every way vastly inferior to our own, and, indeed, such as to 

make any display of what we should consider science out of 

the question. 

On no part of the fisher's equipment has more patience 

been lavished, with the result of greater advances, than on the 

all-important item of the rod. That so far at least as trollingrods 

are concerned there was plently of room for improvement 

may be gathered from the receipt given for the construction of 

a trolling-rod by the authoress of the 'Boke of St. Albans,' 

about A.D. 1486, wherein the implement in question is recom- 

mended to be of at least fourteen feet long ; the ' 

staffe ' 

or butt 

measuring ' 

a fadom (fathom) and a half,' of the thickness of 

an 'armgrete,' or about as thick as a man's arm, and the joints 

to be bound with stout ' 

hopis of yren ' 

(iron hoops) ! 

In the first volume I have given a description of the dif- 

ferent woods used in rod-making, and I will not therefore 

repeat it here, the more so as both hickory, greenheart, and ash 

that is, almost all the principal rod-woods may be, and are, 

very commonly employed in the manufacture of Spinning and

PIKE-TACKLE. 9 

Trolling-rods. The wood really most suitable for the purpose, 

and which as time goes on will, I have no doubt, come to be 

more and more used, is bamboo. This wood possesses in 

a special degree the qualities required for a spinning-rod, being 

both light, strong, and of sufficient stiffness, and, it may be 

added, pliability also, for the most perfect ' 

casting ' 

of a 

' 

bait and for the playing ' 

of it when it has been cast. 

spinning 

I daresay many trailers much better fishermen than I am 

will warmly, not to say hotly, dissent from this proposition. 

Every angler has his own hobby on the subject of rods. One 

man swears by a bamboo rod, another by lancewood or hickory, 

and a third would lose half the enjoyment of his day's sport if 

it were not to be effected by his trusty greenheart of early and 

well-beloved associations. Its owner might say, and say with 

truth, ' The difference you speak of in weight is exceedingly 

small, and there is a certain " swishiness " and elasticity in 

greenheart or hickory which is not to be got 

out of the most 

carefully selected bamboo.' I find myself that I get quite 

as much play, or ' 

swishiness,' as I want out of a four-jointed 

bamboo rod with a greenheart top, and as regards weight, the 

difference, slight as it is, tells decidedly in favour of the hollow 

wood. 

The other hollow woods are practically useless for pikerods. 

The white cane, the greater part of which comes from 

Spain and America, and is a fragile and delicate creature 

compared to its swarthy Indian cousin, is used principally for 

roach-rods 

' White Cane Roach-rods,' as they are tempt- 

ingly described in the catalogues and it is fit for nothing else ; 

for this special purpose, however, it is perfection. Another 

cane also that is quite inferior to the East Indian is the 

Carolina ; it is lighter and longer between the knots, and is 

commonly employed only in bottom-fishing rods of the commoner 

qualities. Last on the list comes the jungle cane, a 

specialty of China, but found also in many other parts of 

Asia. It grows as thick as a man's body, and is put by the 

Chinese to a variety of uses, amongst others hollowing out the

io PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

pith and converting the skin into water-pipes. It is this skin, 

or rind, only, with which we have to deal in rod-making, and 

that must be taken from a cane about as thick as a man's 

wrist This is split up into narrow slips, and these slips, when 

planed and smoothed down, become the solid grained-looking 

pieces of wood constantly forming the upper splices of top 

joints. 

But to my text One of the most charming spinning-rods 

I ever possessed or rather possess, for I am happy to say it 

still exists came to grief in the butt, and instead of having a 

new butt of the same wood, bamboo, made in its place, I 

thought I would try an experiment, and had substituted for the 

injured member a butt made of ash. The composite weapon 

thus produced ash butt, second and third joints bamboo, top 

greenheart seems to combine in an exceptional degree the 

qualifications to be desired in a spinning-rod. Especially the 

play and casting capacity of the rod are remarkable, and I think 

of all the spinning-rods I have, or have had pass through my 

hands, this is my favourite. The two centre bamboo joints are 

all that remain of a mottled East Indian cane which I chose 

from amongst the hundreds in Mr. Farlow's warehouse when 

a stripling. It has since had tops enough to stock a tackle 

shop. Can it be that association has prejudiced me also 

in favour of my schoolboy friend ? Many memories may cer- 

tainly cling round an old rod, and, perhaps, few veteran anglers 

could be found to dissent from the following lines in which 

Stoddart has given expression to the sentiment : 

THE OLD WAND. 

The wand that hath done service fair, 

From thy boyhood to thy prime, 

Onward to thine after-time 

Cherish. It is worth all care. 

Many a fair-spoken friend 

Hath less friendship in his heart 

Than this passive piece of art 

And will fail thee at the end.

PIKE-TACKLE. n 

But a trusty rod and tried, 

Warp'd by service though it be, 

Toughens in adversity, 

And clings the nearer to thy side. 

Cherish it for thine own sake, 

For the record of events 

Hanging on its accidents, 

And the memories these awake. 

Ferrule bent distorted ring 

Top curtail'd or past repair 

The continual wear and tear, 

And relaxing of its spring. 

Every notch by knife impress'd, 

Ranging up and down the butt, 

In its form of cross or rutt, 

Is to thee of interest. 

In the fortunes of thy wand 

Thou hast part, no common part ; 

And the beatings of thy heart 

With its triumphs correspond. 

Give it place in thine abode 

In thy dwelling's inner shrine 

In the chamber made divine 

By love and faith, lay up thy rod. 

A capital spinning-rod may be made from the spliced-cane 

grilse-rod described in the first volume. The rod, which 

was made by Messrs. Hardy Bros., fishing-tackle makers, of 

Alnwick, has the additional strength given by a steel spring 

centre a specialty in spliced rods of which, I believe, Messrs. 

Hardy alone, or almost alone, possess the secret. In order to 

turn the fly-rod into a spinning-rod, or indeed a rod suitable 

for any sort of jack-fishing, it is only necessary, when giving 

The 

the order for the rod, to include an additional (short) top. 

length of mine is three feet (ferrule excluded) as against four 

feet seven inches in the ordinary fly top, and it seems to be 

about a happy medium.


I find a great convenience in having my jack-rods (as well 

as my fly-rods) furnished with several tops of different lengths 

the more the better. By this means one rod will, at a pinch, 

often answer for several purposes, and the necessity of carrying 

about a large stock of rods on the off chance of some other 

fishing than that counted on turning up, will often be avoided. 

For instance, the 'composite spinning-rod' above described 

answers with a somewhat longer top exceedingly well for ' 

pater- 

nostering,' or for minnow-spinning for trout, for barbelling, 

worm-fishing for salmon, and, indeed, for any purpose (except 

fly-fishing) where strength is a more important point than length, 

or than extreme lightness. When driven into a corner I hare 

even, and not unsuccessfully, used it for casting the fly, and 

I calculate roughly that if the number of salmon I have caught 

with it with minnow, fly, or worm (in 

the manner described in 

the last volume), were laid head and tail, they would put a girdle 

round Trafalgar Square. 

The length of this rod is twelve feet, and for my own part 

I never care about fishing with a longer one. Many spinners, 

however, patronise a rod of more ample proportions, and 

indeed it is evident that a rod which would be the perfection 

of length for a man of five feet nine or ten, would not do 

justice to the physical capabilities of a trailer of six feet three, 

to say nothing of the well-known Irish giant of jack-fishing 

celebrity, the staff of whose rod might be (and is for aught I 

know) like a weaver's beam. There is a record of a very small 

troller with a very big rod whose fate, if it may not serve 

To point a moral or adorn a tale, 

yet carries with it a caution to reflecting pike- fishers. At the 

first cast his heavy rod overbalanced his light body, and lie 

tumbled out of the punt, below New Lock Weir, and was 

drowned. 

One general rule may, I think, be laid down with regard to 

tops : the larger and heavier the baits used the shorter should 

be the top joint.

PIKE-TACKLE. I3 

The rings for all Irolling-rods should be what is called 

'stiff' (upright), and sufficiently large to admit of the line passing 

readily through them, and of sufficient hardness to be 

capable of resisting considerable friction. Another point is 

that the top and bottom rings should be so shaped as to prevent 

the line catching round or over them whilst in the act of 

running out. The diagrams represent the sizes and shape of 

rings which, after a good many experiments, I have found most 

suitable to the purpose, and which are now very generally 

adopted by trailers. 

It will be seen that in the bottom ring, which is about the 

best size for a medium length of rod, the perpendicular sup- 

ports are wider apart at the base than at the apex, the object 

being to frustrate any curls or 

' 

hitches ' 

which the line may 

attempt to twist round them. This, it can be safely asserted, 

FIG. i. 

' PRONGED' 

TOP RING. FIG. 2. STEEL ROD RING. 

will be found of really great practical convenience to the troller. 

Perhaps, however, the form of the top ring is of even greater 

as it is both more liable to catch in the line and 

importance, 

proportionately more difficult to clear at a distance of twelve or 

thirteen feet. The material, as in the case of all the other rings, 

should be steel or iron wire, and the shape of the ring shown 

in the engraving represents the results of some pains and 

trouble bestowed on the subject by the late Mr. Frank Buckland 

and myself. 

The merit of this invention is the avoidance of all projec- 

' 

tions over which the line would or could possibly hitch ' 

itself. 

It is, in fact, to a certain extent, a modification of the principle 

of the pronged ring recommended for the bottom joint. The 

wire, it will be seen, is made to branch out in the shape of a V,

14 


the sides forming a continuation of the ring itself, and acting 

as a guard on either side to throw off the line if it should 

attempt to curl over, very much as the sloping sides of a gate 

on a barge-walk throw off the towing line. The inclination of 

the ring is also towards instead of away from the butt, the 

head or loop forming, in other words, an acute instead of an 

obtuse angle with the rod. 

The woodcut gives the shape recommended for the inter- 

mediate rings, of which it is important that there should be 

enough on the rod to prevent the weight of the line bagging 

between the intervals, and yet not so many as unnecessarily ;o 

increase the friction of the line passing through them, or add 

to the weight of the rod. 

FIG. 3. 

' PRONGED' 

BOTTOM RING. 

For all these rings steel or iron wire is found to answer best ; 

brass, from its softness, is easily cut or worn into sharp grooves 

by friction, and these grooves very speedily wear out the dress- 

ing of the line, and, before long, the line itself. 

' 

Many dodges ' 

have been tried to obviate this cutting process, more especially 

in the case of the top and bottom rings, where the friction is 

naturally greatest. Mother-of-pearl, agate, &c., have been used 

as ' 

linings,' or inner rings, to receive the immediate friction of 

the line, but besides being too expensive for ordinary purposes, 

these solid additions add, not inappreciably, to the weight of 

the rod. I have always been of opinion that some sort of 

china or glass enamel or lacquer, such as that used in the lining 

of saucepans, might be adapted to rod rings. There is an 

American process especially, the depot of which is in New


Bond Street, which seems as if it might be made available, but 

the proprietors are either unable or unwilling to devote the 

necessary time to trying the experiment on a scale to bring it 

within the range of possible commercial success. 

Whilst on the subject of trolling-rods I may, perhaps, say a 

few words as to the Ferrules. 

not ' 

These should always be what is termed ' 

hammered,' and 

tube-cut.' The ferrules used for the commoner rods, or 

tube-cut ferrules, are simply cylinders, of the same size at both 

ends, and cut. off, two or three inches at a time, as required, 

from a piece of common soldered brass piping. These, of 

course, cost next to nothing, and break or bulge with the first 

strain put upon them. The ferrules used by the really good 

tackle-makers are made, I am informed, each one separately, 

out of sheet brass, hard-soldered, or brazed, and then hammered 

out into the proper shape on steel triblets, a process 

which, though somewhat costly and tedious, makes the ferrule 

in the end almost as hard as the steel itself (' Book of the Pike '). 

I am not myself a practical rod-maker, and am, of course, 

therefore, obliged in these matters to depend for my information 

upon the tackle-makers, whom I always find most obliging in 

be considered 

imparting their knowledge, even where it may 

in the nature of a trade secret. In the present case there 

appears to be some difference of opinion in regard 

to the 

information I have received through the profession ; and the 

following was sent to me by an amateur rod-maker of large 

practical experience, but who does not wish his name to be 

published : 

' 

I am inclined to think that the cases referred to (in your 

" Modern Practical Angler ") where the brass ferrules of rods 

" bulge " and give way, are to be thus explained. The best 

tubing is mandrel-drawn, and I do not think any hammering 

would produce a density of metal so hard as that which results 

from well-drawn tubing : but it often happens (too often) that 

the tube and its correcter do not fit with that nice accuracy 

which is essential. In such case what does the ferrule-maker

1 6 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

do ? I will tell you, he anneals his tubing, and then with the 

furnisher adapts it to its fellow. For all practical uses its 

strength is then gone. 

' 

My own impression is that mandrel-drawn tube not tampered 

with, is (cateris paribus) denser and harder than hammered 

tubing is, and no hammered tube could be so uniform. 

' 

I hope you will forgive this criticism of a work with which 

I am really charmed, but I shall be only glad to find that you 

accept it as it is meant, in all courtesy.' 

Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? 

There will be no disagreement, however, as to the fact that 

all joints of trolling-rods should be 'double-brazed' i.e., 

covered with brass not only round the thick part of the joint, 

where it fits the ferrule, but also round the thinner end or 

wooden plug below it. In all sorts of pike-fishing, and notably 

in spinning, this is of particular importance, as the rapid pass- 

ing of the wet line through the rings tends to cause a perpetual 

dripping and trickling of water downwards towards the butt. 

The natural result is that the water does its best to get into the 

joints, and, if it succeeds and the precaution of double-brazing 

be not adopted, the joint has a special aptitude for swelling and 

sticking fast. When joints are only half-brazed, or not brazed 

at all, the best plan is to grease or soap them before use. 

Joints which have become hopelessly ' 

stuck ' 

may generally be 

easily separated by being turned slowly round and round at the 

'sticking point' over the flame of a candle for some seconds, 

or until it is found that the joint will come apart. This process 

does no damage to anything but the varnish on the ferrule. 

After the subject of ferrules naturally comes that of joint 

fastenings. I have already gone into this matter so thoroughly 

in the first volume that I do not propose here to repeat the 

account of the various new joint fastenings therein described 

in detail with illustrative diagrams. Any one of them will be 

found a great improvement on the old-fashioned fastening, 

which, though it has become venerable by time, possesses,


it must be admitted, nearly every drawback that 'joint is 

heir to.' 

What holds true in regard to the joints of fly-rods holds 

true in regard also to the joints of trolling-rods, and especially 

of spinning-rods, where the constant swaying to and fro in the 

action of casting is apt to induce those sudden separations 

between top, middle, and lower joints which entail waste of 

time and loss of temper, if nothing more. If anglers would 

continue to refuse to purchase any more rods with the old- 

fashioned fastenings they would soon become obsolete. It is 

monstrous that with such well-known improvements within 

their reach tackle-makers should go on manufacturing trolling- 

rods with the old, faulty, and unmechanical joint fastenings. 

As a good varnish for rods, and generally for varnishing 

lappings of hooks, c., the following, used and commonly supplied 

for the purpose by one of the best known tackle manufac- 

turers, will be found useful : 

Spirits of wine, ~. 

Orange shellac, ~. 

Gum Benjamin, a small piece, about ~. 

Allow the mixture a fortnight to dissolve before using. A 

varnish of some sort over the lapping is exceedingly valuable 

in all tackle, as it protects the silk from the effects of the water. 

In gimp tackle it is especially important, owing to the corrosion 

otherwise produced by wet brass and steel coming in contact. 

This varnish dries almost immediately. 

Trailers will find a great comfort, and perhaps escape 

serious inconvenience, by having the butt-ends of their trolling- 

rods fitted with an india-rubber knob, which is supplied at 

most of the larger tackle shops in London. The constant 

pressure of the hard end of the brass or wood against the 

groin (this being the position the end of the rod generally 

occupies in pike-fishing) becomes after a short time the cause 

of considerable irritation in the part pressed against. 

With regard to the reel for spinning and trolling, any of the 

II. C

i$ PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

reels referred to in the first volume as suitable for salmon-fishing 

would, in smaller sizes, be also suited to spinning, if it were not 

for the question of weight. In spinning, a reel that will carry 

sixty or eighty yards of jack-line is practically all that is 

required, and such an endless assortment of these can now be 

obtained at the tackle shops that the only difficulty lies in 

making a selection. For the reasons elsewhere mentioned I 

should recommend a check winch with narrow grooves and 

deep side plates one of the greatest improvements which has 

been introduced into reels in modern times and a check 

which should be rather 'weaker than stronger,' to paraphrase 

the Admiralty instructions to their recruiting officers, ' 

to prefer 

recruits having hands rather larger than smaller.' The advantages 

gained by this sort of reel over the old-fashioned shallow-plate 

broad-grooved winch are increased speed inasmuch as the 

diameter of the axle upon which the line is wound is enlarged 

and increased power, because the handle by which it is worked 

being further from the axis proportionably greater leverage is 

obtained. 

The handles of all reels should either be directly attached 

to the side plate or so adjusted as to amount to the same thing. 

The only drawback to the solid side plate is the additional 

weight it gives the reel, but the advantages of the handle 

thus attached are so numerous as to make other considerations 

of comparatively little importance. Amongst these advantages 

are the obviating of the constant entanglement of the line 

round the old-fashioned detached projecting handle or rather 

more correctly speaking, the crank to which the handle is 

attached and the greatly increased strength, and improbability 

of being broken or bent by the many little accidents that 

take place during the actual business of fishing. 

Of the solid reels suitable for spinning and what I here 

say of reels for spinning applies equally to reels for every 

description of pike-fishing Mr. Chas. Farlow's ' 

patent lever 


as they undoubtedly are for salmon-fishing. No doubt they 

might both easily be made lighter than they are at present. 

The weight is considerable ; a Malloch reel with a plate 4înches 

in diameter weighing i Ib. 14 oz., and this where one of 

the side plates is of ebonite. The 3|-inch plate reel (Mr. 

Malloch 's) of the same make weighs i Ib. i-ôz. 

I am very much inclined, however, the next time 'I go 

a-spinning' to give Slater's very clever and admirable 'combination 

reel' (see p. 55, Vol. I.) a trial. It has all the merits 

of an ordinary check reel (besides being much lighter) and in 

addition it combines the advantages of the Nottingham reel, 

by which under special circumstances, such as wading, spinning 

from rough stubbly banks, and so forth, the necessity of coiling 

up the line on the ground, &c., is avoided. This reel, four and 

a half inches in diameter, with fifty yards of finest dressed-silk 

running-line on it, only weighs ten ounces. On the whole 

Slater's reel is the most original, and I am disposed to think, 

from the spinner's point of view, also the most practically useful 

of all the inventions in the way 

of reels to which the late 

Fisheries Exhibition gave birth. 

One serious drawback, however, so far as my experience 

goes and, so far as my experience goes, one only is common 

to every reel hitherto made, viz., that the line is apt to get caught, 

under the back part of the reel itself, thus causing a constant 

irritating annoyance, and, in the case of the pike-fisher and 

especially of the spinner a serious danger. In order to 

obviate this I designed some years ago a small spring so 

adjusted that when the reel is fixed to the rod, it the spring 

presses closely on the butt or winch- fittings behind the reel. 

The spring (see diagram p. 20, c,) can be attached with 

perfect ease to any well-made reel at a nominal cost, and I 

venture to think that no spinner who has once experienced the 

practical 

' 

convenience of this antidote to hitching ' 

use a reel without it. 

will ever 

It remains to consider the reel used in what is known as the 

Nottingham Style of fishing. This is a reel, without 'check' 

c 2


of any kind, and generally made of wood, on which the line is 

' wound in ' 

by the trailer instead of being drawn in by hand, 

and from which the spinning or other bait is cast, without any 

reserve of loose line, on the assumption that between the skill 

of the caster and the unchecked ' 

running ' 

of the reel itself the 

latter will give out sufficient line, and with sufficient rapidity and 

accuracy, to meet all practical requirements. Indeed, 

as to 

spinning, I have often heard Nottingham fishers, or, at any 

rate, fishers who use the Nottingham style, assert that they 

can throw more accurately and to longer distances with the 

reel described than with the method practised on the Thames 

i (irfual size D 

I. INF. HITCHING PREVENTER. 

and most other rivers of letting the line lie in loose coils on the 

ground before making the cast. When, however, 

opportunities of bringing this assumption 

practice 

I have had 

to the actual test of 

I find it more or less break down. With the same 

weight of bait and trace I am quite satisfied that both a longer 

and more accurate cast can be made by the ordinary method, 

whilst with a really light bait and trace the whole thing, lead 

included, weighing, let us say, i ox. 2 scruples (such as I fre- 

quently use myself) I am of opinion that the Nottingham style 

would be found in practice an entire failure.


I remember some years ago Mr. Bailey, the then most 

celebrated professor and exponent of the Nottingham style of 

spinning, sending me for examination some of his flights and 

traces. All I can say of them and I have them in my 

possession still is that they are altogether too clumsy and too 

heavy for spinning in rivers or other waters where the pike have 

had opportunities of seeing a spinning bait tolerably often, and 

in the Thames they would be practically useless. 

Another serious, and I should say ineradicable, defect of 

the Nottingham reel is its tendency to ' 

overrun ' 

producing 

a series of ' 

itself, thus 

complications,' to use a generic rather 

than a specific term, which, if they did not at critical junctures 

result in the loss of the fish, are at any rate likely to lead to a 

frame of mind on the part of the spinner the reverse of equable. 

Again, 

with these un-' checked' winches there is another 

danger to be guarded against. If the graduated pressure of 

the finger be for an instant removed from the reel or line the 

latter runs out so freely as to produce the effect of complete 

slackness. This is an evil greater, perhaps, in its results even 

than the other, as nothing is more certainly disastrous in spin- 

ning than a slack line on a running fish, and nothing more 

likely than the contingency alluded to where fish have to be 

followed rapidly over ditches or broken ground. These two 

faults vices would not be too strong a term are radical and 

inherent in the principle of all 'plain' reels, whether wood or 

brass. They are found, however, in combination, in their 

utmost perfection in the so-called 'Nottingham reel.' 'It would 

' 

not be wise,' writes a recent author, for any fly-fisherman to 

use Nottingham reels at first ; 

the manual management of the 

checking power would take the tyro months to master, and 

any mismanagement, which is all but inevitable, would be fatal 

just when the special qualities of these reels should be service- 

able.' This testimony carries additional conviction, inasmuch 

as, on the whole, the writer appears to favour the Nottingham 

reel at any rate as improved by some recent additions. 

I do not, of course, for a moment expect, or, indeed, wish,


to convert the Nottingham trailers to what is commonly known 

as the 'Thames style' of spinning ; first, because in fishing, as 

in everything else, there is a charm in variety ; 

secondly, because I am well aware that, at any 

rate on their own river, the Nottingham spinners 

are both expert and successful as regards the 

actual results of their system and these the 

most important results, viz., making good 

baskets ... I might add as a third argument 

against the attempt, that it would, I am quite 

satisfied, be a failure. 

Amongst the recent, I was going to say less 

important, improvements in fishing gear but 

no improvement that adds materially to the 

comfort and efficiency of the angler's equipment 

is unimportant are the various ingenious 

inventions before noticed, for attaching the reel 

to the rod. Of these I can only repeat here 

that the most simple, inexpensive, and in every 

way efficient fastening is that brought out at 

the late Fisheries Exhibition, I believe, by 

Messrs. Hardy Brothers, of Alnwick. 

It is applicable, without exception, to nil 

sorts of rods, and to every description of reel 

which is attached by a plate in the ordinary 

way. Whether it could be fitted to rods already 

made with the common ring or other fasten- 

ings, I am unable to say positively, but I have 

little doubt that in many cases perhaps in 

all it could be substituted. I shall never 

have a rod made with any other fastening in 

future. 

' 

KEKI.-FASTENINO. The catch ' 

was originally attached to the 

rod by nails or screws (n'Je cut), but, at my 

suggestion, Messrs. 

entirely surrounding 

Hardy have now substituted a catch 

or clasping the rod, which \z both more


sightly and obviates any possible liability to breakage 

point. 

at that 

Passing from the reel, the next subject demanding attention 

is the reel-line. Since the times when Dr. Badham assures us 

that trolling-lines were spun from the byssus by which mussels 

anchored themselves to our rocks and ships' bottoms, an endless 

difference of opinion has prevailed as to the lines suitable for 

pike-fishing generally, and for spinning especially, as well as 

to the dressings necessary to give them the exact degree of 

' 

waterproofness,' and of stiffness or rigidity, which are the two 

essentials in any spinning-line fit for use. Without these 

conditions the lines will either not run out at all, or will do so 

in a succession of knots or 'kinkings' destructive of any enjoyment 

of the sport. 

Every kind of material has, as I say, been at one time or 

other recommended, from sheep's and catgut to ' 

silver and silk 

twisted.' These prescriptions, however, it must be admitted, 

belonged to the earliest historic (or shall I say pre-historic ?) 

times of the literature of angling. Even amongst our modern 

authorities, however, great divergencies are observable. There 

are the advocates of oil dressing, and the advocates of india- 

rubber dressing the patrons of silk lines and those who hold 

to the hemp-spun fabrications of the Manchester Cotton Twine 

Spinning Corporation, whilst another recent contributor to 

fishing literature goes out of his against them all at a venture.' 

' 

way to back a hair line 

A receipt which does not seem 

likely to prove very successful, as it is within the experience of 

most spinners that, even with the addition of a goodly proportion 

of silk, twenty yards 

' 

of ordinary fly 

' 

line cannot be in- 

duced by any amount of persuasion to run out through the 

rings of a jack rod. 

In the 'Book of the Pike' 1 I wrote nearly 20 years ago 

' Some discussion has recently taken place as to the merits of 

catechu, indiarubber, and other waterproof dressings, especially 

1 

3rd Edit. Routledge and Co., Broadway, Ludgate Hill.

24 


in securing greater durability ; and I shall hope at a future 

opportunity to go more fully into this question with reference 

to a few experiments which I have carried out, but I am 

satisfied that up to the present time no practical application of 

either of these dressings has been arrived at, or, at least, made 

public, which, having regard to the numerous points to.be con- 

sidered, will bear comparison with common 8-plait oiled silk. 

I did go very thoroughly into the experiments referred to 

in the above paragraph, but with no result sufficiently satisfac- 

tory to be worth chronicling in these pages. Indeed, it may 

freely be admitted, that all the conditions pointed out as neces- 

sary in a spinning-line are very fairly fulfilled by the ordinary 

8-plait drtssed silk lines to be bought at all the tackle shops. 

As regards the dressing used by different makers and amateurs, 

'as many men so many opinions.' 

Here, however, is the receipt for this oil dressing 

adopted by a well-known and experienced 

fisherman : 

which is 

Take three teaspoonfuls of sweet oil, of bees' wax and dark resin 

a piece of each the size of a walnut ; bruise the resin, cut the wax 

in pieces, and then put oil, wax, and resin into a small pipkin, and 

let it simmer before the rlre till the whole is in a liquid state. Then 

dip your trolling-line into the hot mixture and let it remain a 

minute ; then take it out and hang it up to dry, which will take 

two or more days to do ; when quite it dry will be waterproof, 

stronger, and last much longer than when dressed with anything 

else that I am acquainted with. Next in value I consider wax-candle 

well rubbed on and into lines. 

The following, for 'varnish dressing,' is from a practical 

fisherman, whose method has been highly approved' of : 

Mix (cold) copal varnish and gold size, in the proportion of ten 

parts of the former to one part of the latter. Soak the line in this 

dressing for, say, a couple of days, the jar in which it is placed 

being air-tight. Then stref h the line to dry. The line will not be 

fit to use for three or four weeks. 

Here is another 'receipt for waterproofing lines,' taken from 

'Chilly's Fly-fishing Text-book' : 

I have never tried it, but on


the principle of variatio dekctat, some of my readers may, per- 

haps, 

' 

like to do so. It looks well ' 

on : paper 

To a quarter of a pint of 'double boiled cold-drawn ' 

linseed oil, 

add one ounce of gold size. Gently warm and mix them well, 

being first careful to have the line quite diy. While the mixture is 

warm, soak the line therein till it is fully saturated to its very 

centre, say for twenty-four hours. Then pass it through a piece 

of flannel, pressing it sufficiently to take off the superficial coat, 

which enables that which is in the interior to get stiff. The line 

must then be hung up in the air, wind, or sun, out of the reach cf 

moisture, for about a fortnight, till pretty well dry. It must then 

be re-dipped to give an outer coat, for which less soaking is necessary 

; after this, wipe it again but lightly, wind it on a chair-back 

or towel-horse before a hot fire, and there let it remain for two or 

three hours, which will cause the mixture on it to ' 

flow,' as japanners 

term it, and give an even gloss over the whole. It must then 

be left to dry as before ; the length of time, as it depends on the 

weather and place, observation must determine upon. By this 

means it becomes impervious to wet, and sufficiently stiff never to 

clog or entangle, the oil producing the former quality and the gold 

size (which is insoluble in water) the latter ; while the commixture 

prevents the size becoming too hard and stiff. A trolling-line 

should be thus dressed every season at least. 

For re-dressing a line, whilst in use or when out of reach of 

tackle-shops, the following is, perhaps, the best plan 

be tried : 

that can 

Stretch the line tightly, and rub it thoroughly with white (common 

candle) wax. Then take a little ' 

boiled oil,' which can be got 

at most oil and colour shops, and placing it on a piece of flannel, 

rub the line well over with it. This will have the effect of making 

the line flexible, and will give a finish to the dressing. 

It cannot be denied, however, that there is always some 

little uncertainty in the effect of oil dressings, especially when 

manipulated by amateurs ; and I have on several occasions 

had lines returned after re-dressing and that too from very 

careful hands which from some reason or other seemed to become 

in parts almost immediately rotten, a result, as far as I 

could judge, only attributable to the effect of the new dressing.


One great point certainly is never to put the line into too hot a 

mixture ; a temperature in which the finger can be placed 

without inconvenience should be the maximum. Curriers 

always, I believe, wet their leather before applying oil or grease, 

which is otherwise supposed to 'fire' it, as it is termed. True- 

fit recommends the same precaution to be taken before greasing 

the hair of the beard, and it is possible that there may be some 

analogous effect produced on silk under particular conditions, 

even when the oil is not heated beyond the proper temperature. 

Be this as it may, however, I believe the fact that silk lines are 

not unfrequently 'fired' or burned in some way whilst dressing 

is indisputable ; and until some one can discover a remedy we 

must be content to pay a little oftener for new trolling-lines. In 

most other respects the oil dressing seems to answer capitally, 

being neat, very fairly waterproof, and easily applied. 

One great safeguard against premature decay we do know ; 

and that is, never under any circumstances to put by a line wet, 

nor unless thoroughly dried. Attention to this simple precau- 

tion will save expense, and not a few of those precipitate part- 

ings between fish and fishermen, which are so painful to at least 

one of the parties concerned. 

With regard to the substance or thickness of trolling-lines it 

is difficult to give suggestions in the form of letterings or num- 

berings, inasmuch as there is great variation in the enumeration 

of their different sizes by different line makers. What may be 

described, however, as a line of medium substance, rather than 

either very stout or very fine, gives, on the whole, the best 

results. If too fine the friction caused by passing through the 

rod rings very soon rubs off the dressing, and renders it un- 

trustworthy, and if too thick it will not run with the necessary 

freedom for long casts, especially where light baits are used. 

Moreover, the very stout quality has also the disadvantage of 

being very conspicuous 'a line of invitation,' as somebody 

calls it, which the fish are not usually in a hurry to accept. 

A very important item in the perfection or imperfection 

of all spinning and other pike tackle is the Swirel, Owing to

imperfections 


in the manufacture of new swivels and the 

results of rust or wear and tear upon old ones, a swivel very 

often ceases to work properly, a fact which is generally first 

made known to the troller by the kinking and twisting up of 

the line, entailing much trouble before it can be rectified. With 

a view to remedying this inconvenience, I suggested 

'Modern Practical Angler' 1 

in the 

the substitution of two swivels joined 

in one (or a ' 

double swivel wide cut ') by which the proba- 

bility of the accident alluded to is reduced to a 

minimum. In fact, two swivels like that shown in 

the engraving will be found ample for the purposes 

either of spinning-traces, or for gorge or live-bait 

tackle. 

A good many swivels have been invented with 

some sort of spring loop at one end, to and from 

which the line or trace can be attached and detached SWIVEL 

such as the 'buckle,' the 'corkscrew,' 'watch-spring' 

swivel, &c., &c. and these, if perfect, would be of the 

greatest practical convenience in the manipulation of all 

kinds of pike-tackle. None of the 'hook-swivels,' however, 

which have come under my notice are free from serious defects, 

or combine in all respects what is required. These 

requirements are very simple first, that the line should be 

capable of being slipped on and off with the utmost ease and 

rapidity, and without such careful manipulation by the thumb 

and finger nail as may, especially in cold weather, make the 

that the line 

operation an exceedingly difficult one ; secondly, 

should by no possibility be able to disengage itself accidentally 

from the swivel ; and thirdly, that the arrangement should be 

small, neat, and sightly the last desideratum being indispen- 

sable for practical purposes. 

These requirements, as I have said, are not to be found 

united in any one of the existing patterns with which I am 

acquainted, those fulfilling the former failing more or less 

signally in the last named, and I have, therefore, endeavoured 

1 

5th Edit. Routledge and Co., Broadway, London.


10 produce such a fastening as will fulfil them. It will be seen, 

I think, that this is done by the swivel shown in the engraving. 

Why it should be so a glance at the mechanical arrangement of 

the swivel will probably suffice to indicate. The thing is so 

that the wonder is that swivel makers or 

simple 

tackle vendors have not long ago hit upon the 

method, instead of year after year continuing to 

manufacture patterns of hook-swivels which 

have only to be glanced at to be condemned. 

It is claimed for the swivel represented in the 

cut that, besides escaping the charge of unsight- 

liness, the line can be attached and disengaged 

not IU.K SWIVEL in a moment, and that, owing to the ' 

hook end ' 

WITH IMPROVED ... , ,- ,, ,, , - . . 

, 

it is im- 

HOOK. projecting towards the centre of the loop, 

possible that it should work off accidentally 

when in use. A moment's thought and the most cursory 

examination will, I believe, show this, but if not, a swivel is 

not a very expensive item, and probably those of my readers 

who are enthusiastic in pike-fishing will not grudge the slight 

trouble involved in giving it a trial in practice. 

The attaching of this hook-swivel to the end of the reel 

line will save time, and add to the neatness of the trace-junc- 

tion. Mr. Charles Farlow, of 191 Strand, London, is the pro- 

prietor of this swivel, and is prepared- to supply it made exactly 

according to the pattern shown in the illustration. 

All swivels work best and last longest when of small or 

medium, rather than of large si/e, and they should be well 

oiled before and after use, and kept in oiled paper. The 

observance of this very simple precaution will double the 

efficiency of the swivel. Blue swivels show less in the water 

than bright ones, and are less liable to rust. 

I think I may venture to say that no one who has ever 

attempted to extract a flight of hooks from a pike's jaw with 

his fingers will desire to repeat that experiment ; nor does he 

need to be reminded that the teeth of the pike are exceedingly


sharp. They have also been supposed by 

old writers to be 

poisonous, but the truth is, probably, that, like all punctured 

wounds, the injuries they inflict heal very slowly and painfully. 

A disgorger of some sort becomes, therefore a necessity for 

every pike-fisher, and especially for the spinner, as he incurs a 

double danger from the multiplicity of his own hooks. I shall 

not forget in a hurry an incident which occurred to myself 

when fishing some years ago in the beautiful waters of Sir 

Edward Hulse, below Braemore, on the Hampshire Avon. 

By a great exertion of agility I had just succeeded, after 

' 

making a cast from an impossible ' 

standpoint, in conducting to 

the side, and thence lifting by the gills up to the top of the bank, 

a pike of some five or six pounds weight. In the position in 

which I had balanced myself when casting, the chances had 

him out and 

been about equally divided between my pulling 

his pulling me in. In the excitement, perhaps, of the just 

terminated struggle, I attempted to extract the flight from his 

mouth without using a disgorger. The first hook came out all 

right, but the second, just when I had got it clear, was struck, 

by a sudden wrench of the pike under my knee, clean into and 

half through the top of the middle finger of my right hand 

the fliglit 

still remaining attached to the pike by the big tail hook ! 

The only chance of freeing myself from my de facto captor 

now lay in the untried possibilities of my left hand. At every 

and 

plunge of the pike the hook in my finger went in deeper ; 

it was only by a desperate effort that I at last succeeded in 

wrenching off the penknife attached to my watch chain, the 

blade of which I opened with my teeth, and severed the gimp 

below the hook which had got me. It still remained, left- 

handed, to break off the hook one of a triangle from its 

shank, which I did with the pair of pliers I always carry in my 

trolling-case, and finally with the said pliers to force it through 

the finger and so out point foremost at the other side. . . . On 

this occasion I recorded a mental vow against the employment 

of digital disgorgers for the future ! 

If, in spite of precautions, the fisherman should, by the

30 


1. Box containing minnow-needle 

baiting-needle. 

2. Hole for pricker (marked 5). 

'i. Blade for crimping or other purpos 

4. Disgorger. 

THE TROI.LER'S KNIFE.* 

5. Pricker, for loosening knots, separating 

feathers, c. 

6. Minnow-needle. 

7. liaiting-iieedle. 

1 Sold by Watson and Son, 308 High Holborn. Price los. 6d.


exercise of some such ingenuity as that described, succeed in 

bringing his hand into contact with a pike's teeth, or, what even 

more often happens, get his finger cut by the blade of a 

water leaf, or the sudden wrenching out of the running-line by 

a big fish, a capital temporary plaister is formed by a strip ot 

fresh fish-skin, lapped round with a bit of waxed silk. This 

will often enable a day's fishing to be ' 

fished out ' 

with pleasure, 

which would otherwise have been spoilt. 

will also often heal ' 

The cut so dressed 

by first intention,' as surgeons say. 

In many respects the most convenient form for carrying the 

disgorger is that of a, so to speak, extra blade attached to the 

fishing-knife. A blade, that is, of course, without cutting edges 

of any description. By carrying the disgorger in this manner, 

as a part of the fishing-knife, there is one thing less to be remembered 

every morning before starting, a blessing to absentminded 

trollers, such as, I am sorry to say, I am myself. 

Attached to a knife-handle a disgorger also becomes a much 

more powerful weapon ; the ordinary disgorger is too short for 

practical purposes, and there is no handle by which to get a 

good 

' 

' 

hold of it. The knife disgorger will be found to save 

both time and trouble as well as risk to the fingers. 

The length of disgorger which I have found, on the whole, 

most convenient for the purpose is shown in the diagram. 

The advantage of this arrangement of disgorger in trolling 

as well as in other fishing suggested the idea of extending 

the principle so as to embody in the same knife the rest of the 

angler's more necessary implements, and thus spare him the 

trouble of collecting and bestowing each before starting for 

the river. 

The fishing-knife in the engraving contains, besides the 

O O O ' 

' 

disgorger-blade,' a minnow-needle and a baiting-needle 

in a 

box, a really powerful blade suited for crimping, lunching, or 

other general purposes, a sharp-pointed pricker for loosening 

knots, drop flies, &c., and lastly a strong cork-screw. 

The success of the ' 

trailer's knife ' 

led to its giving birth 

(though in other hands than my own) to a somewhat smaller-

32 

riKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

sized offspring, suited for trout-fishing, and fishing generally 

other than for pike. This was brought out some years ago 

by Messrs. Watson and Son, fishing tackle makers, of High 

Holborn. 

The subject of Landing-Nets, Gaffs, and Gaffing demands a 

few words of notice at this point. 

In the ordinary business of pike-fishing from the punt or 

bank, the extreme portability of the net is of small importance. 

Any net will do, in fact, which is large enough for the purpose, 

and the only hint on the subject that need be given is that in 

order to avoid the catching of the hooks in the net the latter 

is best made of oiled silk. In all cases the longer the handle 

the better ; 

A MECHANICALLY-CORRECT GAFF. 

a bamboo handle, which has the advantage also of 

being able to carry a spare top or two, is the lightest and mos,t 

convenient. 

For pike-fishing, when unattended, I never myself use any- 

thing except the gaff, carried over my shoulder on the portable 

net handle (figured at p. 212), an arrangement which needs 

little argument to commend itself to the practical pike-fisher. 

To the spinner especially the gaff presents considerable advan- 

tage over the landing-net, as it almost invariably happens that 

some of the hooks of the flight are outside and not inside the 

fish's mouth, and are thus apt to get caught and inconveniently 

entangled in the net. In fact, the landing of pike caught 

spinning with a net leads to a frequent destruction of the (lights,


the fish pulling one way and the net holding the other ; and 

even if a separation de corps between the various hooks does 

not occur there and then, they are likely to be permanently 

weakened and their efficiency impaired. The disentangling 

of the hooked pike from the net is also far from a pleasant 

operation. 

The gaff for pike -fishing should not be so large as that 

which can be used with advantage for salmon, but the bend of 

hook which is best in one is best for the other. A gaff of the 

form shown in the engraving and measuring about two inches 

across the hook will be probably found on the whole the most 

convenient size and shape. 

It may not be out of place, perhaps, to repeat 

here a few 

suggestions that may help the tyro in learning how to gaff his 

own or his friend's fish. There is a 'high art,' of course, 

attainable in gaffing as in everything else, and it may even be 

said that special qualities, physical and mental, are required to 

make a really first-rate gaffer. Steady nerves and a lightning- 

like rapidity of decision are amongst the qualities most essential. 

Nor must the capacity for rapid decision be divorced from its 

proper complement, rapidity of action. The gaffer should beware 

of letting the ' 

I dare not ' 

' 

wait upon I would.' He must 

be ever ready, in fact, to perceive the auspicious moment, and to 

give instantaneous effect to the perception. The process reminds 

one of the sort of sudden encounter described as a ' 

word and 

a blow,' except that a blow is about the last thing to be resorted 

to by a successful gaffer ; 

and that brings me to the threatened 

hints for beginners, by attending to which they will possibly 

save the loss of many good fish. 

1. Never thrust your gaff forward until you are prepared 

to strike, and never make any half-attempts. These feints 

generally scare the fish, and not unfrequently cut the line. 

2. Under ordinary circumstances do not attempt to gaff a 

pike that is more than a foot below the surface, or until he is 

pretty fairly spent. The best position in which to gaff a fish is 

when he is 'broadside on.' 

II. D

34 


3. The proper place to gaff is as near as possible behind the 

shoulder. 

4. The critical moment having arrived, rapidly, but at the 

same time steadily, extend your gaff over and beyond the 

shoulder of the fish, it bringing gently down upon it, as it were. 

Then a short sharp jerk from the wrist and elbow will drive in 

the gaff without prematurely frightening the fish or endangering 

the tackle. 

5. Once more, above all things avoid anything like giving a 

blow with the gaff. This is likely to prove fatal to everything 

except 

the fish. 

But to continue the question of the fisherman's equipment. 

A subject not yet treated of in this volume is that of how to 

carry the fish when they are caught I mean Fishing-baskets 

and Bags. 

In the first volume (pp. 92-97) some descriptions will be 

found of the latest improvements in the matter of creels and fish- 

carriers. For purposes of pike-fishing, where the game is apt 

to be lengthy, either a large wicker creel, such as that some- 

times used for salmon, or a wide ' 

bag,' with extending sides, is 

necessary to carry the fish with any comfort. Where sport is 

really good, however, either with pike or salmon, some other 

means will have to be hit upon, as circumstances may indicate, 

in substitution for bags and baskets. In each case it is quite 

out of the question to attempt carrying one's own fish. I have 

often known even the extensive well of a Thames punt so far 

filled by the results of a successful foray that the occupants had to 

be removed and prematurely despatched to avoid suffocating the 

baits and each other. For the ordinary purposes of float-fishing 

or even jack-fishing where, as I say, the fish are not too large 

or too plentiful Farlow's or Hardy's creel, or one of the fish 

carriers already referred to of the largest si/e, will be found 

practically to answer every purpose ; all of : 

them, in d fferent 

ways, have the advantage of containing 

tackle or luncheon 

compartments separate from the fish-carrying' portion.


I once knew a very expensive salmon river in Ireland, where 

the tenant calculated on paying half his rent by the sale of the 

fish. In this instance the difficulty of disposing of the game 

was very simply overcome : the contractor who bought the 

salmon, went backwards and forwards between his house and 

the river, and as fast as a fish was caught it was carried off and 

put in ice ready for shipment to London or Dublin the same 

evening. 

it, &c. 

A few words here on gimp, and the way to select and stain 

Gimp that is, or should be, a strand of the purest floss silk 

lapped round with brass or copper wire of different thicknesses 

is an almost indispensable adjunct in most kinds of pike-tackle. 

Its merit is, that whilst as pliant and as fine as the finest twisted 

gut or silk line, it is practically impervious to the teeth of the 

Various sizes of gimp are manufactured, 

ordinary run of pike. 

and of the thicknesses usually employed by fishermen the num- 

' 

the coarsest.' No. i is dupli- 

bers run from ooo, 'the finest,' to 3, 

cated, that is, there is, a fine No. i and a coarser No. i. This 

.gives seven numbers in all, 1 and between them the pike-fisher 

need find no difficulty in selecting exactly what suits his pur- 

pose. I never use anything thicker than the fine No. i myself, 

and if the troller keeps the other three smaller sizes, that is ooo, 

oo, and o, he will have abundant selection. As there are great 

differences in the quality of gimp, and consequently in the cost 

of its production, it will be found the best plan in the long run 

always to purchase the most expensive, as the differences 

between good and bad gimp cannot readily be observed by the 

eye, and are often not discovered until too late. The best 

rough and ready method of testing its quality, and one which 

I recommend all purchasers of gimp to resort to, is the very 

simple one of trying its strength or weight-lifting power. As in 

the case also of dressed silk trolling-lines, the fisherman will be 

1 These are the sizes and numbers of the best gimp as manufactured by 

Messrs. Kenning, of Little Britain. London. 

D 2

36 


surprised at the great 

differences which he will find in this 

particular in gimps and lines of the same thickness and 

apparent value. 

One other hint. The best gimp is usually made on per- 

fectly white silk, gimp dressed on yellow-coloured silk being 

ordinarily of an inferior quality. 

Although, however, gimp forms an almost indispensable 

adjunct in most kinds of pike-tackle, it has, in its natural state, 

the great disadvantage of being exceedingly glittering and showy 

in the water, especially when new. Nothing can be much 

worse, in fact, in the interests of 'fine fishing' than the white 

or yellow of gimp as it comes first from the tackle shops, whilst 

copper-coloured gimp is only a degree less offensive ; indeed, so 

great is the drawback that some authors actually recommend 

the troller taking the trouble of lapping all the gimp over from 

end to end like the shanks of hooks. To get over this inconvenience 

I tried, when writing the ' 

Book of the Pike,' various 

ways of staining or clouding it. Green paint and green sealingwax 

varnish, I found, both answered this purpose for a short 

time, so also did in a less degree the common tackle varnish, 

but these soon wear off, as do also other less effectual dyes. 

The difficulty is to get a stain that will permanently cloud, 

without in any way impairing the present strength of the gimp, 

or affecting its durability. The best stain I could then hit 

upon, which has since been very generally 

shops, was based upon soaking the gimp 

used in the tackle 

in a solution of 

bichlorate of platinum. 

This process is, however, apparently only applicable to brass 

had reason to think that in several 

gimp, and I have certainly 

instances when the coil of stained gimp has been laid by for 

some time, it has become so much weakened or rotted either 

by the original action of the chemical, or subsequent corrosion 

affecting 

the silk as to make it worthless. Others besides 

myself have had this experience, and altogether I should 

hesitate now to recommend it. 

Amongst those who tried it, Mr. Hearder, who is well


known as an authority on sea-fishing, formed an unfavourable 

opinion, and in a letter to the Field^ wrote : 

I have more than once observed in the Field queries from 

your correspondents respecting the mode of staining gimp black, 

and I met with a recipe a short time since recommending that 

it should be dipped into a solution of bichlorate of platinum. 

There is no doubt of the efficacy of this process ; but it may chance 

to do more than is required, for allow me to suggest that the operator 

may find an effect produced analogous to that observed by an 

amateur who, having been advised by a friend to waterproof his flax 

line by soaking it in 'boiled linseed oil,' forgot the instructions, and 

used the linseed oil boiling, which completely charred his line. 

The following process for blackening gimp is as efficacious and 

harmless as it is simple. 

Put your gimp into a little box of card paper, or what not ; 

cover it with some flowers of sulphur, put it aside, and in a day or 

two it will be as black as you can desire. If you cannot wait a day 

or two, but must have it at once, get a little sulphur in the soluble 

state, viz., sulphide of ammonium formerly hydrosulphuret of 

ammonia. Put a few drops of this into water, and immerse your 

gimp. A few hours will make it black enough, without in the 

slightest degree injuring the silk within. 

You had better conduct the process out of doors, as the odour 

of sulphuretted hydrogen is not agreeable to everybody. 

To this the editor of the Field appends the following note : 

Mr. Hearder is perfectly right in his condemnation of the pre- 

paration of platinum. We had some traces of gimp stained by it 

and after a few months' keeping they snapped under very slight 

strain, like scorched string. 

Captain Robinson, late of the Bombay army, writes to me 

that sulphide of potassium is a good permanent stain, both for 

brass and silver gimp. 

He says : 

In your ' Book of the Pike,' which I have lately read, bichlorate of 

platinum is recommended for staining brass gimp. This I failed 

to obtain in a county town, but being convinced of the importance 

of staining gimp, I thought of trying sulphide of potassium. As I 

find this gives a permanent stain to both silver and brass gimp, I 

take the liberty of mentioning it to you. Sulphide of potassium 

3rr; Of

38 


may be made by dissolving a little lapis infernalis in water, mixing 

flowers of sulphur with it, and heating in a Florence flask. I believe 

quicklime in boiling water will also dissolve sulphur. 

As I have not thoroughly tested either of these processes, 

and am rather disheartened by the 'modified successes' of my 

original experiments, I have of late years taken to the use of 

' 

Brunswick black ' 

(such as is used for japanning iron, blacking 

fire grates, &c.), it applying with a small hard brush to the 

gimp just before use. It dries in a few minutes, and, I think, 

for all practical purposes, quite sufficiently removes the objectionable 

glitter. It can be renewed as often as needful, and 

instead of destroying, I am satisfied that this method of staining 

tends to the preserving of the strength of the gimp. The 

smallest of phials of the Brunswick black carried in the pocket 

or in the trolling-case will suffice for many days' needs. 

Premising that gimp is far from having the same durability 

as gut, and that gimp tackle which has been already often in 

use becomes generally more or less rotten and unsafe to fish 

with, it may be said that really good gimp can hardly 

be used 

too fine. It would appear, in fact, as if the best workmanship 

and the best silk were reserved for the finer numbers, as they 

are decidedly stronger in proportion than the large sizes. 

One word as to the dressing of gimp tackle. All tackle- 

makers, whether amateur or professional, find that there is a 

greater difficulty in whipping hooks on to gimp than on to gut 

whipping them, I mean, so as to effectually preclude any 

possibility of their coming off. This is, of course, owing 

primarily to the fact that the waxed silk only comes in contact 

with the exterior coils or covering of wire, and not with 

the strand of silk itself. The result is that occasionally the 

furthest end of the wire coil becomes loosened from the silk, 

the lapping being then held only by the compression of the 

waxed silk upon the coiled wire of the remaining one half or 

two thirds, and a sudden wrench is very apt to divorce them 

finally. To avoid this result it will be found best to pull off 

(or untwist) the wire from about one third the length of the


gimp to be lapped over, thus bringing the lapping in direct 

contact with the central strand of the gimp or rather silk. 

The wire detached in this way can conveniently be utilised by 

a sort of preliminary whipping of the gimp to the hook-shank, 

which materially facilitates the subsequent process of lapping 

with waxed thread. In all gimp tackle it is very desirable to 

carefully varnish the hook lappings so as effectually to exclude 

the water, which is apt otherwise to corrode the brass. 

The varnish already described at page 17 will be found 

an excellent varnish for the lappings of hooks and all other 

purposes connected with tackle-making. Red and green varnishes, 

&c., can be made by dissolving sealing wax of the 

desired tint in spirits of wine.

40 


BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 

THE best natural baits for spinning for pike that I am ac- 

quainted with are either gudgeon cr small dace. I say small 

dace because leaving out of consideration some specially 

preserved English lakes and rivers, or the wide sweeping tracts 

of water which are to be found scattered over Ireland and 

Scotland experience points to the advantage 

of a small-sized 

bait over a large one. It spins better, lasts longer, and is 

much more agreeable to fish with. With a small bait, also, 

the chances of hooking a fish are considerably increased, on 

account of the difference in the size of the flight of hooks that 

can be used, and the diminished pressure required to make 

them penetrate. 

No bait actually spins so well, and the eel-tail excepted 

lasts so long on the hook as a gudgeon, and I confess that, 

except in cases where the water is very large or clouded, my 

experience leads me to give the preference to this bait over all 

others. Bigger baits with brighter scaling should, however, he 

used where waters are much swollen or discoloured. As a rule, 

safe to use a small bait when 

it may be said that it is always 

the water is low and bright, and a larger one when it is full 

or settling after a flood. 

Next in merit to gudgeon and dace comes the bleak, a 

favourite spinning-bait also for Thames trout-fishing, but sadly 

delicate, and apt to lose its glittering bathing-dress upon the 

slightest provocation. A small chub makes a very fairly good 

spinning-bait, as does also a trout, a salmon parr, or smolt, a 

' 

penk 

' 

grayling, and last, but not least, the tail of a small eel,

BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 41 

which, with a head extemporised out of a flap of the skin, will 

be found most deadly in many waters. It possesses also the 

' 

almost umvearable-out.' 

great advantage of being 

Amongst occasional spinning-baits I ought not to omit the 

stone loach, or ' 

beaidy,' as he is sometimes called north of the 

Tweed, which, if you can get him big enough, will give a really 

brilliant spin, and makes an excellent substitute for the gudgeon 

as a pike bait in very fine waters. He is, however, almost im- 

possible to keep alive, and, especially of the size I refer to, net 

indeed easy to get hold of at all. It is a case of ' 

first catch 

your loach.' l The mode of doing so is simply to walk into a 

stream with a small pronged dinner-fork in your hand and turn 

up the likely-looking stones. You will soon see when you have 

disturbed a loach, and, as he never swims beyond a few feet at 

a time, if, indeed, he does not remain in statu quo, as very 

often happens, you can easily track him, and then by a sort of 

eel- spearing operation, transfer him to your bait-box. For 

trout-spinning on a Scotch or Irish loch there is no better bait. 

Any sea-fish that ' 

approximates to the dace shape,' such as 

bass or grey-mullet which is not, that is to say, too broad in 

proportion to its length, and is sufficiently glittering may be 

used as a spinning-bait. I have tried sprats and one or 

two others, but they did not succeed very well, as they seemed 

to have, one and all, a rooted aversion to remaining on the 

hooks for above a few casts. Of the other freshwater fish 

that might possibly be pressed into the spinner's service when 

nothing else can be got, and which, par parenthhe, nothing can 

ever make spin decently, are roach, rudd, carp, and goldfish. 

I should think a small barbel would make a very good bait, 

but I have never tried it. Another bait also that I have never 

used myself for pike-spinning, but which I have been told is 

deadly under certain conditions of extreme fineness of water, 

1 ' The author of Lorna Doone ' 

says that in the stream of Lynn, ' 

where, 

however, they were not quite so large as in the Loman,' he has taken 'I caches 

to the weight of half a pound.' From an eighth to a quarter of an ounce 

would be much more like the ordinary run.

42 


is a minnow. Indeed, it was mentioned to me by 

Lord Har- 

rington that he has a sheet of water in Cheshire containing 

some exceedingly fine pike which are not to be tempted with 

any other spinning-bait. 

It has been recommended by some authors that spinning-baits 

should be allowed to stiffen before being used, and 

others have stated that the keeping them in salt, or ' 

pickle,' for 

a day or two improves their flavour. Certainly it has been 

' 

' 

well said, there is no accounting for taste ! 

Not only does a 

fresh bait spin better than a stale one, but the lack of elasticity 

flabbiness ' 

of the stale bait to a great extent 

and general ' 

destroy its life-likeness, 

whilst its scales lose their metallic 

brilliance, and the eye the most prominent feature in all 

spinning-baits becomes shrunken and lustreless. Fish, 

as it 

has been truly remarked, are not aldermen, and, unless it be 

the eel. none that I know of prefer their food high. 

If possible, therefore, spinning-baits, and, it is needless to 

add, live-baits also, should be kept alive, and carried with him 

by the troller. The bait-can, or other receptacle, can then.be 

placed in the water from time to time, which reduces the chance 

of the theory of the survival of the fittest being worked out in 

a manner only too complete and unanswerable. 

When, however, it is desired to preserve baits alive for any 

considerable length of time, they ought to be placed in a 

running stream, if practicable in a box not less than two or 

three feet square with free gratings in several places, and 

specially at both ends, the grated ends being anchored up and 

down stream. The upper portions of the box, also perforated, 

ought by rights to be partly out of the water, and the whole 

should be kept clean and well scoured from time to time. 

Dead baits should be removed from the box periodically, or as 

soon as discovered, and food in the form of worms, gentles, or 

chopped liver, scattered in every day or two. This latter is an 

important part of the business, as baits cannot live and thrive 

fur any considerable length of time without food, although by 

their practice many fishermen appear to believe that they can.


To pass from spinning to live-baiting. Of the baits already 

recommended for the former, the dace will be found, on the 

whole, the best for live-baiting, except when the paternoster is 

used, in which case a gudgeon or large minnow is generally 

preferred. A roach or rudd also forms an excellent live-bait 

for large pike, and my experiences with goldfish and carp have 

been sufficiently encouraging to lead me to think that there are 

probably many waters where the goldfish especially might be 

found an attractive bait, and a few where none other would be 

looked at. Both goldfish and carp are very tenacious of life, 

and consequently fulfil satisfactorily the primary condition of a 

good live-bait. 

' 

The tench is also a very hard dier,' but there is a popular 

he is omitted 

superstition that being a sort of water Esculapius, 

from the menu by the pike and other predaceous fish. To this 

superstition I purpose to refer at greater length when treating 

of the tench himself as a sporting fish, and I would only 

observe here that although I have tried a good many ex- 

periments with tench as pike-bait, I have never succeeded in 

actually catching any pike with them. 

A novel way of keeping baits lively when on the hooks, has 

lately been broached in some of the papers, and Mr. W. Oldham 

Chambers, Secretary to the National Fish Culture Association, 

whose labours in the field of fish culture and acclima- 

tisation are so well known and highly appreciated, writes thus 

on the subject in the Fishing Gazette of October 25, 1884 :- 

BRANDY AS A FISH REVIVER. 

I have continued my experiments in relation to brandy as a 

means of restoring suspended animation with quick-dying fish, the 

results being equally as satisfactory as with carp. 

It was highly interesting to see the plucky manner a trout 

(S.ferox) battled with his fainting condition and came out the conqueror. 

Strange to say, the salmon (S. salar) did not once attempt 

to rouse himself after being dosed, the consequences being fatal to 

him this was the ; 

only fish that succumbed under the treatment. 

As regards the dace I 

(Leuciscus vulgaris), had him out of

44 


water three times of five minutes each. He was exceedingly faint 

and almost dead ; but immediately the brandy was given, he pulled 

himself together, and in the course of a few minutes not only 

recovered, but darted round the can with a rapidity positively 

amazing. 

The result of the latter experiment tends in the most conclu- 

sive manner to show to anglers the great value of a judicious 

administration of brandy to a dace prior to being used for bait. 

How often have we felt the want of a nice lively dace when on 

the warpath for pike ? To have the means at command of not 

only restoring an inanimate bait, but also increasing its strength 

and vigour, will be of much service to the angling fraternity. 

Since the above, letters have appeared from trailers stating 

Dutch- 

that excellent results have been obtained in practice by ' 

couraging ' 

their live-baits. 

In order to give baits their best chance of surviving without 

the artificial aid of brandy and water, it is well that the hands of 

the trailer should not be frequently inserted in the bait-can, as 

this has the effect both of raising the temperature of the water, 

and frightening, if not also bruising, the live-bait. The latter 

should be taken out with the miniature hand-net sold for the 

purpose, and killed as required. The most instantaneous and 

effectual way of doing this is to give them two or three sharp 

' 

' 

flips with the finger, or, in the case of large baits, taps with a 

small stick, or else the handle of a fishing-knife, on the back 

of the head until all sign of motion ceases. The first tap or 

two, however, when scientifically delivered, generally stuns 

them completely, and the death thus inflicted is probably 

absolutely painless. 

To keep the baits lively and well, however, until the fated 

moment, is not only humane, but eminently judicious from a 

' 

with a well ' 

practical point of view. Failing a punt in it, 

which is in every way the most luxurious arrangement, there 

remains, of course, nothing but the bait-can. As in many 

other branches of fishing-tackle using the word in its broader 

sense there have recently been made great strides towards the 

perfecting of this very important desideratum.


The first improvement was the addition of a second, or 

internal, can, consisting of a movable zinc grating with a sepa- 

rate handle, by which the extraction and selection of the baits 

were vastly simplified. 

This appliance effects a great saving of 

time, besides avoiding the probability, as someone observes, of 

poking out the bait's eyes with the operator's thumb-nail. 

Another step in advance for which I rather think I may 

be myself possibly entitled to the credit was the addition of a 

double lid, and the construction of the bait-can pannier-shape^ 

so that it could be carried by a strap, like an ordinary creel, 

over the trailer's shoulder when fishing alone. 

The most important point in a live-bait can being, of course, 

that it should be so constructed as to keep the bait alive, the 

double lid was a move in the right direction. It had the effect, 

at any rate, of keeping out the sun and keeping in the water. 

The absence of a second lid often causes or accelerates the 

death of the baits in hot weather. When the weather is cold 

its presence will preserve the legs of the carrier from a perpetual 

sprinkling of half-frozen water. The convenience of being able 

to carry the bait-can in the manner described should, I think, 

be appreciated by those who do much pike-fishing without an 

attendant. It makes, in fact, in many cases the entire difference 

between comfort and discomfort. Carried in the trailer's hand, 

the choice lies between, on the one side, stopping fishing and 

carrying the can along with him, or, on the other, of leaving 

the can behind and continuing fishing. In the latter case the 

whole of the river bank has to be traversed three times, once 

backwards and twice forwards. 

My can, which is figured in several previous essays, can be 

comfortably carried without much inconvenience, and relieves 

the angler from the choice between Scylla and Charybdis. Its 

effect, too, as an auxiliary to aeration, in other words as a 

bubble-distributor, is also not to be overlooked. 

As regards the double or interior bait-can, I am sorry I am 

unable to give ' 

honour where honour is due ' 

for this very 

excellent invention, but I do not know who it was that first

46 


conceived the idea. Mr. Basil Field, whose admirable bait-can 

I shall presently have to refer to, has frankly disclaimed the 

authorship. He says he first saw the principle applied to the 

minnow compartment of a punt-well some forty years ago, and 

shortly afterwards to an ordinary bait-can a lady's basket doing 

duty in this instance for the perforated chamber. In another 

instance an inner lining was made of net extended on a wire 

frame a cheap and useful makeshift which may be recommended 

to those who do not wish to go to the expense of a 

new can. Mr. Field adds that he himself constructed an in- 

ternal can out of a biscuit-tin at least twenty-eight years ago, 

and remembers the fact by having cut his hand badly with the 

edge of the tin whilst punching the holes. 

The drawback to both my double-lidded can and the other 

improved can described is that they have no apparatus for 

aerating the water, by which means alone the baits can be kept 

alive during a whole day. The only attempt I ever saw made 

to meet the difficulty was an indiarubber ' 

squash-ball,' fitted 

with a valve and a piece of tubing that could be carried in the 

pocket and introduced into the bait-can from time to time. 

At best, however, this was a very imperfect and inconvenient 

appliance, and in practice seldom resorted to. We are indebted 

to Mr. Basil Field for a bait-can in which the aerating apparatus 

being contained in the handle of the bait-can itself can be 

used with the utmost facility and effectiveness while the can is 

being carried. The keeping of the baits alive all day is of even 

greater importance to the troller than the inconvenience of 

having to carry them backwards and forwards ; and taking 

it altogether Mr. Field's invention is indisputably at present 

the best description of can obtainable. Whether or not it 

might be improved by, in some way or another, adding a double 

lid and a shoulder strap, is a question ; but, on the whole, I 

should be prepared to face the chance both of dripping and 

delay in exchange for the pre-eminent advantage of being able 

to keep my baits alive from morning till night. 

The engravings represent the two parts of the can


separated, and the position of the bellows and tube. 

air-conducting 

When grasping the handle of the can in the act of 

carrying, 

the handle, so to speak, of the bellows (A) can be easily and 

naturally worked by the thumb. The air pumped from the 

handle is conveyed down a small tube (B) into the bottom of 

the can, so that the aeration of the whole of the water must be 

thoroughly effected. 

FIELD'S AERATING BAIT-CAN. 

It is satisfactory to learn that a Diploma was awarded by 

the late Fisheries Exhibition to Mr. Basil Field for his admirable 

invention, for which the thanks of all pike-fishers are due. 

The cans are made at present in two sizes, i gallon and 

1 .7 gallon and may be obtained from Mr. Henry Bawcombe, 

2 Victoria Road, Holloway, N. 

For the catching of most of the so-called coarse freshwater 

fish used as pike-bait already described, the ordinary circular 

casting-net, familiar to haunters of the Thames, will be found 

the most convenient implement. Some considerable aptitude 

and not a little practice are, however, required in the use of 

this net, and if the caster does not wish to be soaked through 

to the skin in a few minutes he is recommended to take the 

precaution of putting on an old waterproof to receive the net- 

drippings instead of his own garments.

48 


It will often be found of assistance to expend a few handsful 

of ground-bait in attracting fish to the spot which the caster 

can most conveniently cover with the sweep of his net. I have 

also heard of glass bottles filled with fresh roses being used for 

the same purpose, though I do not vouch for the success 

of this novel sort of horticultural show. In the casting for 

Gudgeon ' 

raking ' 

the bottom is often a good expedient. 

The modern casting-net was, there is good reason to believe, 

similar to or identical with the amphiblestron, or casting-net of 

the ancients. A fisherman with net in hand and just about to 

make his cast was one of the figures on the shield of Hercules, 

whose attitude was thus described : 'And on the land there 

stood a fisherman on the look out, and he held in his hands a 

casting-net for fish, being 

like to a man about to hurl it from 

him.' Or as it has been versified 

On the crag a fisher sat 

Observant ; 

in his grasp he held a net, 

Like one that poising rises to the throw. 

The Latin names for the casting-net were jacnlnm and 

fi/nda, each of which terms etymologically explains its use ; thus 

Ovid writes, 

Hi jaculo pisces, illi capiuntur ab hamis, 

and Virgil uses the latter name 

Atque alius latum funda jam verberat amncm. 

The Greek term to denote the cast was /3oA.os, from fldXXu, 

'to throw.' The Romans used their casting-net, it is probable, 

in a manner not dissimilar to the Greeks ; and they had the same 

term to signify 'the cast,' bolus. There is a very amusing pas- 

sage in Plautus, where Dinarchus compares the dangers of iove 

and its allurements to fish caught in a casting-net : 

Quasi in piscinam rete qui jaculum parat : 

Quando abiit rete pessum, turn adducit sinum. 

Sin jecit rete, piscis ne effugiat, cavet : 

Dum hue dum illuc reti eos impedit 

Pisces, usque adeo donicum eduxit foras. 

Itidem est amator. (True, act i. sc. i.)


'Just like a man who throws his casting-net into a fish 

pond when the net sinks to the bottom he contracts his ; 

folds, 

and when he has made his throw he takes care that the fish do 

not escape, whilst the net entangles them in all directions in its 

meshes till he land them safely ; so is the lover.' 

From this passage it is pretty clear that the jaculum^ like 

the afji(f)i/3X.r](rTpov, must have been nearly identical in form and 

manner of use with our own casting-net. 

The landing-net was also employed by the ancient fisher- 

men, its Greek name (iiTro^r/) sufficiently explains its use ; it 

was provided with a hoop at the top, and fastened to a pcle or 

rod. The material of which nets were made was flax (linum\ 

hence that term is employed to denote a net 

Pelagoque alius trahit humida lina. 

(VlRG. Gear. I. 142.) 

but hemp was also sometimes employed. 

In private waters a small meshed sweep or seine net may 

often be used to the economy of time. On public waters, how- 

ever, this sort of net, which is quite as apt to catch big fish as 

little ones, would, of course, be out of the question. I shall 

never forget a comical incident which happened to my friend, 

Frank Buckland, when we were once catching baits together in 

this way in water belonging to Sir Edward Hulse. I must tell 

the story, however, in his own words : 

1 The keeper and I got the net out and a famous big net 

it was and, then, making a sweep, we surrounded the pool, 

letting it out from the stern of the boat as we punted along. 

The keeper then put on his waterproof boots, as we had to 

wade the rest of the way. I got out into the water just as I 

was, with him, and we both hauled away at the rope. VVheii 

we were about half through the distance, and the keeper was 

hauling the rope towards him, and I had got it over my shoulder, 

both pulling might and main in opposite directions, the rope 

broke off short in the middle. The keeper went flat down 

on his back in about three feet of water, and disappeared 

II. 

F.

50 


among the weeds, floundering like a great porpoise, 

took a header forwards into a deep hole. 

while it 

' We both got a sound ducking, and were rewarded only 

by shouts of laughter from Pennell, the miller's family, and 

two policemen, who came with the instinct of their species, and 

were glad to get something to look at in a country where their 

exertions are amply rewarded by one prisoner 

a month. I 

myself did not care a rap for the wetting I had on all flannel, 

and soon got dry again. The keeper, however, drew a long 

face, for he was subject to the " rheumatics," and had put on his 

' 

water boots in order to ! 

keep dry 

Unluckily river keepers and water bailiffs are not the only 

sufferers from rheumatism, neuralgia, and the other ills that 

flesh, or rather 'fish,' bear in their train, and until the fulfilment 

of the Scotchman's wish that lake and stream were all ' 

one 

half Glenlivat,' I fear there is no royal road to escaping them 

except by a careful use of waders, which are too often considered 

as inconvenient superfluities by enthusiastic young men in the 

Mid might and flourish of their May. 

The youthful fisherman, and especially the salmon fisher, dis- 

dains the counsel of older experience, and acts as if for him the 

'sere and yellow leaf time can never arrive, or if it does, it 

will be when he is too old any longer to care about wielding 

the rod. This is of course a double mistake, because, in the 

first place, we may by reasonable prudence postpone, or by 

rash foolhardiness ante-date our old age, and in the second no 

one ever thinks of giving up his favourite sport because Anno 

Domini tells him he is well on the downhill road of life. On the 

contrary, the passion oftener than not grows in growing years. 

* Once an angler always an angler,' has long been proverbial, 

and are we not all familiar with the half comic, half tragic picture 

of the old bedridden enthusiast, with his rheumatism-racked 

legs swathed in blankets, fishing for roach in a tub by the fireside? 

Depend upon it many a strong man has had nolens 

Tolens to lay by his salmon rod and shoulder a crutch instead,


long before the arm-chair age ought to have arrived, solely 

because he was too headstrong or too stupid to practise a little 

prudence and adopt a few common sense precautions in the 

' 

days of his youth.' 

Though not yet an old man, I have lived long enough to 

already regret the folly of many an early recklessness. Like other 

naturally hardy young fellows, I never used (on what may be 

called the cast-iron-constitution theory), to bother myself about 

' 

wading boots and all that sort of molly-coddling,' and thought 

it half the ' 

fun ' 

standing up to my waist in water all day, with 

perhaps a few intervening ' 

duckings,' begotten rather of super- 

fluous rashness than of reasonable necessity. 

Or again when I had been trolling and got my own or a 

friend's best flight, or my last bait, well hitched up in the flags 

under the opposite bank of the Avon or the Stour, not once, 

but scores of times I have retrieved the situation by swimming 

and remained damp for the rest of the day. The last time I 

committed this betise, was, as I well remember, some three or 

four years ago when spinning late in the autumn on Mr. Banks' 

water on the Stour. It was a nasty chill raw October or 

November day, and my friends on the bank thought I should 

never get across, so cold and strong was the stream, and so thick 

the weeds and other obstructions. As a matter of fact I just did 

it and that was all ; I saved losing my last spinning-bait and 

caught a chill which I verily believe will give me occasional 

reminders to the end of my days. Another wise performance 

of years gone by was shooting a Thames weir in flood time, in 

tubs of such size and make as to practically ensure a capsize, 

the fun being to swim out again with the boat, empty it, 

' 

and carrying it above the weir, repeat the till 

performance 

further orders.' 

' 

Flood time ' 

on the Thames, means generally the time 

when even swimming in a more common sense fashion should 

be abjured ; what was likely to be the result in the way of 

stored-up rheumatisms and neuralgias of this original and 

striking development of the art ?

52 


The result was, or rather is, that for the last five years I 

have suffered a periodical martyrdom wliich for the time being 

makes river and coverside alike out of the question. Indeed, 

in giving this advice to my brother fishermen I do so with a 

full connaissance de cause, as I write these lines in the train 

which is bringing me back, for this reason alone, and much 

against my will, from a good day's cover shooting 

to medical 

rubbers, Turkish baths, and similar consolations for the afflicted ! 

' 

. . . Let me once more then, as one who knows,' sum up the 

foregoing cautions : Flee damp legs, cultivate not promiscuous 

duckings, eschew watercourses without waders, and wear flannel 

next your skin. 

But to return from this digression suggested by our efforts 

to catch bait with that very convenient (if it be not rotten) im- 

plement, a sweep 

net : 

For minnow-catching the ordinary form of net is circular, 

from a foot and three-quarters to two feet or so in diameter. 

It is suspended from a pole by strings, like the parachute of a 

balloon, and, being decorated with a few bits of red wool, or 

cloth, to excite curiosity or avidity, it is lowered gently into the 

middle of a shoal, and as soon as the minnows are seen over it in 

sufficient numbers, the net is swiftly and strongly raised to the 

surface, usually bringing with it a proportion of the intending 

diners or investigators. 

If from any cause the spinner cannot carry his baits with 

him alive, the best plan is to wrap them up, immediately after 

being killed as before described, in the folds of a soft damp 

cloth a housemaid's duster answers the purpose very well 

which should be remoistened whenever it shows symptoms of 

dryness. I would recommend this method, in preference to 

the ' 

dry bran system ' 

advocated by many authorities, as being 

both more convenient and maintaining better the elasticity and 

brightness of the baits. Salt or brine is fatal, as the fish 

rapidly become flaccid and lose every attractive quality which 

it is desirable that they should possess.


Many plans have been tried, and, indeed, I have tried many 

myself such as brine, dry salt, oxalic acid, &c. to preserve 

fish-bait in a perfect state for use, and so as to keep for 

at least a few weeks. I have also tried having them packed 

(soldered up) in sardine boxes with methylated spirits of wine ; 

but even that was only a partial success, and with this excep- 

tion none of my own experiences, nor, so far as I am aware, 

those of other experimenters, have been entirely satisfactory. 

Some of them, however, will be found in the 'Book of the 

Pike' (5th edition). 

The sardine box experiment did certainly produce bait 

which would kill pike, not by any means so well as when fresh, 

but well enough probably to make a basket in most waters the 

occupants of which are not over-pampered or fastidious. There 

is another exception to the non-success of preserving baits, in 

the case of the eel-tail before alluded to, which, probably owing 

to the nature of the skin, instead of becoming soft and flabby 

as other baits do when 'pickled,' becomes, on the contrary, 

additionally tough, and if packed in plenty of coarse dry salt, 

either in a jar or other receptacle, will keep, in my own expe- 

rience, for four or five weeks and probably much longer. 

The 

salted eel, before being used, should be allowed to soak in 

fresh water for ten or fifteen hours to restore its plumpness and 

elasticity. In fact, so admirably does the salted eel-tail fulfil 

every requirement which the most exacting could demand that 

the Great 

it may be said to partially solve that vexata qnizstio, 

Preserved Bait Problem, which has occupied so often and so 

long the attention of writers on fishing and of the sporting 

papers, and in which the comfort of the pike-spinner 

is so 

materially concerned. I must repeat, however, that it solves 

it only partially. It only solves it in regard to those waters in 

which the eel-tail bait can be used successfully, and they are by 

no means all or nearly all. Indeed, I have known some rivers, 

like the Avon in Hampshire, in which, when first tried, it suc- 

ceeded admirably, but where, from some unexplained reason 

it is now no longer a killing bait, whether salted or fresh.

54 


Perhaps I used i\: at different seasons of the year, or perhaps 

when the eels were on the run, and when the pike were looking 

out for them ; or perhaps when eels were not running and, 

consequently, somewhat of a delicacy. Unfortunately, my 

notes do not show all this, so I can only state the bare fact, 

without attempting any theory to explain it. 

No doubt we have other instances, like that of the spoon- 

bait, where the 'sensation' has certainly seemed to wear off 

after the fish have become accustomed to the novelty. Consider- 

ing, however, that enough salted eel-baits can be carried in a 

small box or bait-can to last the spinner easily for a week, and 

that these can be kept and used again if not wanted, it would 

seem to be worth while where there is any difficulty in pro- 

curing fresh bait, to give 

the salted eel at least a trial. 

Here is a prescription for preserving whitebait discovered 

by Mr. Rolfe, and mentioned by Mr. Greville Fennell in the 

field. It certainly 'sounds well,' though I should have 

thought whitebait likely to make the tenderest rather than 

the toughest of baits, whether fresh or preserved. In other 

respects the fish would, no doubt, prove attractive as a 

spinning-bait, as its scaling is brilliant, and its shape not much 

unlike a bleak : 

One day when he had tried in vain for bait at the tackle shops, 

Mr. Rolfe saw some more than usually large whitebait fresh from 

Gravesend. Selecting the biggest, he popped them into a widemouthed 

bottle of methylated spirit. He was thus independent, and 

equipped for the occasion, finding them not only excellent substitutes, 

but in every respect superior to any bait to which he had 

been used. At the opening of the present trouting time this bottle 

of bait turned up with the tackle, and Mr. Rolfe's surprise was 

great indeed to find that these whitebait, instead of turning grey 

and black and losing their brightness, as minnows, &c., do, were 

not only as silvery as the day they were caught, but had acquired so 

extraordinary a toughness that, he assures me, he has taken three 

and four fish with a single bait. Why the methylated spirit should 

have these gratifying effects upon saltwater fish, and deteriorate 

those of frtsh water, I leave to longer heads than mine to determine. 

If it is the addition of a trace of salt, the experiment might be tried


upon the latter with good results where whitebait is not to be had. 

Nor should I omit to state that the whitebait plumps out after being 

removed from the spirit and coming in contact with the fresh water. 

Upon learning these facts, I at once communicated with the 

Gravesend fishmongers, who tell me that the larger 'whitebait' 

some of which are from two to four inches long are picked out 

as not saleable in the London market, and that if there was a demand 

for them almost any quantity might be had at a nominal price. 

My calculation shows that any one or two persons entering into 

this little speculation might make a considerable profit by selling 

bottles of these prepared bait to the tackle shops, or supplying 

them direct to the angler. Certainly a bottle with fifty bait therein 

might be sold for a shilling, and leave 100 to 200 per cent, to their 

credit. 

Since writing the above, I have been trying the experiment 

how long the whitebait will keep fresh out of the spirit after perfect 

saturation therein, and I have carried about with me a few, both 

loose in my waistcoat pocket and in an envelope, to show to friends, 

when now, after ten days, the bait appear as good and sweet as 

ever, the air apparently not acting the least upon the silver colour 

of the scales, and indeed it is difficult to rub the scales off with the 

finger. These whitebait can be got at least six months in the year, 

and if the size or sizes required were given on paper to a fish- 

monger, he would, no doubt, get them for a customer a day after 

they were alive. It is curious that several other spirits I have 

tried have not the hardening and preservative effect of the 

methylated. 

Mr. Rolfe used these baits for trout-spinning, but if they 

will do for trout they will do for pike, especially if, as stated, 

they can be procured of the length of four inches. 

The fresh eel (and tail) makes an excellent spinning-bait, 

tough and enduring, although not quite so long-lasting as that 

which has been salted. It has the advantage of being obtain- 

able at almost any pond, river, or canal by simply setting a 

' 

night 

line ' 

baited with worms. The line, however, must be 

taken up early in the morning, as, if allowed to remain long 

after sunrise, the major part of the eels will escape. 

I have used fresh eel-bait dressed in a great many different 

fashions, from the whole eel (where the latter is not above

56 


seven or eight inches long), to six inches or so of the tail cut 

off a larger specimea In this case the eel from which 

the bait is taken is best rather small, and should not, for 

ordinary river and lake spinning, exceed a foot and a half in 

length. For great lochs, like L. Corrib, where pike are 

scarce and run sometimes to an extraordinary size, larger eels 

may be used with advantage. When the eel is longer than 

seven or eight inches one of the best forms of spinning-bait 

may be constructed by cutting out just below the neck (after 

skinning) a piece of from three to six inches according to circumstances, 

the head and tail being then sewn closely and 

carefully together with strong holland thread, or, better, thick 

red silk. Owing, however, to the giving way of the lips after 

some little wear and tear, the ' 

natural headed ' 

eel-bait is, on 

the whole, less convenient, though, perhaps, occasionally some- 

what more attractive, than the bait made from the tail part 

only, 

an artificial head, which never wears out, being formed, 

as before observed, out of the skin. 

In order to form the head, skin the eel backwards towards the 

tail as far as the point where the bait is to commence. Then tie 

it tightly round, above the flesh, with waxed holland thread and 

cut it off to within about half an inch of the ligature ; turn the 

half-inch flap downwards over the ligature, towards the tail, 

and then stitch it carefully down to the lower skin. 1 

Either of these baits can be used upon the spinning-flights 

described further on, or any one of fifty different arrangements of 

hooks can be applied, according to the ingenuity of the troller 

and the size of the bait. It is to be observed that the original 

trouble in making these baits is amply compensated for by the 

1 To skin an eel : Having first completely killed the eel, which is most 

easily and humanely accomplished by dashing it down upon the floor or upon 

a stone, make a circular incision through the skin below the pectoral fin, This 

is best done by passing the blade of a sharp penknife under the skin, bit by 

bit, in a circular direction. Then pin the head of the eel tightly down to a 

kitchen table with a steel fork, and having got hold of the edge of the skin with 

the finger-nails, turn it, or rather pull it, down a little way now ; 

with a dry cloth, and it will generally peel backwards with ease. 

take hold of it


fact, first, that it can be done in the house before starting ; 

secondly, that, with moderate care, one bait will often last a 

whole day ; and, thirdly, that a great saving of time is effected 

by not having to put on fresh baits after every run, 

a circum- 

stance of great importance when it is remembered that pike, 

like other fish, have a knack of coming on the feed only at 

certain times, and frequently but for a very short period during 

the day. 

I have referred to the large size of the eel-baits which may 

occasionally be used with good results in wide ranges of water 

where pike are known to be of exceptional size. In Lough 

Corrib, in Galway, for example, some forty miles long, I have 

often killed large pike both with the eel-tail and with the whole 

eel, weighing over half a pound, although I was never so fortunate 

as actually to ' 

bag ' 

anything of extraordinary dimensions. 

Local tradition is, however, rife with accounts of pike of fifty, 

sixty, and some seventy pounds weight, which have been periodically 

taken out of this inland sea, and from what I have 

seen, and_/// myself, during many weeks of fishing in its waters, 

I can well believe it. Indeed I have little doubt that I have 

more than once had hold of these monsters, though 

brought one to bank ; but, of course, 

I never 

in the case of such fresh- 

water sharks, with teeth like bull-dogs, the odds are really very 

much in favour of the fish. 

I recollect once, when spinning under the north shore, not 

far from the ' 

Cut,' in a deep bay surrounded by walls of bullrushes, 

suddenly finding that my spinning-bait a whole eel of 

about half a pound weight was fast very fast indeed in something. 

From the perfectly passive, and at the same time utterly 

unyielding nature of the resistance, I concluded I had got 

hold of a rock or submerged stump, though how such should 

be found in water which I knew to be twenty feet deep at 

least was somewhat unaccountable. I had very powerful 

new gimp tackle, a strong line, and a stout rod, and I 

spared neither in my unsuccessful attempts to get clear, still 

without the slightest signs of the obstacle, whatever it was,

58 


giving way. Suddenly my bait began quietly, perfectly quietly, 

to move 1 away 

' 

' 

I shouted to my trusty henchman, 

Hughes ! 

' 

Hughes, it is a fish ! I believe I have hooked leviathan !' . . 

At that moment the line came quietly home, without an effort 

or struggle, and without the flight. The new gimp was appa- 

rently cut through as with a pair of scissors. 

To rig up a fresh flight this time of double gimp was the 

work of a very few minutes, and another eel-bait, still longer 

than the first, was soon in the water. Almost immediately I 

was fast again in the fish, who pursued precisely the same tac- 

tics as before at first remaining motionless, and then after a 

little while moving off without struggle or commotion. And after 

the display of about the same amount of vitality as before, 

once more the line came back to my hand with the doubled 

gimp neatly and cleanly severed a few inches above the bait. 

I fished the water over again, and again next day, but never 

saw anything more of my conqueror, unless, indeed, a vast 

' 

wallow ' 

a few minutes later on the surface of the Lough some 

eighty yards away, was an indication that he was 'there,' and 

probably trying 

to rid himself of his recent dinner. . . What 

this fish actually weighed can, of course, only be a matter of 

conjecture ; but I have had some experience 

' 

of the ways ' 

of 

heavy fish, both pike and salmon, and I have always believed 

that on that occasion I lost the chance of basketing the biggest 

pike of my life. These Lough Corrib pike fight like demons. 

I remember my wife catching one that weighed only thirteen 

pounds, and in his struggles to make for home a rush bed 

about eighty yards off he actually towed the boat a good 

many yards 

in that direction before he was basketed. We all 

thought at first from his style of running 

salmon. 

that it must be a 

When it is absolutely impossible to procure natural baits of 

any kind, resort must, of course, be had to artificial baits, of 

which, however, it may be said that for the most part they are 

made to catch fishers rather than fish.


A mere enumeration of the endless varieties of artificial 

pike-baits brought out by tackle-makers during the last ten or 

twenty years, would demand a chapter to itself. Besides the 

better known, or, so to speak, 'more generally recognised' 

varieties, such as phantom minnows, archimedian baits, &c., 

there are whole tribes of 'water-witches,' 'kill-devils,' 'Beelze- 

bubs,' and the like. Their name is legion ; and so far the last 

two patronymics, at least, seem not to be altogether inappropriate. 

Indeed the names of artificial baits are very commonly 

their sole recommendation ; their merits exist only in the 

imagination of their inventors or the puffing placards of cheap 

tackle-vendors. Indeed, like the heroes of the celestial empire, 

whose splendid qualities, inscribed on their backs, cannot 

be perceived until they run away, the best points of 

artificial baits are really discovered by their purchasers only 

when they have seen 'the backs of them.' 

So far as my experience goes, artificial baits and I have 

tried a good many of them are altogether inferior to natural 

baits for pike fishing. 

It is only when the latter are exhausted, 

or cannot be obtained, that the former should be resorted to. 

In addition, however, to the difficulty of the enumeration, 

Book of the 

before alluded to, there is, as I observed in the ' 

Pike,' a still further reason for relegating the subject of arti- 

ficial baits and their selection to the appreciation of individual 

anglers namely, 

' 

that the fashions ' 

appear to be perpetually 

changing. The fashions, I mean, not amongst the catchers, 

but amongst the caught. Fish tastes in such matters last apparently 

about as long as a lady's for her last new bonnet. The 

bait found most killing on some particular water or river one 

year may probably be superseded by a different one the next, 

and unless a new edition of this book were called for every six 

months a luxury that even the most sanguine author can 

hardly calculate upon the information which it might give of 

these ephemera would be constantly becoming obsolete. The 

4 

spoon-bait,' for example, created quite a furore when it first 

came out, but it seems of late years to have lost its attractive-

60 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISIL 

ness, at any rate on waters where it has been much used, and 

is now usually inferior even to the ordinary run of artificial 

baits. 

Moreover, the life of no single pike-fisher would suffice to 

fairly test them all for himself, even had he as many arms as 

Briareus ; and without aspersing the character of anglers, they, 

like other sportsmen, are credited by the Philistines with occa- 

sionally 'adorning' their experiences, so that when one reads 

that Mr. Blank succeeded in catching 5 cwt. of pike in five 

' 

hours with Mr. Dash's patent satanic tadpole,' the statement 

fails to carry to our minds the absolute conviction desirable. 

At any rate we don't all rush off to Mr. Dash's and invest in 

satanic tadpoles on the strength of it. 

Seriously, however, we know how constantly even a slight 

unintentional exaggeration will alter the facts of the case, and 

how easily omissions or additions, slight in themselves, vitiate 

the conclusions based upon them. My own experience has so 

far failed to confirm the flattering things I hear and read about 

the merits of modern artificial spinning-baits ; though it must 

be admitted they are often exceedingly pretty and ingenious. 

In order to be in the fashion I once thought I would invent 

an artificial bait myself, and my plan possessed, at least, the merit 

of simplicity : I took a medium-sized bleak to a practical 

worker in mother-of-pearl, and told him to imitate it exactly, 

scales and everything. For this purpose he was to use two 

separate pieces of mother-of-pearl for the two opposite sides 

so as to get the full lustre of the shell on both. These pieces 

were rivetted on either side of a thinnish brass plate, the tail, 

back, and anal fins being represented by corresponding excrescences 

on the brass, and, in the case of the two last named, the 

brass serving as points of attachment for two flying triangles 

linked to them with small steel rings. The 'spin 'was got from 

the tail by turning the ends of the brass in opposite directions. 

Nothing, I must say, could look more tempting and life-like, 

and hope beat high as I carried the beautiful creature to the 

river-side, and debated by what appropriate name it should be


christened. Unfortunately my inventive genius was not des- 

tined to be tried. Almost at the first cast I hooked a large 

fish, which very inconsiderately left me and alas ! my fasci- 

creation also in a stout bed of bulrushes. . . I have 

nating 

never had energy enough to have another one made, though 

stimulated by the passing success of having nearly caught a fish 

I have often meditated doing so. 1 

On one occasion, being driven to extremities for baits small 

enough to spin with, I concocted a sort 

' 

of composite ' 

bait 

with which, on several days, I had very good sport in the 

Hampshire 

Avon. The bait was made thus : I cut off the 

tail part of a dace (or even a roach would do) just at the vent, 

leaving the flesh A. shaped, the apex to form a sort of holdingon-point 

for the head. This latter was of tin, in the shape of 

an extinguisher, having several holes close to the rim through 

which I stitched it on to the bait, sewing it strongly through 

and through. On each side of this 'head,' but longer, were 

wings, to represent the pectoral fins, also of tin, soldered on, and 

turned up at different angles on opposite sides, so as to give 

the bait a brilliant spin. I caught, as I say, a great many fish 

with this bait at first, and had a large stock of the head ' 

extinguishers 

' 

made : but the second year that I tried it over the 

same water, it did not do so well, and I seldom use it now 

except when no small baits are procurable. I give the idea, 

however, for what it is worth : it may be worth trying 

' 

tinsmith can make a head ' 

for it in ten minutes. 

pinch, and any 

at a 

1 Since writing the above, in looking over an old tackle box I have accidentally 

come upon what seems to be a. duplicate, or very nearly FO, of what I may 

' 

christen my exact imitation bait.' I alwa\s thought I had the worst memory 

in Europe ; I am beginning to think I have no memory at all. This bait must 

have been made at the same time as the other, the only difference I see in it 

being that it is a trifle less plump, and that the scalure is marked more coarsely ; 

that it is not, in fact, ' drawn to scale.' I think the scales ought to be cut on 

the mother-of-pearl much smaller to carry out the imitation idea, or, in fact, 

as nearly as may be, the same size as those of actual fish. I have given this 

bait to Mr. Farlow, of 191 Strand, as a model in case any of my brother trailers 

might like to give it a trial as an experiment, observing that I do not in any 

way vouch for its success, and that my experience is absolutely confined to the 

one cast already described.


The best ' 

flight' to use with it are two flying triangles of different- 

lengths, the gimp being pushed upwards and through a hole 

in the apex after the ' 

head ' 

has been sewed on, or before if 

preferred. In the latter case the flying triangles can be made 

to stand out on opposite sides by means of the stitching. I 

forgot to say that I 'bronzed' one half the head the half 

coming next to the bait's back with Brunswick black. 

Every spinner will be wise to carry in his trolling-book at 

least one or two imitation baits in case he should find himself 

left without natural ones. 

With all artificial baits it is a good rule to remember that 

fish should be struck the very instant they take, as the first feel 

of the bait between their jaws is apt to undeceive them as 

to its true nature, and the next instinct is that of summary 

ejection. 

Amongst ' 

recognised ' 

artificial pike-baits which demand a 

passing notice in taking leave of the subject, 

I should here 

mention perhaps the ' 

' 

pike-fly,' which, like the spoon-bait,' has 

become to some extent historical. I cannot help thinking, 

however, that it is rather entitled to a niche amongst 

the curio- 

sities of angling literature than to a place in the trailer's equipment 

for actual campaigning. My friend, the late Mr. Stoddart, 

whose charming books have given delight to at least two fishing 

generations, places on record a very similar expression of 

opinion. 'I used,' he says, 'to practise it (pike-fishing with 

the fly) with tolerable success in a shallow loch in Fife ; I have 

also tried it in Perthshire, but the result of my experiment with 

the pike- fly is a conviction that it is not a lure at all attractive 

to large or even middle-sized fish.' 

The pike-fly is also occasionally used in the Norfolk 

broads, and it is fair to say that according to written testimony l 

the experience of Norfolk trollers, whilst more favourable to the 

Mr. Stoddart. 

pike-fly, is exactly opposed to that recorded by 

The writer in the Field to whom I refer alleges that in 

Norfolk, large-sized pike frequently take it freely when none 

1 J'ielJ, July 24. 1865.


over six pounds can be caught with the natural bait. The 

same writer says that he has not unfrequently killed pike with 

the fly on bright clear days when spinning was utterly useless. 

Pike-flies are generally about the size of a large Shannon 

salmon-fly, and it is supposed that they cannot be too gaudy, 

even if which ' 

' 

authorities doubt can be dressed 

too big. 

many 

they 

I must frankly say that the only pike I personally ever 

caught with the fly was taken when fishing for chub on the 

Thames, the fly being, if I recollect, a small black palmer. 

The orthodox pike-fly I have tried on just some such waters 

as those described by Mr. Stoddart, on Loch Lochy, amongst 

others, in the Caledonian chain ; on Slapton Lea, Horsea 

Mere, of pike-fishing celebrity 'Horsea pike, none like,' and 

in other apparently likely places, but uniformly without catch- 

ing anything. 

Although the pike has long since been christened the freshwater 

shark, thus establishing some sort of family connection, 

it may be presumed, between esox of the river and his salt- 

water cousins, we should hardly have thought of finding a 

parallelism between them in their willingness, under certain 

conditions, to be lured to destruction by the artificial fly. Yet 

such it appears is actually the case, according to some notes 

recently published by an American traveller.


PIKE FISHING. 

SPINNING. 

Adjusting, swift, a tendon to the line, 

They throw, then drag it glistening through the brine. 

GlANNETAZZIO. 

THE most popular as well as the most 'sporting' form of pike 

of waters and weathers 

fishing is spinning. Taking the average 

throughout the year it is probably also the most killing. It may, 

no doubt, happen that in particular waters, or states of water, 

the live-bait will kill more fish or possibly bigger fish, or that 

the growth of weeds may be such as to make the pond or river 

literally and physically impenetrable to anything but a gorgehook. 

These conditions are, of course, a law unto themselves, 

and, however great the preference that may be given to 

spinning, no troller in possession of his senses needs to be 

warned against casting his bait deliberately into a well-matted 

bed of water-lilies. Such contingencies are, however, the 

exception rather than the rule, and, as I before observed, 

taking the average of waters and weathers throughout the year, 

it may be safely assumed that the spinning-bait will bring to 

basket three fish for every two taken by any other of the 

ordinary systems with rod and line. 

I have pointed out in the ' Modern Practical Angler ' 

causes which probably combine to produce this result : 

the 

' The 

piquant effect of an apparently wounded fish upon a pike's 

appetite ; the concealment of the hooks by the bait's rotary 

motion ; and last, not least, the great extent of water which 

may be fished in a given time.' Add to this the almost uni-

PIKE FISHING SPINNING. 65 

versal applicability of spinning to all countries and climates 

and it must be admitted that it fully justifies the high position 

in piscatorial precedence awarded it by most modern authorities. 

That the pike mistakes the spinning-bait for a maimed or 

disabled fish there can, I think, be little doubt. No one who 

has watched the gyrations of a ' mad bleak,' as it is sometimes 

called, jumping and twisting about on the surface of a stream, 

could have failed to notice the resemblance between the two. 

The propensity of all animals, and of fish in particular, for 

destroying the sick and wounded members of their own species 

is less amiable than it is indisputable. As an illustration of 

this I may mention that when I was spinning with a gudgeon 

over a deepish part of the Thames below Hurley Weir, a second 

gudgeon hooked himself fast through the lip whilst, it can only 

be supposed, intent on attacking the first 

The origin of spinning, as we understand the word, has 

The first distinct mention 

often been discussed and disputed. 

of it that I remember to have met with occurs in Robert 

Salter's ' Modern Angler,' the second edition, which was published 

in iSn. Even as late as Bagster's second edition of 

'Walton's Angler,' in 1815, the existence of the art is rather 

hinted at than described. I quote the following from the ' 

Book 

of the Pike ' 

: 

' On the Continent some sort of spinning seems to have been 

known even earlier than the times of Walton himself, for his 

contemporary, Giannetazzio, writing in 1648, thus alludes to the 

art as practised by the Neapolitan fishermen for the benefit of 

the belone, or sea-pike, a fish of the same family as our fresh- 

water pike, and formerly included in the same genus : 

II. 

Burnished with blue and bright as damask steel 

Behold the belone of pointed bill ; 

All fringed with teeth, no greedier fish than they 

E'er broke in serried lines our foaming bay. 

Soon as the practised crew this frolic throng 

Behold advancing rapidly along, 

Adjusting swift a tendon to the line, 

They throw, they drag it glistening through the brine.' 

F


But no definite account of the process, as we practise it, 

appears to have been given by any of our countrymen before 

the time of Robert Salter, and to him, therefore, must be 

awarded the credit for the first substantial improvement in dead 

snap fishing, so far as pike are concerned. 

Since Robert Salter's time a great deal of ingenuity has been 

expended on improving Hawker's, formerly Salter's, spinningtackle 

in which it may at least be granted that there was room 

for ample improvement with the result that the difficulties in 

baiting the old flight were to some extent at least overcome by 

an improved style of ' 

lip hook,' and by transferring the position 

of the lead from the bait's head or belly to the trace itself. 

These improvements proceeded, however, in almost every case 

upon a principle which involved the crowding of a great number 

of hooks on to the inside curve of the bait a principle not 

only destructive to its spin and durability, but also entailing the 

loss of a large percentage of the fish run. A modified example 

of one of these revolving chevaux de /rise may be seen in the 

' 

flight recommended by Ephemera ' 

in his 

' Handbook 

of 

Angling, c.,' and which he proposes to substitute for the 

ordinary flights as being 'too intricate and composed 

of too 

many hooks.' His own flight consists of eleven, including 

three triangles ! This is also the flight recommended by 

Hofland, ' 

Otter,' and many others. 

Another drawback to spinning was the 'kinking' or, un- 

technically, crinkling up, of the line owing to want of thought 

and a little application of mechanical principles to the sub- 

ject of the swivels and leads, and especially to the position 

of the latter on the trace. This 'kinking' used to be the 

veritable curse of spinners. I have often been reduced it by 

myself to the verge of desperation, and, indeed, I have known 

cases where, rather than submit to it, spinners have been 

willing to sacrifice altogether the convenience of a reel, and 

to trail their running line behind them in the grass, which had 

the effect of taking out the ' 

kink ' 

imported at the other. 

at one end as fast as it was


And I would remark here, in passing, that if, in spite of 

the new lights, or, more accurately, leads, which have been 

thrown on the subject, the trailer should from any cause find 

his line beginning to ' 

kink,' the best and, indeed, only practical 

remedy that I know of is either (i) to adopt the plan above 

suggested, affixing to the lower end of the running line a small 

cork ball to its prevent passing through the rod-rings, but not 

sufficient to prevent its twisting in the grass upon the slightest 

provocation ; or (2) where it is probable 

' 

that the kinking ' 

may be only accidental, to draw out twenty or thirty yards of 

line from the top of the rod and trail 

wards and forwards over a grass-field. 

it once or twice 

To return. 

back- 

The faulty construction, then, of the spinning-flight and the 

inconveniences of ' 

kinking ' 

were, no doubt, the principal 

obstacles in the way of spinning becoming the prevalent and 

popular method of jack fishing. 

Such being the state of the art as regards the spinningflights, 

there was plenty of scope for the new tackle (to be de- 

scribed presently) which I first brought to the notice of pike- 

fishers through the columns of the Field (1861-2), and after- 

wards in the form of a pamphlet. 1 

As regards spinning-flights, the great object to be attained 

was clearly the getting rid, once for all, of the large number of 

superfluous hooks and triangles the latter ranging from three 

to five commonly employed on a good sized flight. 

In discussing the old objections and the remedies which I 

proposed for their removal, I cannot, perhaps, put the arguments 

better than I stated them in the little brochure above 

referred to. 

' The great number of fish that escape with the ordinary 

tackle after being once struck is undoubtedly one of the most 

forcible objections which has been hitherto urged against 

spinning. The average of such losses has been computed at 

from fifty to sixty per cent., and that estimate is under rather 

1 Hew to Spin for Pike. Harrison and Sons, London.

C8 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

than over the mark, as will be discovered by anyone who takes 

the trouble of keeping a register of his sport. 

'This undesirable result is mainly attributable to the large 

number of hooks and triangles the latter varying from three 

to five commonly employed on a good- sized flight. These, I 

unhesitatingly assert, are not only useless, but distinctly mis- 

chievous, both as regards the spinning 

of the bait and the 

basketing of the fish when hooked. Upon the bait they act 

by impairing its brilliancy and attractiveness, rendering it flabby 

and inelastic and when a ; 

transposition of the hooks becomes 

necessary, by generally destroying it altogether. Upon the 

pike they operate only as fulcrums by which he is enabled to 

work out the hold of such hooks as were already fast. 

'The great size and thickness also of the hooks used con- 

tribute materially to the losses complained of, as it should 

always be recollected that to strike a No. i hook fairly into a 

fish's mouth requires at least three times the force that is 

required to strike in a No. 5 ; and that this is still more em- 

phatically the case when the hooks are whipped in triangles. 

For example: let us suppose that a jack has taken a spinning- 

bait dressed with a flight of three or four of these large triangles, 

and a sprinkling of single hooks say 

twelve in all. The bait 

lies between his jaws grasped crosswise. Now it is probable 

that the points of at least six of these hooks will be pressed by 

the fish's mouth, whilst the bait also, to which they are firmly 

attached, is held fast between his teeth. It follows, therefore, 

that the whole of this combined resistance must be overcome, 

and that at one stroke, and sharply before a single point can 

be buried above the barb ! 

'The grand principle in the construction of all spinningtackle 

is the use of the flying triangle as distinguished from 

that whipped upon the central link. A flight constructed with 

flying triangles can never fail to be tolerably certain in at least 

landing a fish once struck. There are, however, many degrees 

of excellence in such flights, even in the item of 'landing,' and 

as regards the 'spinning' of the bait, not one in a hundred of


those that have come under my notice has been in the least 

calculated to make a bait spin with the regularity and rapidity 

requisite.' 

In order to ascertain, therefore, the best possible combina- 

tion of hooks, &c., for this purpose, I have been for many years 

experimenting upon every part of the spinning-flight and trace ; 

including the number, shape, size, and arrangement of the 

hooks, leads and swivels, with the various materials out of 

which a trace can be composed. The object having been to 

arrive as nearly as possible at a perfect spinning- trace. The 

results of these further experiments, whilst suggesting various 

modifications in the detail of spinning-tackle, have fully borne 

out the correctness of the principles originally advanced. 

Confining myself, then, for the present to the question of the 

flight that is, the hook portion of the spinning-trace and, 

having regard to the arguments already urged, the principle 

which I am convinced should rule paramount in the construc- 

tion of all such flights is the substituting of flying triangles 

(i.e., triangles kept loose from the bait by 

short links of their 

own), for triangles, or any other hooks, whipped on to the 

central link and even of flying triangles using as few as possible. 

Three flights the ultimate outcome of my experiments 

suited to different sized baits, and showing the position of the 

hooks and flying triangles which experience has led me to 

adopt as improvements upon my older patterns, are figured in 

the following pages. 

No. i flight is for small-sized gudgeon, dace, or bleak, 4^ in. 

to 5 in. long. Suited to very fine pike-spinning, or spinning 

for Thames trout. 

No. 2, a flight for a largish gudgeon or a small dace, 5! in. 

to 6 in. long. 

No. 3, for a medium sized dace, 6 J in. to 7 5- in. long. 

The diagrams in miniature below each flight of hooks show 

o o 

their position when baited. On comparing these flights with 

those figured in my previous books it will be seen that, whilst 

adhering in every way to the principles originally advocated,

70 


u 

SPINNING n.IGHT NO. I fcl'INNING-UJGIil NO. 2. 

ci 

A


and from which, indeed, I have seen no reason whatever to 

depart, I have modified in some respects the detailed arrangements 

of the flights first, by the substitution of a second 

holding or body-hook marked a, flight i, between the reversehook, 

b, and the lip-hook, c, and, secondly, by returning to my 

original plan of two smaller flying triangles (except for the 

very smallest sized flights) instead of one larger triangle. 

Not second thoughts are best, but third, which are the better first. 

An important variation again not of a principle, but rather 

of the mode of applying it is the Tail-hook in combination 

with a straight instead of a hooked Reverse, as represented at 

page 76. Although I have been trying for many years to hit 

upon a mechanical means of arriving at greater perfection in 

this important item, the plan now presented to the reader 

occurred to me only when in the act of revising these pages 

for press, during a recent fishing visit to Medmenham Abbey, 

and after the engravings of the spinning- flights, with my 

original 'curved' or hook-reverse, had been already made. 

From the perfection of its working in practice, however, I have 

no hesitation in believing that this new plan of accomplishing 

the absolute ' 

fixation ' 

of the tail-hook in spinning-flights, by 

a straight 'reverse,' passing from one side of the bait right 

through to the other, is destined to entirely supersede both my 

own hook-reversenow in very general use and all other known 

systems of tail-hooks whatsoever. It makes the bait spin with a 

brilliancy that even my professional Thames fisherman and 

Thames fishermen are critical judges on the point declared 

he had never seen equalled ; by its immovability when once 

inserted, it makes the bait last very much longer than even the 

best of the old systems ; and lastly, it is both more easily 

adjusted, and in the smaller sizes of flights, at any rate 

enables the extra ' 

body-hook,' between the tail-hook and lip- 

hook, to be conveniently dispensed with. 

It is important, in order to make the flying triangles stand


SI'INNING-J'UGin NO. 3.

PIKE FISHING- SPINNING. 73 

well out from the central link in the way shown in the engrav- 

ing, that they should be attached knotted on to it in a par- 

ticular manner. The method of attaching them is as follows : 

first, tie a half-knot (a a in flignt No. 2), in the gut or gimp 

to which the triangle is whipped, at the point where it is in- 

tended to diverge from the bait, b b. Take the triangle in the 

left hand and the end of the central link (c] in the right ; pass 

the point of the latter through the half-knot in the direction of 

the triangle ; pull the triangle down to its place ; draw the 

knot tight ; and lap over the further end as figured in the 

woodcut at d d. By this means the inclination of the flying 

triangles will always be to stand away from, instead of to lie 

close to, the central link. 

The advantage of the additional body-hook (between the 

reverse-hook and lip-hook), is that in the case of flights with 

the curved reverse-hook it counteracts the pull or tension 

from the lip-hook, which has a tendency to overpower, so far 

as the small reverse-hook is concerned, the pull or tension 

exerted to keep it in its place by the curve of the tail. This 

pull from the lip-hook I found had the effect of not unfrequently 

causing the small reverse-hook to work out of its 

hold, and to counteract this inconvenience the additional 

body-hook, pointing towards the bait's head, has been added. 

There is, therefore, a ' 

double counteraction ' 

between the two 

sets of hooks ; the reverse tail-hook counteracts and keeps in 

position the principal tail-hook, and the reverse body-hook acts 

as a resister to the strain from the lip-hook. 

No. 2 will be found the most commonly useful size of 

flight, as, although it is more particularly adapted to gudgeon or 

dace of the length given, it will answer very fairly well for a 

bait half an inch longer or shorter, and this latitude will take 

in a very considerable portion of the ordinary sized spinning- 

baits. In fact, I do not believe, except under exceptional cir- 

cumstances, in spinning with very much larger baits or flights 

than those indicated. 

The moment you come to a large heavy bait, such as a

74 


seven-inch dace suitable for flight No. 3 it is exceedingly 

difficult, unless you have an enormously stiff and heavy rod 

\vhich to my mind takes away half the pleasure of spinning 

to strike with sufficient force to overcome the resistance offered 

by so large a bait held tightly across the pike's jaws. 

On the whole, though I do not deny that there may be 

exceptional waters in which large 

baits are used with advan- 

tage, for my own taste I rarely spin with a flight larger than a 

No. 2, and as a rule never with one larger than No. 3. 

The question of the relative sizes and proportion of the 

hooks and flight to the bait is a vitally important one, both in 

arriving at a brilliant spin, and in hooking and basketing the 

fish struck, and I would suggest to every spinner to carry cer- 

tainly the two smaller of these sizes in his trolling-case, and, if 

there is any chance of heavy baits being employed, No. 3 

also. A very good-sized flight might also be made somewhere 

between Nos. 2 and 3. Any fishing-tackle maker ought to be 

able to make this tackle with absolute accuracy by simply dress- 

ing from the diagrams, and there ought to be no difficulty in 

their doing so if the customer will only himself insist upon 

the flights being exactly reproduced. 1 

This observation applies not only to the material of which 

the spinning-flight should be made, and to the sixe, proportion, 

and position of and between the hooks, but also in a 

primary and all-important degree to the shape of the hooks 

themselves. The difference in killing power between a triangle 

of Limerick hooks, for example, and one of my pattern, 

shown in the engraving, is not less than 100 per cent, against 

the former ; the Round and Kendal bends standing about 

midway between the two. Here again, 

if hookmakcrs would 

only consent to be taught by practical fishermen, instead of 

flooding the markets year after year with obsolete and worthless 

patterns, there ought to be no difficulty in giving the exact bend 

of hook, length of shank, &c., as figured in the woodcut (fig. i). 

1 

I hnve supplied patterns of those flights and my other pike-tackle to 

Mr. Charles Farlow, 191 Strand.


One would have supposed that for the sake of the advance 

of their own business they would be on the qni vive to adopt 

and carry out any real and obvious improvement in hook- 

making, but the reverse appears to be the case. 'The experiments 

which I have published with regard to the penetrating 

that is the killing power of different bends of hooks, have 

clearly established that there is a vast difference between hooks, 

depending, first, on their bend, secondly, their barb, and 

thirdly, their length of shank. But though I have demon- 

strated the importance of this over and over again, and have 

shown in theory and practice what should be the construc- 

FIG. I. TRIANGLES FOR SPINNING-FLIGHTS. 

tion of a mechanically perfect hook, not only do the hook- 

makers continue to make triangles combining all the vices 

which, when once pointed out, are 'obvious to the meanest com- 

prehension,' but, what is more annoying to me personally, they 

issue triangles and, indeed, a number were exhibited as being 

my pattern at the late Fisheries Exhibition which are in reality 

as unlike my patterns in every important particular as can well be 

imagined: my triangles have alongish shank, which is necessary 

to give them penetrating and holding power the triangles ex- 

hibited as mine almost invariably have a short shank ; 

the pointed 

portion of my hook is slightly turned in, at an acute angle, that is, 

towards the shank of the hook, a necessary condition for really 

first-rate penetration bookmakers, on the contrary, turn the

76 


pointed part of the hook at something more than a right angle 

away from the shank ; the barbs themselves of my hooks are 

long and finely-pointed, straight-tipped, and as regards the out- 

side line exactly level with the rest of the hook the hook- 

makers persist, 

in spite of all I can say, in making the barbs 

short, hollowed out on the inside, and turned outwards on the 

outside. 

Whatever applies to a single hook applies, a fortiori, to a 

triangle; indeed, there being three hooks in the one case, 

and only one in the other, it may be fairly said that the 

argument acquires a threefold force. My experience of hookmakers 

and their idiosyncracies, being what I have described, 

I have as a precautionary measure furnished Messrs. Harrison, 

Bartleet and Co., of Redditch, with correct models of my hooks 

from which to work. 

Triangles are now brazed, that is, soldered, together a 

great improvement on the old-fashioned system of lapping 

them together with silk. From No. 5 to No. 10 are the sizes 

I generally find the most convenient for dressing pike spinning- 

flights. 

TAIL HOOKS. 

It will be noticed that in the foregoing diagrams of flights 

the large tail-hook and small reverse-hook are made in a single 

piece. When my attention was first directed to the subject of 

spinning-tackle, I found that one of the chief drawbacks of the 

old-fashioned flights was the working out of the fixed hooks 

owing to the strain of the curved bait's tail. The fixed hooks 

were, of course, set in the usual way, pointing towards the head. 

In order to remedy this and other minor defects, I substituted 

for the small single tail-hook a long-shanked round-bend hook, 

with a smaller reverse-hook made in a single piece (riJe cut), 

which, at any rate, fulfilled its object better than any other 

plan then made public, and in this form they have been very 

generally adopted by spinners, and may be purchased of various


sizes, as also the 'straight reverse,' which is destined to supersede 

them. 

CURVED REVERSE. 

STRAIGHT REVERSE. 

FIG. 2. 'CURVED' AND 'STRAIGHT' TAIL AND REVERSE-HOOKS. 

LIP-HOOKS. 

The proper position of the bait when attached to the flight 

depends mainly upon the nice adjustment 

of the ' 

lip-hook.' 

it is either drawn too close or not close enough the bait's body 

will, in the first case, be bent in a curve forward, and in the 

second case in a curve backwards, a sort of cross between the 

Roman fall and the Grecian bend, and either fatal to spinning. 

The old-fashioned ' 

lip-hook,' figured in the margin of next page 

had to be in every case completed by the troller himself, or who- 

ever dressed the flight. The 'loops,' the part of Hamlet in a 

'lip-hook,' were, in fact, omitted altogether, and had to be improvised 

of gut, gimp, or wire. This hook was found to be 

If


lacking in various points, notably in the essential of durability, 

and accordingly several plans were tried to remedy the 

deficiency by making the 

' 

lip-hooks ' 

entirely of steel, one 

or both loops being brazed on to the shank. 

The difficulty with these latter inventions was that 

owing to the slipperiness of the polished steel the 

trace could not be twisted tight enough round to 

prevent it shifting its position on the slightest 

strain. It was a slip hook instead of a lip hook. 

There were other difficulties not worth enu- 

KASHIONEO merating, but metal lip-hooks are now made 

from a pattern that I supplied to Mr. Farlow 

some years ago, in which, by leaving 

the shank of the hook 

rough, instead of smooth, the slipping of the trace is avoided, 

and by some slight changes in the position of the steel loops 

the trace stands in a straight line with the shank of the hook, 

instead of, as in the obsolete patterns, nearly at right angles 

with it. 

The only four sizes of 'lip-hooks' which any spinners need 

keep by them are figured in the diagram. 

U 

FIG. 4. LII'-HOOKS. NEW I'ATTKKN. 

It is better to use the smallest size that will hold the bait, 

as ' 

lip-hooks ' 

comparatively seldom hook a fish, and show, 

of course, more than any others on the flight. 

There is a ' 

dodge 

' 

connected with the twisting of the trace 

round the shank of the lip-hook which, though apparently 

trifling, is really almost indispensable in the proper working and 

adjustment of the flight. As shown in the diagrams, p. 70, the


trace is passed two or three times round the lip-hook with the 

object of course of keeping it fixed in its position ; if it slipped 

from such position either upwards or downwards, the spinning 

of the bait would be instantly destroyed. But it often happens 

that as the trace gets softer or more slippery from wear it is 

necessary, in order to keep it from slipping, 

to increase the 

number of turns round the lip-hook, and the point is how to 

do this without first pulling one end of the trace through the 

loop of the lip-hook, which would necessitate cutting or unlapping 

the loop of the former. I will try and explain, although it is 

very difficult to do so verbally, how this trouble may be avoided 

and the additional turns given without pulling the trace through 

the eye of the : lip-hook Detach the trace from the running 

line if possible from below the lead then take the lip-hook 

by the bend firmly between the finger and thumb of the left hand, 

push a little of the trace downwards through the eye or top loop 

with the right hand, then pull out from below two or three 

inches ; next take hold of the trace close to the part which is 

already twisted, and give it an extra twist round the shank. 

Hold the fresh twist in its place by the pressure of the first 

finger of the left hand and taking the extreme end of the trace 

between the finger and thumb of the right hand pass it from 

below through the remaining loop left by the originally pulled- 

now pull the trace tight with 

in couple of inches of the trace ; 

the right hand, and it will be found that another turn or twist 

has been added round the shank. In order to reduce the 

number of turns reverse the latter part of the process. It is 

very difficult to convey this sort of information verbally, but I 

think with a careful reading of the above instructions and some 

little patience the difficulty should be mastered. 

In taking leave of the subject of spinning-flights and traces 

I will add a suggestion which may not be found without prac- 

tical utility : with the exception 

of the ' 

lip-hook,' I generally 

cover the lappings of all hooks used in spinning-tackle with 

silver or gold tinsel, which, perhaps, somewhat increases the 

attractive effect of the bait, and certainly makes the tackle last

8o PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

much longer. For the largest sized flights to be used with 

whole eels or other very large bait a varnish made of powdered 

red sealing-wax and spirit of wine may be used over the lap- 

pings to impart a sort of haut gotit. 

TO BAIT A SPINNING-FLIGHT. 

Lay the bait in the palm of the left hand, and, taking the 

tail-hook by the upper or reverse part, pass the point of the 

round end into the side of the bait about half an inch from the 

origin of the tail fin, pressing the point through the end of the 

as near the base of 

fleshy part of the tail and again upwards 

the tail fin as practicable. Then insert the small reverse-hook 

or (as the case may be) the 'straight-reverse,' the barb driven 

quite through the bait so as to curve the tail nearly, but 

not quite, to a right angle, and fix the shoulder-hook in its 

position. 

Lastly, having adjusted the 'lip-hook' exactly to the length 

of the bait, pass it through both its lips, always putting it 

through the upper lip first when the bait is a gudgeon, and 

through the lower one first with all other baits. This will be 

found important in securing a really brilliant spin. 

The flying triangle should not be hooked into the bait in any 

way, but be allowed to hang free in the actual position in which 

it usually appears on the flight. The upper and ' 

shoulder por- 

tion ' 

of the body of the bait should hang perfectly straight 

when attached to the flight, for which purpose the nice adjustment 

of the 'lip-hook' already adverted to is needful. 

When the bait is a small dace or gudgeon, or a bleak, do 

not be satisfied with a wobble or anything less than a really 

brilliant spin, which can always be obtained if the above direc- 

tions are attended to, or by some slight shifting of the hooks as 

at first fixed in the bait. 

In a former essay I have given some statistics as to the 

actual results obtained with the flight described, as contrasted


with those obtained from flights of the antiquated patterns. 

find it is there stated that ' 

whilst with the best of the latter 

flights the average of fish lost after being hooked was about 

half ; with the former the proportion has been only one in six, 

or about sixteen per cent, thus giving a clear gain to the 

basket of four out of every twelve hooked. This immense dis- 

parity, however, will appear less surprising when the conditions 

before explained are borne in mind. The following is a regis- 

ter of the number of runs and the number of pike lost with this 

tackle when fishing on the Hampshire Avon during four con- 

secutive days. 

No. Caught. No. Lost. 

August 8 . .11 . 2 

1 

,, 10 . . 6 . i I The five largest fish weighing 

,, ii . . 9 . of together 56 Ibs. 

13 . 6 . iJ 

32 4 

Total lost after being hooked = I in 8, or about 13 per cent. 

Mr. Frank Buckland, who was fishing at the same time, and 

who used my tackle, did not miss a single run. 

When this flight was first made public I received a great 

number of letters from sportsmen congratulating me on the 

invention and testifying to the success with which they had 

used the flight. In the sporting press also, and in nearly all 

angling books and tackle catalogues which have been published 

for the last ten years, this flight will be found figured and 

referred to in encomiastic terms. The following letter, which 

I happened to come across in the Fishing Gazette, I quote, 

because the writer, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing, 

gives statistics of losses as well as of runs which not only sub- 

stantiate, but very greatly exceed those given above. 

' Has your correspondent, the " Bostorn Bittern," in his 

search for an efficient flight for spinning the natural bait, never 

heard of or seen the "Pennell" flight? If not, let me advise 

him to give it a trial next season, as I am confident, after trying 

II. 

G 

I

S2 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

various others, that there are none to approach 

it. I have 

used it now for three seasons, and as to missing 50 per cent of 

fish, as he complains of, I will engage that if mounted and used 

in the manner recommended by its inventor (and it can be 

so procured at several of the London tackle-makers) he will 

not miss 10 per cent of the fish with it It is as superior to 

the old-fashioned three-triangle flight as sunshine to a rush- 

light. 

It gives a most brilliant spin, and I have taken fish with 

it when all other methods have failed. I get mine from Mr. A. 

Young, of Oxford Street, and find them well and properly made 

by him. I am, &c., 'RoTANS. 1 

' 

Eury St. Edmunds.' 

Before dismissing the subject of spinning-hooks triangles, 

lip-hooks, &c. I must take this opportunity of bringing to the 

notice of the spinner a new method of attaching the flight by 

which greater fineness, simplicity, and durability, so far as the 

bait is concerned, are attained. 

This method, which I have now been using myself for some 

years, consists in dispensing entirely with the lip-hook and 

substituting for it a half-knot tied in the trace through the lips 

of the bait, as recommended also in the fastening for the dead 

gorge bait. The flight which should be in every respect the 

same as the flights already figured, Nos. i, 2 and 3, minus the 

lip-hook having been adjusted to the bait as far as the bodyhook, 

the trace (detached, of course, from the hook-swivel below 

the lead) is passed under the gill cover and out through the 

bait's mouth, being then passed through both lips and again 

under itself, thus forming a sort of half knot which never 

can slip and has the merit of keeping the bait's mouth 

closely shut. 

It is also needless to point out to any experienced spinner 

the great gain on the score of ' 

fineness ' 

which must arise 

from being able to dispense entirely with the lip-hook. The 

lip-hook shows more than any other hook on the flight and 

J Fishing Gazette, April 12, 1884,

PIKE FISHING SPINNING. 

catches less less fish I mean, 

for in weed-catching its suc- 

cess is remarkable. In addition, 

however, to getting rid of this 

unsightly appendage the new 

method secures the further ad- 

vantage of adding very con- 

siderably to the durability of 

the bait, in fact, I don't think 

I should be exaggerating if I 

said that a bait attached in the 

manner above described would 

last half as long again as a bait 

attached with 

hook. 

the ordinary lip- 

On the score of simplicity, 

provided the trace be made in 

the manner described, with a 

hook-swivel of my pattern below 

the lead, no objection can possibly 

be urged. The loop of 

the trace, whether gut or gimp, 

being lapped dose up to the end 

(vide cut), 

will be found stiff 

enough to pass through the nose 

and under-lip of the bait, if a 

puncture be previously made 

above and below with the point 

of the tail-hook. This obviates 

entirely the necessity of a baiting-needle. 

The loop should 

in every case be passed through 

the upper lip or rather noseof 

the bait first, and the under 

lip second ; as a neater knot 

is thus formed and the bait 

appears both to last longer and 

spin better. The ' 

straight- 

2 FEET OF TRACE 

f3 FEET 

VFINE 

FLIGHT NO. 4, DISPENSING WITH 

1.11' HOOK. 

G 2

84 


reverse' hook is recommended; and at any rate for the 

smaller-sized flights the extra ' 

body-hook ' 

can then be dis- 

pensed with. A gudgeon baited in this way with one of my 

flights, the lip-hook being removed, is shown in the engraving. 

The loop of the trace lapped up close to the end is here 

indicated, as well as a portion of the trace, with the lead and 

hook-swivel. 

MATERIAL FOR DRESSING FLIGHTS. 

There would be nothing, of course, so 'fine,' nor, it may be 

added, so excellent as a medium for tying spinning-flights 

and traces as single salmon-gut, if only it were not liable to be 

cut by the pike's teeth, the probability of such an accident 

being increased in proportion to the size of the pike. I have 

often, however, used single gut in very bright water and where 

extreme fineness of fishing was essential to sport, taking my 

chance of being cut. I have also used the twisted gut, and this 

makes a very enduring and serviceable flight though, of course, 

far from being as fine as single gut. On the whole, ordinary 

gimp, fine rather than stout, and stained as directed, or varnished 

with Brunswick black, will probably be found by the majority of 

spinners the most satisfactory medium, at any rate for the 

flight itself. 

When I dress my own flights on gimp I very commonly 

make an exception of the flying triangle, which it is desir- 

able should stand out with a certain amount of crispness or 

elasticity (N.B. not rigidity) hardly to be obtained by silk 

gimp. I dress this triangle on twisted (sometimes single) gut, 

knotting it as well as it lapping round the central strand in the 

manner shown in the flights already figured. 

The idea struck me a few months ago, when in a cobbler's 

she:), that the hog's bristles which are used in shoemaking would 

for i:i an admirable material on which to dress the living triangles, 

as ti.ey are so much thicker and apparently tougher than salmon- 

gut. Having procured a good supply of the bristles, which I was

PIKE FISHING-SPINNING. 85 

allowed to pick out myself at a trifling extra cost, I dressed a 

flight of hooks in this manner, and I cannot but think that the 

picked hog's bristle makes a very perfect flying-triangle so far as 

elasticity is concerned, whilst I should doubt its being ' 

cutable ' 

by the teeth of a pike unless of very exceptional dimensions. 

THE TRACE. 

Travelling upwards from the hooks the next point we come 

to is the trace. Upon this, the intermediate link between the 

bait and the reel-line, depends only in a secondary degree the 

neatness and efficiency of spinning-tackle, and the first point to 

decide is of what material the trace should be. Any sort 

of wire, gut, or gimp, which is not too clumsy, will answer the 

purpose to a certain extent, but the point to be aimed at is to 

secure the utmost possible amount of fineness combined with 

the requisite strength, and here I may be, perhaps, allowed to 

to Spin for Pike.' 

quote a few remarks from my pamphlet, ' How 

' 

It has become a habit with many fishermen to consider 

the pike as a species of fresh-water shark, for whose voracious 

appetite the coarsest bill of fare and the most primitive 

cookery only are required. To a certain extent this view is 

founded on fact. There are few morsels so indigestible that, 

if they come in his way, a really hungry pike will not make 

an effort, at least, to bolt. I have known one to be taken with a 

moorhen stuck in his throat, the feet protruding from his mouth, 

and bidding fair to have choked him in a few minutes, had not 

destiny, in the shape of a landing-net, reserved him for a more 

aristocratic fate. In the Avon three pike were not long ago 

found on a trimmer, one inside the other ; whilst it is well known 

that watches, spoons, rings, and even, it is stated, the hand and 

fingers of a man have been taken out of this fish's maw. 

' 

But the fallacy of the opinion, or rather of the theory 

based upon it, lies in the assumption that because a hungry 

pike will take this or that, a pike that is not hungry will do the


same. Nothing can be a greater absurdity. A pike is regularly 

on the feed at certain hours only during the twenty-four ; and 

when partially gorged, or not very hungry, his appetite is dainty 

and requires to be tickled. At these times a man who "fishes 

fine " will take plenty of fish, whilst one who uses coarse tackle 

will as certainly take few or none at all ; and this observation is 

equally applicable to every description of tackle.' 

Now, as I have before said, the finest material that can 

be used is the best picked salmon-gut, which, when knotted 

in the way I shall presently describe, is strong enough to 

hold anything. There should be at least three feet of gut 

between the bait and the lead, and as much between the lead 

and the running-line. Or the trace may be made with single gut 

below the lead and twisted or double gut above it. 

The way to twist gut for this purpose 

nary gut casting-line of, say, three yards long, 

is to take an ordi- 

knotted with a 

single fisherman's knot. Soak the line in tepid water ; when 

it is soaked double it in the middle, but so that the knots 

shall not exactly coincide. Attach the line, at the point where 

it is bent in the middle, to a hook or anything 

that will 

hold it firmly. Then with the finger and thumb of the right 

hand twist the two lines together slowly and evenly, separating 

the two sides of gut somewhat in the form of a V. They are 

rolled, as it were, between the finger and thumb both at the 

same time, always keeping the V separation mentioned. It 

will then be found that the two separate strands will twist 

together of their own accord, and will always afterwards retain 

the twist. The left hand, and sometimes the right for a change, 

will be required during the operation [a rather fatiguing one 

for the finger and thumb] to keep separating the two loose ends 

of gut, which have an instinct to come together and crinkle up 

on their own account. 

If it is desired to make the twisted line tapered, t\vo separate 

tapered pieces of gut must be used and twisted together, beginning 

at the two thick ends and ending at the two finer ones. 

This process is equally applicable to salmon-lines, and is much 

neater than the separate strands of twisted gut knotted clumsily


together as generally supplied by the tackle shops. The gut 

used should always be carefully stained in the first instance of 

the shade desired. 

NEW KNOT FOR SALMON-GUT. 

The way to tie the knot before referred to is as follows : 

Having thoroughly soaked the gut in tepid water, begin by tying 

the two strands in what is known as the ordinary fisherman's 

knot, that is two half-hitches, a, a, each separate half-hitch 

being completed. The difference between my 

knot and the 

ordinary fisherman's knot is that having drawn each separate half 

of the knot thoroughly tight I do not draw the two together, 

but only draw them to within the space of about one eighth of 

an inch, marked b in the diagram, of each other. I then lap 

between these two knots either with white waxed silk or very 

fine soaked gut, and cut off the ends tolerably close. (See vol. i.) 

The between-lapping relieves the knot itself of half its duty, 

and on any sudden jerk acts as a sort of buffer to receive and 

a ?/ 

THE 'BUFFER KNOT' FOR SALMON-GUT. 

distribute the strain. This knot, moreover, is one of the simplest 

possible forms that can be tied, and from its being much 

neater and nearly twice as strong, may be substituted with 

advantage for the ordinary fastening in all salmon casting- 

lines. As commonly tied, I find that stout salmon- line will 

break at the knot on a steady strain of twelve or fifteen 

pounds ; tied as suggested it will break at any other place in 

preference, no matter how great the strain may be. 

The Fishing Gazette, in an editorial notice of the Buffer 

' 

knot says, The Buffer knot, invented by Mr. Cholmondeley- 

Pennell, js double the strength of the ordinary knot, as we have 

. . . frequently proved by experiment. We would suggest that 

spinning-traces for pike and trout made on the same plan would 

be appreciated.' 

b


I tried formerly a long series of experiments with wire, both 

single and twisted, of different sorts. Although very strong 

and fine, however, none of my experiments were sufficiently 

encouraging to lead me to adopt wire as a permanent substitute 

for gut or gimp. The difficulty was always that with certain 

particular sharp turns or hitches, the wire, whether single or 

twisted, was apt to break, and generally was much less easy to 

manipulate. Mr. Charles Farlow has lately, however, brought 

out some twisted copper-wire specially intended for extra 

strong traces for pike, or mahseer fishing. This wire is 

annealed by some special process which makes it as tough and 

impossible to break under any complication of twisting as gimp 

itself. Indeed, its strength is enormously in excess of that of 

stained of a dark neutral tint. Al- 

gimp, and it is admirably 

though I have not had the opportunity of putting this invention 

to the only real test practice, I can feel no doubt whatever that 

it would certainly form an admirable substitute for gut or gimp 

in the portion of the trace above the lead, and very likely for 

that below the lead also, though on this point I express no 

decided opinion. The twisted wire is so exceedingly strong 

and tough that there can be no advantage in using any but the 

finest sizes, which would probably be at least equal in strength 

to the running line itself. The next point is 

THE SWIVELS, 

which should be double, and having for convenience of shifting 

baits, &c., one of the hook-swivels figured at page 28. These 

two swivels will be found all that are ever required upon the 

spinning-trace. Immediately above the swivels comes 

THE LEAD, 

and this brings us to the question of the second great drawback 

of spinning, namely, 'kinking,' and its cure. 

Vexatious as must, doubtless, be the loss of a fish owing to 

the faulty construction of the flight, for sheer downright aggra- 

vation and ' 

cussedness ' 

there is nothing ecjual to the ' 

kinking'


or crinkling up of the line, which no care in the selection of the 

swivels or the preparation of the tackle can always avert. 

' 

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred " kinking " is the result 

of insufficient vis inertia in the leads to make the swivels act. 

The lead was always attached to the trace by the trace passing 

through a hole in the centre of the lead, and, in consequence, it 

was impossible it could offer any resistance worth mentioning 

to the rotatory motion of the bait, the effects of which that is 

the twisting instead of being confined to the yard or so of gut 

or gimp below the lead, naturally extended to the upper part of 

the trace and running-line, and produced " kinking." 

' " Kinking" is only another word for twisting ; get rid of 

twisting and " kinking " at once becomes impossible. The 

nature of the disease being thus diagnosed, the cure became 

easy : The 

lead, instead of being evenly balanced on the line, 

should be attached with its principal bulk or weight hanging 

horizontally beneath it. By changing the position of the centre 

of gravity the resisting power or vis inertia, of the lead is, for 

the purpose in question, more than quadrupled without any 

increase in the actual weight, and the proper action of the 

swivels is ensured.' 

Since I first brought this plan to the notice of the public in 

the columns of the Field some twenty years ago, dozens of 

spinning-leads have been invented all imitations or modifica- 

tions of this system. I have myself made many experimental 

varieties, some of which have appeared from time to time as 

new editions of my books on fishing have been called for ; the 

object being to arrive at perfection in the form of the lead. 

The first point to be overcome in the original lead was 

its tendency to hang or catch in the weeds, which gave 

some irreverent critics an opportunity for aspersing it as ' 

Mr. 

PennelPs weed-catcher.' This criticism, however, even if not 

kindly meant, had a salutary effect in stimulating the inventive 

powers of ' 

myself and others. We soon had the Field lead,' 

followed by half a score of others, the names of which I forget. 

But I remember that none of them hit upon, what I will apo-


logise for calling, the complete idea, a ' 

solid half-sugar-loaf 

shaped lead,' threaded upon the trace horizontally, and having 

the apex upwards. This idea, apparently by a sort of law of 

natural justice, was reserved for the original inventor, and, I 

believe, the latest outcome (vide diagram) will be found ' 

easy to beat.' 

FIG. I. LEADS FOR 

SPINNING-TRACKS. 

The rounded end, 

not 

it should be well 

understood, hangs lowest down or 

nearest the bait. This lead will not 

only 

be found an absolute cure for 

kinking, but also gives the necessary 

' 

ballast ' 

for the trace in the most con- 

densed form weight for bulk and, 

therefore, in the form least conspicuous. 

The lead should be attached to the 

trace in the form shown in the en- 

graving, page 83, of this volume, in 

which the position of the swivels below 

the lead will also be seen. 

The trace should, of course, fit 

closely into the lead hole, in order to 

prevent the line twisting through it ; 

but the natural thickening produced by 

doubling the trace at the point of junc- 

tion with the swivel will, with the lapping, 

afford the necessary thickening of 

the plug. The four sixes of leads shown in the diagram will 

be found, as a rule, all that are required ; from the lightest 

(No. i), suited for very fine or 'shallow' fishing, to the heaviest 

(Xo. 4), which is a convenient, si/.c for very large baits or 

spinning in deep water. The weights 

follows : 

Xo. I 

Xo. 2 

\ 

07.. 

.', o/. bare. 

Xo. 3 

Xo. 4 

of these leads are as 

-},- (r/.. very full. 

;,' 

o/.. full. 

If it is desired temporarily to increase the weight of the


trace, this can be done with perfect ease, and without any 

interference with the action of the legitimate lead and swivels, 

' 

by twisting some lead-wire' round the trace a foot or so above 

the lead, or, if no lead-wire is at hand, by adding a second lead 

above the junction between the running line and the trace. 

FIG. 2. LEAD-WIRE ADDED TO INCREASE WEIGHT. 

It is now some years since I have had the pleasure of seeing 

my principle of spinning lead adopted by the large majority 

of trollers, and its efficacy as a cure for 'kinking' generally 

admitted. I guarantee that with the lead and trace of the form 

shown at p. 83, and the flight of the proper size for the bait 

the latter may be trailed (the severest test) from Teddington 

' 

to Oxford, without a single kink ' 

taking place above the leads. 

After this 'tall' blast upon my own trumpet, I may, perhaps, 

be pardoned for quoting a few extracts from letters by well- 

known sportsmen, and a few ' 

opinions ' 

in substantiation of what has been said. 

MR. PENNELL'S SPINNING-TACKLE. 

of the sporting press 

Sir, As I observe that a discussion has lately appeared in your 

columns between Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell, the apostle of fine 

fishing, and the advocates of the status quo, I beg to bear my 

testimony to the success of the former gentleman's theories, so far 

as I have had an opportunity of testing them. During the last 

fortnight I have been using a set of the spinning-tackle recommended 

by Mr. Pennell, and nothing could be more admirable 

than its working ; 

' 

kinking,' an old enemy of mine, did not once 

make its appearance, and of the six fish run on the last day, not 

one failed to find its way safely to the bag. ONE WHO is NOT TOO 

OLD TO LEARN. Field, Nov. 1 30, 86 1. 

Sir, Allow me to add my testimony to that of your corre- 

spondent, ' One who is Not Too Old to Learn,' as to the merits of 

the spinning-tackle explained in your columns by Mr. Pennell, the 

'apostle of fine fishing.' I dressed a trace, flight, &c., according 

to his plan, and I must say that I never had better sport (for the


water) than since I have used it. I lost comparatively few fish, 

and besides basketed several perch, which I had not previously 

done over the same ground, probably owing to the coarser tackle 

then employed. The greatest boon, however, for which spinners 

are indebted to Mr. Pennell, is the complete cure of ' 

kinking,' 

accomplished by his mode of fastening the lead. JACK KETCH. 

Field, Dec. 7, 1861. 

A friend of mine, Colonel Villiers, is in raptures with the killing 

tendencies of your pike tackle, and tells me he has discarded all 

others. From my limited experience, 1 fully endorse his opinion ; 

it is deadly indeed, proving fatal in about five times out of six, or 

perhaps rather more. From W. PEARD, Author of 'A Year ol 

Liberty,' ' 

Fish-farming,' &c. 

The remedy proposed to obviate kinking, pleases me very 

much, the said kinking having been invariably my bugbear. I 

have 'discarded line after line all to no purpose, but I feel satisfied 

that you have found a remedy for this hitherto bele noire of anglers. 

The perusal of the ' Book of the Pike,' has completely revolutionised 

my faith in my own tackle. RICHARD B. AUSTIN. 

I gave this tackle a severe trial a short time since ; 

I tried it 

with a bleak. Now a bleak is always a difficult bait to make spin 

well, it is very apt indeed to get out of spinning, and is so soft, 

that the slightest touch dislodges the hooks and throws it out, so 

that it often will not spin properly ; and this reluctance with the 

aggravation natural in spinning-baits, somehow always occurs just 

at the very moment when you want your bait to spin its best. 

The bleak I had, too, came from a spot where some hot water is 

discharged, and this always makes them much softer than their 

fellows. Added to this they were in spawning condition, and in 

even a worse state still than ordinary. Nevertheless in spite of all 

these adverse circumstances, I spun a bleak with Mr. Pennell's 

tackle for more than two /tours. I was fishing long cast and two 

or three times it fouled the bottom and took hold of twigs and 

rubbish, yet it never once got out of spinning for an instant, but 

spun on to the last as well as it did when I put 

ordinary three-triangle tackle, 

it on. With the 

the bait would have been out of 

spinning and the centre triangle loose, in ten minutes, and in 

ten minutes more the bait would have been useless. ANGLING 

EDITOR. Field, May 17, 1862. 

Mr. PennelPs plan of hanging the lead is glorious for pike 

fishing. H. B. Field, May 24^ 1862.


TRENT. Mr. Pennell's new and improved style of fixing the 

lead on a spinning-trace to prevent the line from twisting, will 

prove the best thing that ever happened to pike fishers who fish 

from a reel. He is quite right, it is a perfect cure for all kinking. 

The gentlemen whom I have supplied with the tackle are much 

pleased with it, and tell their friends it is the best idea ever invented 

and I think so too. I have frequently been perfectly stuck fast 

from the line twisting, and have been obliged to take it all off the 

reel and draw it behind me through a field before I could start 

again ; but, thanks to Mr. Pennell, that sort of work is now all 

over. WM. BAILY, Nottingham. Field, Nov. 6, 1862. 

From the Field. 

Spinning for pike is an accomplishment so very widely practised 

by modern anglers, and the means hitherto adopted are, from a 

variety of circumstances, so unsatisfactory, that we are glad to 

welcome any attempt to improve the apparatus in general use, or 

to render those sudden partings between individuals connected by 

the fine line or strong gimp sympathy, which are so distressing to 

one of the parties concerned, less common than they unfortunately 

are. It is notorious among spinners for pike that no tackle has ever 

yet been invented from which a very large proportion offish hooked 

do not manage by some inscrutable means to effect their escape. 

We have ourselves noticed this fact, and many of Mr. Pennell's views 

upon this head, as well as others connected with the art, certainly 

meet our warm approbation. His remarks regarding kinking, for 

example, are excellent, and the means he takes to avoid it are ap- 

parently all that is needed. His plan of employing flying triangles 

is, to us, original. 

. . . 

For the purpose of avoiding conspicuousness, I recommend 

that all pike leads should be bronzed with a coating of Bruns- 

wick black. If this cannot be obtained, common tackle varnish 

will be better than nothing. This can be altered to a dark 

green tint if desired, by the addition of a little powdered green 

sealing-wax.

91 


HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. 

A league of grass washed by a slow broad stream 

That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 

Waves all its Lazy lilies and creeps on. ... 

TENNYSON. 

I HAVE now dealt with the subject of pike- tackle, and espe- 

cially of spinning-tackle in detail ; the point that remains to 

be considered is, how and where to use it. If in this branch 

of the art the skill of our trollers has not left very much to be 

said that is neiv, I can at least undertake to advance nothing 

that I do not know to be true. The great object I have set 

before myself is to combine theory with practice ; in every case 

carefully employing the latter to former. 

verify the deductions of the 

To begin then at the beginning. The spinner being pro- 

vided with the rod and tackle indicated, and baited with say 

a small dace or gudgeon, according to the instructions given at 

page So, unwinds from the reel as much line as is necessary to 

reach the spot desired, and allows it to fall in loose coils at his 

feet. 

He places himself ' 

half-facing ' 

the spot to which he wishes 

to cast that is, with the left leg and left shoulder further back 

than the right. The right hand grasps the rod some distance 

up the butt, and the left hand is employed in restraining the 

line, which should be so drawn in that the bait hangs from two 

to three yards from the top of the rod. First setting the bait 

in motion with one or two pendulum-like movements, to give it 

momentum, the spinner swings it vigorously out over the water, 

at the same time letting go the line altogether, and permitting 

the bait to run out to its full extent.

HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. 95 

After allowing a few moments (according to the depth of 

the water) for the bait to sink, he lowers the point of the rod to 

within a foot or so of the surface, and holding it at something 

approaching a right angle to the bait, immediately begins draw- 

ing in the line with his left hand, making with his right a corre- 

backward movement of the rod between each ' 

sponding draw.' 

The effect of this backward movement (which to the spinner 

soon becomes a sort of mechanical see-saw), is practically to 

recover the position of the rod, which is deranged by each 

drawing in of the line being, in fact, partly bent, and partly 

pulled forward ' 

by the draw,' and the object is, to prevent the 

bait being stationary whilst the left hand is preparing for a fresh 

movement. In order to accomplish this compound operation 

to hold the rod 

satisfactorily, the most convenient plan is, 

firmly with the right hand, just below the lowest ring, letting 

the line pass between the upper joints of the middle and fore- 

finger, and resting the butt of the rod firmly against the hip. 

In spinning from a punt, an agreeable change of posture is 

obtained by standing with the right foot on the side or well of 

the boat, and partially supporting the elbow and rod on the 

knee. 

The 'draws' or pulls, and the corresponding movements of 

the rod must, of course, be varted-in length and rapidity accord- 

ing to the depth of water, size of boat, and other circumstances; 

but a good medium speed, when the left hand, or rather the 

line, is carried well back, is about forty ' 

draws ' 

per minute ; 

and a cast for every two yards of stream fished, is the allowance 

which, on the whole, will generally be found the most advan- 

tageous. 

The bait should not be taken out of the water until brought 

dose up to the bank, or side of the boat, as it is not at all an 

uncommon circumstance for a fish, who has perhaps been 

following it all the way across, to make a dash at it at the last 

moment when he appears to be about to lose it. 

When there is danger of throwing the bait into opposing 

trees or weed beds, it is well to let the line run lightly through

96 


the left hand, the spinner by this means keeping, as it were, 

'touch ' 

of it, and being able to check it if he sees it is getting 

into danger. 

The sort of thing that occurs when this precaution is not 

taken, is graphically described by 

recent number of a sporting periodical. 

Mr. H. B. Bromhead in a 

There is something very artistic in being able to throw the 

spinning-flight properly. If the river is (innavigable, and old treetrunks 

and reed-beds jut out from either bank every few yards, 

then the tyro or novice will come to grief before he has made many 

casts. He will speedily become ' 

' 

hung up and if the ; 

flight is 

wound firmly round a willow branch, or deeply embedded in a 

patch of half-rotten reeds, then 'something must go.' Possibly he 

will put the strain on ; but his hooks are highly tempered, and his 

gimp trace strong enough to tow a barge. At last a break occurs. 

The released line flies back into his face, and he hopes everything 

has come away clear. He is disappointed ; for on that stout branch 

on the opposite side of the river, still swaying backwards and for- 

wards, remain his flight, trace, leads, and perhaps two or three 

yards of line. But see ; how does the practical spinner go to work ? 

No bungling here, no erratic throws, no catching branches, no 

hooking into reeds, or other floating debris. The bait, properly 

leaded, shoots evenly and swiftly to the desired haven like an arrow 

from the bow. Right across the river, twenty-live yards if an inch, 

and it falls right under the drooping boughs of an old willow, in a 

quiet eddy caused by a small bay in the bank-line. With but little 

splash the bait drops into the water, and after sinking a foot or two 

is drawn evenly across the river. It is a pikey bit of water, a fringe 

of waving, rotting, sepia-tinted reeds bordering the bay. If any 

kind of the species Esox Indus possessed an especial retreat this is 

the one. Is master pike at home to-day? I think he is. A swirl 

in the water, a sudden resistance on the line, a gleam of light colour 

in the dark green depths of the river flowing smoothly along, as a 

mighty fish seizes the bait, and endeavours to return to his lair to 

munch his captive at his leisure. Not so fast, my friend. That 

lofoot of greenheart and lanccwood is struck upwards smartly, the 

line quivers like an arrow just embedded in the target, and a right 

royal battle has commenced. Gamely the fish struggles, vainly 

endeavouring to once more take up his quarters in those willow 

roots which for months past have been his home, a place carefully


avoided by every well-educated roach and dace in the water. It is 

two or three frantic rushes on the part of the 

not to be, though ; 

fish, as many steady pulls by piscator, and master pike is brought 

within reach of the gaff or landing net. 

The proper play of the rod, which is one of the most certain 

tests of a good spinner, is highly important, not only to prevent 

the stopping of the bait between the ' 

draws,' but in order to give 

it its full glitter and piquancy. It produces a more life-like 

motion, as it were, than that imparted by the mere pulling in of 

the line by hand or reel, whilst for some reason or other, probably 

the greater elasticity of the lever used, the spin of the 

bait is also far more rapid and brilliant. 

The substitution of a mere mechanical motion for this com- 

bined movement of the hand and rod is, in my opinion, one 

fatal objection to what is termed the 'Nottingham style' of 

spinning, already adverted to, and thus described by Mr. Baily, 

the chief priest of the system, in his 'Angler's Instructor,' 

pp. 5, 6, 9, 

and 10 

You cannot have a reel too light or that runs too free. The 

best is a four-inch common wood reel, varnished to keep the rain 

from swelling the wood, the only brass about it being the hoop for 

fastening it to the rod. Brass inside and out adds to its weight 

and lessens its utility. To cast a long line you must have a free 

and easy running reel. ... A line made wholly of good silk well 

plaited is the best for pike-fishing. Fifty yards of such a line 

ought to weigh no more than three-quarters of an ounce. . . . Well, 

having cast your bait as far as possible, allow it, if you are fishing 

in a pond, or lake, or deep water, to sink a little, say two feet ; 

then wind away at a brisk rate, holding your rod on one side rather 

low if no run wind out and throw again, but this time wind briskly 

four or five yards, then all of a sudden stop a moment, then off 

again, doing so three or four times in one cast. 

this a good plan. 

I have often found 

If you still have no run, try another throw and wind briskly as 

before, but occasionally giving your rod a sharp and short twitch. 

I have also found this an excellent method of using the spinner, 

but should it prove unsuccessful, here is another style : Throw as 

before, but on this occasion wind slow four or five yards, then with 

II. H

98 


your rod drag the bait one or two yards sharp through the 

will sometimes 

water, stop a moment and wind slow again ; you 

find when resuming the slow winding process that your bait is 

brought to a dead stop, which, of course you must answer with a 

jerk of your rod. If you feel you have got a fish give him one or 

two more as quick as lightning, for you can seldom put the hook 

in firmly at the first strike. When you have got a run you will 

sometimes feel a sharp tug, but you will invariably be apprised of 

had hooked a 

it by your line coming to a sudden stop, as if you 

clump of wood. When you do hook a fish, give him line, but keep 

one finger on the reel, so as to preserve the line taut, and play him 

artfully. . . . When spinning in rivers where there is a strong 

current, take care to wind very slow, otherwise your bait will be 

always on the surface of the water. 

The peculiarities of this system, as has been observed, are 

the substitution of a plain wooden for a metal check reel ; 

throwing from the reel (that is, leaving the momentum of the 

bait when swung out to unwind by its own impetus as much 

and the winding in of the line 

line as is required for the cast) ; 

on the reel, instead of the pulling of it in by the hand and rod, 

and coiling it loosely on the ground. This plan has doubtless 

some merits, and in the hands of really good spinners (and not 

a few such have adopted it 

it) may occasionally have a very slight 

advantage in bank-fishing, where the rough or scrubby nature of 

the ground renders the ordinary loose coils of the line liable 

to catch or tangle. But I think even in this case some light 

net or basket-work projecting shelf or tray, strapped to the hip 

of the troller, would be found a more satisfactory solution. A 

few years ago I had such a tray made of perforated zinc, which 

I found a great convenience in worm-fishing for trout, where 

it is constantly necessary to wade. 

To test the fact that a loss of efficiency does actually take 

place when the reel -movement is substituted for the hand, the 

following simple experiment will suffice : drop your spinningbait 

into the water, and wind it in as fast as possible, on the 

Nottingham plan (that is, by the reel only), keeping the point 

of the rod stationary ; then draw the bait through the water at 

the


the same pace using the rod only, and it will be found that 

whilst a rapid spin is gained by the one, the effect of the other 

is little better than a ' 

wobble.' 

These are the obvious theoretical objections to the Not- 

tingham style as a system, which must occur to anyone accustomed 

to the Thames method of spinning. It is much to be 

doubted, however, whether practically it would be found even 

feasible with the very small baits and very light leads and traces 

constantly used on the Thames and other fine waters. 

When fishing in the Avon some year ago with the late Mr. 

Frank Buckland, we came upon a party picnicing on the then 

dry eel- stage at the head of the pool above Braemore Mills. 

Whilst watching the performance for a few seconds we suddenly 

noticed a pike feeding upon the far side of the pool opposite 

the eel-stage. This distance appeared to be hopelessly great, 

the more so as there was no wind and my spinning-rod had 

been reduced to about eleven feet and a half, owing to its being 

fitted with a short top. 

However, at Mr. Buckland's instigation, 

and, perhaps as much to amuse the picnicing party as for anything 

else, I determined to make the attempt. As good luck 

would have it, at the very first cast the bait fell almost into the 

pike's mouth, and, after an exciting and amusing struggle the 

whole way across the mill-pond, we had him up, with the assistance 

of a gaff, on to the eel-stage, where he was duly admired. 

His weight was seven pounds. 

The bait, lead, and trace were weighed, and together were 

found to be one ounce and two scruples, and the spot where 

the pike was hooked, which could be easily identified, almost 

touching the weeds right on the opposite bank of the pool, was 

subsequently measured by Mr. Buckland, who mentioned in 

one of his writings the fact that it was forty-two yards. 

With such a bait and trace, such a cast would, I opine, be 

entirely out of the if question the bait were thrown from a reel 

in the Nottingham style. Mr. Baily's own bait and trace, 

which he furnished to me as patterns, weighed 3^- ozs , nearly 

three times as much.

ioo PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

Before dismissing this part of the subject, I ought probably 

to mention the system not unfrequently adopted, by Thames 

trout spinners more particularly of winding in the line by 

making a figure of eight over the thumb and finger of the left 

hand, or an alternative method coiling it in a ball in the 

hollow of the hand. I fear that it would be impossible to give 

on paper such a description of either of these processes as 

would be of any use towards putting them into practice ; I 

should rather suggest a few lessons from some experienced 

Thames spinner. 

These two methods of drawing in the line are, it is to be 

observed, much more suitable to spinning such as that which 

commonly happens for trout and pike on the Thames that is, in 

swift rushing water where the stream of itself suffices to spin 

the bait and very little auxiliary movement is required than 

to the case of ordinary river or lake spinning where the line 

has to be pulled in rapidly in order to prevent the bait 

sinking. 

As to the Where of spinning, there is no open water, whether 

pond, lake, river, or canal, in which it is not applicable, and 

I really hardly know to which I should myself give the 

preference as a matter of taste. I decidedly prefer, how- 

ever, shallow to deep water for spinning, as in deep water it is 

difficult to insure that the bait is seen by the fish a somewhat 

important point and, indeed, when the spinner is no 

longer able to see or imagine that he can see the river bottom, 

it is difficult for him to judge at what precise depth he ought 

even to attempt to spin. 

It is in the case of pike-fishing, in fact, as with most other 

fishing the best place to fish is not where most fish are (or are 

supposed to be) but where they can most easily be fished for 

and caught. Some of the prettiest spinning that I have ever 

had has been in water from a foot-and-a-half to two-and-a-half 

or three feet deep where the great difficulty has been to make 

' 

the bait spin shallow ' 

enough. I have in my mind's eye just 

such a spot below Braemore Bridge on the Avon already


spoken of. The river is about forty yards 

wide and the bottom 

pretty thickly coated with weeds which, however, form a capital 

hide for the pike that come up on to these shallows no doubt 

partly for the purpose of feeding on the young trout that are 

hatched in the spawning beds above and around. On this piece 

of water, which belongs to Sir Edward Hulse, when fishing with 

a friend some years ago, either he or I, I forget which, caught 

twenty pike in half-an-hour without moving sixty yards from the 

spot where we commenced. 

About half a mile below this again, opposite the farmhouse, 

there is another still wider and shallower stretch, perhaps 

one of the 

seventy or eighty yards across in the widest part, 

surest takes for pike on the whole river. A short time ago 

I caught fifteen pike, most of them small however, out of 

this water, wading out for the purpose some dozen yards from 

the shore. Whenever I could manage to make a good cast 

into the stream, I think I should be within the mark in saying 

I never failed either to run or to move a fish. How many 

more I could have gone on catching out of the hundred yards 

of gravelly shallow in front of me it would be difficult to say, 

but my baits gave in, and the artificial bait, though moving 

several, failed to actually touch a single fish. 

This is one of the instances I always call to mind, when 

considering the efficiency or inefficiency of artificial pike-baits 

in general. Here was a piece of water literally swarming with 

pike, evidently on the feed, and where I had been catching 

or moving the fish at every cast with the natural bait. The 

artificial bait is substituted, and, presto 

changes. Not a pike can be tempted by my carefully prepared 

Phantom or Archimedian (I believe I tried several varieties) 

although flaunted before their eyes 

! the whole scene 

' 

with a damnable iteration ' 

which one would think would have tempted a run if only from 

provocativeness. 

Some old author, indeed, would lead us to think that the 

pike is, par excellence, the irritabile genus of fish society. He 

says that if a pike refuses a bait when thrown in the proper


manner in front of his head, the great art is to repeat the pro- 

cess with still more emphasis behind his tail. The philosopher 

quoted from asserts that where this plan has been pursued in 

a scientific and persevering spirit he has seldom or never 

known it to fail ! 

One of the delights of pike-spinning over such shallow 

waters as those I have been mentioning, is that you are able to 

see the approach of the enemy, and even to some extent to 

calculate his dimensions by the wave which he carries in front 

of him as he rushes after the bait This, it may truly be said, 

is an excitement added, and one which cannot be had in any 

other branch of the art except, perhaps, in a lesser degree, in 

chub fishing. 

The moment is, indeed, not only exciting, but critical, and 

is a severe trial to the nerves of a young beginner. The incli- 

nation is almost irresistible to check or entirely stop the action 

of the bait so as to let the pursuer get hold of it. On the con- 

trary this is the very moment when the speed of the bait should 

be preserved unchecked at its normal rate of progression. The 

moment the bait is checked it ceases to be a spinning-bait, 

and becomes a mere dead gudgeon or dead dace, and having 

no further attraction or incitement for predacious fish 

You are Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 

You are not the fish I wanted 

to misapply Hiawatha's angling expedition. The rest of the 

passage is so charmingly original that really, even at the risk 

of being 

' 

impertinent ' 

(to use the word in its Pickwickian 

sense) I must quote it, the more so as the hero of a part of 

the adventure is ' 

the pike, Kenozha.' 

HIAWATHA'S FISHING. 

Forth upon the Gitche Gumce, 

On the shining Big-Sea-Watcr, 

With his fishing-line of cedar, 

Of the twisted bark of cedar,

HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. 

Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma, 

Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes, 

In his birch-canoe exulting, 

All alone went Hiawatha. 

Through the clear, transparent water 

He could see the fishes swimming 

Far down in the depths below him ; 

See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 

Like a sunbeam in the water, 

See the Shawgashee, the craw-fish, 

Like a spider on the bottom, 

On the white and sandy bottom. 

At the stern sat Hiawatha, 

With his fishing-line of cedar ; 

In his plumes the breeze of morning 

Played as in the hemlock branches ; 

On the bows, with tail erected, 

Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo ; 

In his fur the breeze of morning 

Played as in the prairie grasses. 

On the white sand of the bottom 

Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma, 

Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes ; 

Through his gills he breathed the water, 

With his fins he fanned and winnowed, 

With his tail he swept the sand-floor. 

There he lay in all his armour ; 

On each side a shield to guard him, 

Plates of .bone upon his forehead, 

Down his sides and back and shoulders, 

Plates of bone with spines projecting ! 

Painted was he with his war-paints, 

Stripes of yellow, red, and azure, 

Spots of brown and spots of sable ; 

And he lay there on the bottom, 

Fanning with his fins of purple, 

As above him Hiawatha 

In his birch-canoe came sailing, 

With his fishing-line of cedar. 

' 

bait ! cried Hiawatha 

' Take my 

Down into the depths beneath him :

104 


1 Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahma ! 

Come up from below the water, 

' 

Let us see which is the ! 

stronger 

And he dropped his line of cedar 

Through the clear transparent water, 

Waited vainly for an answer, 

Long sat waiting for an answer, 

And repeating loud and louder, 

Take my bait, O King of Fishes !' 

Quiet lay the sturgeon, Nahma, 

Fanning slowly in the water, 

Looking up at Hiawatha, 

Listening to his call and clamour, 

His unnecessary tumult, 

Till he wearied of the shouting j 

And he said to the Kenozha, 

To the pike, the Maskenozha, 

' Take the bait of this rude fellow, 

' 

Break the line of Hiawatha ! 

In his fingers Hiawatha 

Felt the loose line jerk and tighten ; 

As he drew it in, it tugged so 

That the birch-canoe stood endwise 

Like a birch log in the water, 

With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 

Perched and frisking on the summit 

Full of scorn was Hiawatha 

When he saw the fish rise upwards, 

Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, 

Coming nearer, nearer to him, 

And he shouted through the water, 

' Esa ! esa ! shame upon you ! 

You are but the pike, Kenozha, 

You are not the fish I wanted, 

You are not the King of Fishes !' 

Reeling downward to the bottom 

Sank the pike in great confusion, 

And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, 

Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 

'Take the bait of this great boaster, 

Break the line of Hiawatha !'

HO W AND WHERE TO SPIN. 105 

Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming 

Like a white moon in the water, 

Rose the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 

Seized the line of Hiawatha, 

Swung with all his weight upon it. 

Made a whirlpool in the water ; 

Whirled the birch-canoe in circles, 

Round and round in gurgling eddies 

Till the circles in the water 

Reached the far-off sandy beaches, 

Till the water-flags and rushes 

Nodded on the distant margins. 

But when Hiawatha saw him 

Slowly rising through the water, 

Lifting his great disc of whiteness, 

Loud he shouted in derision, 

' Esa ! esa ! shame upon you ! 

You are Ugudwash, the sun- fish, 

You are not the fish I wanted, 

You are not the King of Fishes !' 

Wavering downward, white and ghastly, 

Sank the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 

And again the sturgeon, Nahma, 

Heard the shout of Hiawatha, 

Heard his challenge of defiance, 

The unnecessary tumult, 

Ringing far across the water. 

From the white sand of the bottom, 

Up he rose with angry gesture, 

Quivering in each nerve and fibre, 

Clashing all his plates of armour, 

Gleaming bright with all his war-paint ; 

In his wrath he darted upward, 

Flashing leaped into the sunshine, 

Opened his great jaws and swallowed 

Both canoe and Hiawatha ! 

On the principle of the ' 

penny dreadfuls,' this is the proper 

place to take leave of Hiawatha, and if there are any of my 

readers who do not know the sequel to his ' 

prodigious fishing,' 

I must refer them to the poem itself, to my mind far the most


original and fascinating of any of the writer's longer poems. 

But this is digressing. 

To return to my text, the Where of pike-spinning. I have 

said that the spots to select are, as a rule, rather where fish can 

be caught, than in 'unfishable' waters where they are known or 

supposed to be more numerous or larger. The water below 

my shallow on the Avon furnishes a very good example of this. 

Some way lower down it becomes a narrower and much deeper 

stream, and it is here that Sir Edward Hulse's keepers and 

water-bailiffs locate their best fish and the most of them. 

Whether they are there or not I cannot say, though the water, 

I admit, looks exceedingly well calculated to hold heavy fish, 

but this I can say, that my attempts to fish it with the spinning 

bait have never been really successful I mean in the way of 

making a good bag. 

There is another reach of the Avon lower down called 

Sandy Balls, overhung by the romantic beech and fir-covered 

cliffs of the New Forest, which local superstition peoples with 

pike of altogether pre-historic dimensions, yet I have never 

succeeded, that I can remember, in catching a pike out of this 

celebrated ' 

In the ' 

drawns ' 

hold,' nor have I ever seen anybody else do so. 

and shallow rushes of water, on the contrary, 

by which the mazy stream is tapped in order to water the sur- 

rounding meadows, I have had excellent sport, repeatedly 

killing pike of nine or ten pounds weight, out of a stream 

where it seemed almost too small to throw the spinning bait. 

Below one of these rushes or sluice-gates a curious incident 

happened to my wife, in the presence of myself and the late 

Lord Anglesey's keeper. I thought the double capture suf- 

ficiently remarkable to be sent to the Field. 'When pikefishing 

to-day with my wife in Lord Anglesey's water on the 

Avon, a very singular circumstance happened. Mrs. Pennell, 

when spinning above the Flax Mills, caught two pike at the 

same time. The first fish was hooked in the usual way, and 

about a foot and a half above the flight of hooks a second 

fish was found, twisted up in the gut trace, the line having


made a very Calcraft-like noose just below the gill-covers. 

The fish weighed about 2 Ibs. and 3 Ibs. respectively.' I have 

seen a good many curious captures of pike, but never in my 

knowledge, nor that of the keeper Jeffries, 

event ' 

been known to have occurred on the Avon. 

There is a ' 

drawn ' 

' 

has a similar double 

between Braemore and Downton which, 

whilst little more than a watercourse and nearly dry at many 

parts of the year, in one corner by the sluice-gate always con- 

tains enough water to harbour a pike ; and a pike the water 

almost always contains, generally a large one. On one occasion 

I remember running two fish from it in two consecutive casts, 

one 9 Ibs. which I basketed, and the other, as my old hench- 

' 

man Sandy would have said, fully bigger/ which, for want of 

a gaff, I lost, after actually getting it out on to the bank, from 

whence it rolled back. 

This circumstance is alluded to by the late Mr. Frank 

Buckland, with whom I first made the acquaintance of this 

part of the valley of the Avon. His account of some of the 

episodes of the joint expedition is so humorous and graphic, 

that with the reader's ( and Mr. Bentley's) permission I must 

quote 

a few extracts from it. 

JACK-FISHING ON THE AVON. 

We came down the incline into Salisbury by the express train 

at a fearful pace ; round the curves and over the embankment we 

flew with a speed that took one's breath away, and dashed into 

the station like a comet. 

A rush for a fly (for it was fair-day), and off we went to the 

Star hotel, Fordingbridge, where we were cordially welcomed by 

the civil and obliging landlord and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Bill, 

and our friend Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell, who preceded us in 

order to try experiments on the Hampshire jack, which were said 

to abound in the deep waters of the Avon. 'What sport ?' said I. 

' I have had four days' fishing and have caught thirty jack out of 

thirty-six runs (the largest fish running between six and nine 

pounds) with a spinning-bait. The water, however, is very bright 

and the weeds very high. I have got an order for a splendid place 

to-morrow, and hope we shall have luck.'

io8 riKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

Accordingly on the following morning we got ready for the 

start. Great cans with the bait ; the rods, luncheon, tackle, &c., 

were all placed in the landlord's four-wheeler, and in we jumped. 

' I will drive,' said Pennell ; 'all right behind ? let gc.' 

The ostler let go, but not an inch would our noble steed pro- 

ceed ; she put back her ears, shook her head, and made an attempt 

to kick, foiled, however, by the kicking strap. The ostler then 

tried persuasion, but it was no use ; 

made another false start. 

the mare reared back and 

The coachman then touched her with the whip, and we were 

off at last, first a walk and then a trot and then a gallop. We had 

not gone ten yards when the mare all of a sudden turned right 

round in the shafts ; she first wheeled to the right and then sud- 

denly to the left, the four-wheeler going in the opposite direction. 

She then began to kick, and backed right into the railings. Out 

went the landlord and the ostler from behind, coachman and my- 

self from the front. 

I was nearest the railing, and took a Leotard-like leap over it, 

mercifully not falling, for in an instant down came the mare or 

her side with a crash, breaking both shafts short off, and kicking 

and plunging furiously. She did not, however, touch me, though 

I was between her and the railing ; but it was a very narrow es- 

cape. We disentangled the mare, who was not much hurt ; picked 

up the live bait, which were flopping about in the dusty road ; and 

walked back to the hotel as dignified as circumstances would permit. 

Another horse was then put into a borrowed dogcart, and we 

had just got to the place of the former accident, when the shafts 

began to elevate their noses in a most unpleasant manner ; 

the old 

grey seemed to be walking on his toes, being almost lifted off his 

legs. 

' Out with you, 

' 

gentlemen,' said the landlord, or we shall all 

be over again ',' so we all jumped oft" like artillerymen from a gun- 

carriage. 

' 

Is this what you call going out jack-fishing, Pennell?' said I. 

' 

I don't see much chance to-day. We have been just two hours 

getting ten yards from the door, the live-bait is dead-bait ; 

of the rods is smashed.' 

and one 

' Never mind,' said Pennell, ' let's go into the garden and catch 

some more bait.' . . . 

Away we went once more, this time getting a fair start. 

We soon arrived at the mill where we found the keeper awaiting

HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. icg 

For,' said he, 

in the winter we generally use very large tackle, and fish with a 

us. He seemed rather surprised at our small baits, ' 

' 

roach from half to three-quarters of a pound in weight ; but I think 

Mr. PennelPs tackle very good to spin over the weeds, which are 

terrible thick about.' 

The keeper was right the river was ; 

one mass of dense solid 

forests of weeds, which moved about in the rapid stream like great 

sea-snakes. Between them, however, were here and there streets 

and lanes of beautiful deep water, looking almost ink colour on 

account of its depth and the darkness of the weeds, the water itself, 

however, being as clear as crystal. 

' Have you any large jack about here, keeper?' said I. ... 

1 

Yes, we have, sir, and I will tell you a curious : thing One 

day I put into the stew pond a jack that had a gorge hook in him, 

for the gimp was just sticking out of his mouth. I did not take 

him again for six months, and when I came to look at him I could 

not find the hook at all. As I was cleaning him, something hard 

struck upon the edge of the knife, and I found that it was the 

gorge hook that had worked itself right through him, and was 

nearly coming out. It was quite loose in the intestine, and did 

not seem to have injured the fish, for he was in good condition, 

and I know he fed while he was in the pond. But, hark ! your 

friend, Mr. Pennell, is crying for the gaff. We must be off, 

sir. 

Run ! it's a good fish, from the bend of the rod.' 

We had first to cross a water ' 

carrier,' as they call them in 

these parts. Off we both started as hard as we could go, the 

keeper going easily over a foot-board bridge, and I myself floundering, 

head-over-ears, bang into the muddy water and rushes, and 

getting my first wetting for the season. . . . 

'It's terribly hot !' said Pennell; 'how I envy those cows in 

the water ! I have been a long way up stream, and this is what 

I have got. I saw a beautiful quiet dyke, about five yards wide, 

and at the first cast I was delighted to see a huge wave issue from 

the side of the bank. Slacking [?] the speed of the bait, I let him 

have it fairly, and struck him as he turned for home he made a 

; 

gallant five minutes' fight, and has left this "line-cut" on my finger 

as a mark of his prowess. 

'As I knew these big jack often hunt in couples, I had another 

cast, and hooked an equally fine fellow, within two yards of the 

spot where I caught the first, but I unluckily lost him, when at the 

last gasp, for want of the gaff, which, by the way, I see sticking

no PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

out of that capacious pocket of yours. The fish I " now produce " 

(as the lawyers say) will turn the scale at 9 Ibs. 

' 

I found the sun very powerful, and my head would have ached 

considerably if I had not adopted my usual plan, which is to put a 

handful of water weeds in the crown of my cap ; it as cool as a cucumber.' 

keeps the head 

said I. 

' 

Well, I suppose I must give you a. wrinkle in return for this,' 

' Do you know how to keep away midges and mosquitoes 

when you are fishing?' 

' 

said Pennell. 

No, I do not,' 

' Neither did I, till last night when reading that delightful book, 

"Life in Normandy," I learnt that turpentine (I suppose spirit of 

turpentine is meant) will keep off all the midges in the parish. 

The author, a true " 

: 

sportsman, says It is singular how little this 

is known. Many a man has suffered martyrdom when a single 

drop of this turpentine would have protected him as effectually as 

a coat of mail, and allowed him to enjoy a good day's fishing. . . ." 

If I were about to fish in a " midgy " locality, I should order the 

chemist to make up the turpentine in what we doctors call an 

" 

elegant formula," which he can easily do and an ointment thus 

; 

made can be agreeably spread on the skin of the face and hands.' 

. , . BUCKLAND'S Curiosities of 'Natural History.^ 

I have often since then reaped the benefit of this wrinkle 

given me by my old friend and comrade one of the most 

genial and charming of companions, and a true lover of 

nature in all her moods. On the first opportunity I took 

Buckland's prescription and found it excellent. I had the 

turpentine made up as he advised in an 'elegant formula,'. the 

actual compound admixed being glycerine jelly ; and I remember 

on one occasion by Kylemore Lough in Gal way, 

being so tormented with midges night and day, that but for 

the turpentine, which acted like a charm, I must have been 

fairly driven out of the neighbourhood. My two friends, who 

scorned to adopt any precautions, actually were driven out of 

the house in the middle of the night, and up to the top of a 

neighbouring hill for relief. 

The admixture of glycerine makes the 'anointment' far 

1 Richard Bontlcy and Son, New Burlington Street.

HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. in 

from disagreeable, and in hot suns will prevent those unplea- 

sant excoriations and reddenings which, about August, we are all 

familiar with on the noses of our Norwegian tourists, 'Alpine* 

climbers and nomadic brethren of the angle generally. 

I would have given a handsome sum for just a thimbleful 

of the ' 

' 

anti-midge mixture one day last August, when grouse 

shooting in Kirkcudbrightshire with Mr. J. Colzean Kennedy. 

At about four o'clock, when on tolerably high moorland, we 

were suddenly enveloped in a swarm of almost invisible tor- 

mentors. Eyes, nostrils, ears, even between our shirts and our 

necks, they clustered like bees. In vain we slapped the afflicted 

parts with more energy than direction ; in vain we lit up pipes 

all round and blew the wildest of 'clouds ;' the whole party, 

dogs included, rubbed, scratched, and, I daresay, swore ; and 

if we had happened to find birds at that moment, I doubt if 

even the well-known science of my friend Mr. Kennedy, 'top- 

weight ' 

as he is both at Hurlingham and the Gun Club, would 

have added greatly to the ' 

bag.' 

But to return to my text. It is, I believe, a great fallacy to 

suppose that large pike are more likely to be found in large 

deep waters, than in such quiet and undisturbed nooks, where 

anglers come but seldom, and the supply of baits is usually 

abundant. In just such a spot as that above described I once 

saw a pike which I am satisfied must have weighed nearer 30 

than 20 Ibs. With my heart in my mouth I crept up to the 

edge 

' 

of the drawn,' about twenty yards from where he was 

lying, and made my cast. It was neck or nothing as I knew, 

because if he did not take the bait on the first impulse, he 

would be inevitably scared and take refuge in his lair of water 

lilies, from which there would be no tempting him. 

The bait fell exactly as I desired, and it had hardly touched 

the surface when there was a sudden boiling and up-tearing of 

the water, as the monster rushed hither and thither in his 

efforts to seize the bait. Alas ! he missed it, although I am 

bound to say, in justice to myself, that I did not violate my 

own canon of neither checking nor expediting its motion.

ii2 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

Further attempts were, as I expected, useless, and the same 

afternoon I was called away, so that I never had another 

opportunity. 

One other illustration. At Lord Normanton's water at 

Somerley, finding one day but little sport in the main stream, 

I asked the keeper if there were no drawns or shallow water- 

courses leading away from it, where I might be able to throw 

a spinning-bait. 

His reply, after some consideration, was that 

there certainly was one, but that he would not say what fish 

there might or might not be in it ; on the last occasion, how- 

ever, when it was fished by some troller more enterprising than 

usual, nothing was caught, although he thought there ought 

to be some pike there. The description appeared to me 

quite sufficiently tempting, and, without more delay, I begged 

him to guide me to the unknown land, or rather water. Here 

I hooked a fish almost at the first cast, and, in fine, I went on 

catching them one after another until sixteen good sized fish 

had bitten the dust. I was so struck by the extraordinary 

rapidity with which I was catching them, that I asked a gentleman 

who accompanied me to notice how long it was since I 

began. On completing the sixteenth fish, and there appear- 

ing to be somewhat of a falling-off, I asked him to look at his 

watch, and it was found that the time, from first to last, includ- 

ing that necessarily occupied in baiting, was very little over 

thirty minutes. 

But, alas ! the glorious days of Avon pike-fishing are, I 

fear, numbered. Many of the riparian owners, in their eagerness 

to encourage salmon and trout, have ruthlessly killed down 

the pike, with the result that on the last two or three occasions 

of my visits the sport has been comparatively poor, in size as 

well a'i numbers. Once upon a time there was a fair sprinkling 

of splendid trout in the Avon, running from three to ten pounds 

and upwards, which afforded magnificent sport to men of the 

'Thames trout- fisher stamp of mind,' whilst the pike-fishing 

was simply superb. 

Now the river is first rate for nothing; moderate for pike;


moderate for trout, of which there has been some slight increase 

in numbers at the expense of size and ; very moderate, indeed, 

for salmon, although I must frankly admit that, partly owing to 

his indomitable perseverance and skill and partly to his having 

the command of some of the best pools on the river, my friend 

Mr. Turner-Turner, of Avon Castle, has killed a very consider- 

able number of splendid fish in his waters on one occasion, 

if I remember rightly, landing no less than three, averaging 

" 

twenty pounds a-piece, before breakfast. 

One swallow, however, does not make a summer, and, 

if I 

were offered the range of the best salmon casts on the Avon 

from mouth to source, I should decline with thanks. Men's 

tastes differ, but for myself I must confess that the chance of 

dropping upon what Dougal calls a 'happenin' baste' does not 

sufficiently gratify my 'hunting' instincts. In my opinion 

sport consists primarily in catching something, and if I cannot 

make pretty sure of at least two or three salmon a day, irre- 

spective of size, commend me to the nearest stream or loch 

where I can fill my creel with trout. If trout cannot be got in 

'remunerative' numbers I would try pike-fishing; or, failing 

pike, perch-fishing ; or, failing perch, roach-fishing ; or, failing 

roach, gudgeon-fishing any fish, in fact, which will afford the 

amusement of catching as contrasted with endeavouring to 

catch. I am afraid my ethics will recall the Frenchman's idea 

of an Englishman. 

something!' 

' 

O, what a fine ! day Let's go and kill 

. . . The mistake the Frenchman made was in 

supposing that it was the love of killing 

instead of the love of 

sport. And yet what is sport ? Would it be sport if there were 

no killing anything? But this is becoming casuistic. 

I have not that fierce thirst upon me which can only be 

slaked with salmon blood, to quote the expression of my dear 

old friend, Willie Peard, whose charming writings have given 

delight to all lovers of fly-fishing, and who was himself one of 

the most brilliant performers in practice of the art which he so 

eloquently described in theory. 

Some time ago the Thames Angling Preservation Society 

ii. 

I

H4 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FlStf. 

were strongly urged by a few fanatics to take means for turning 

the Thames into a trout stream a salmon river also, if I remember 

rightly at the expense of its ancient inhabitants, the 

pike. At the time this attempt was made I took the oppor- 

tunity of expressing my views on the subject in a leading 

angling journal, and, as the warning which I then endeavoured 

to give, I hope not altogether unsuccessfully, is not without 

application to other rivers similarly situated and threatened, 

I here reproduce it : 

THE PRESERVATION OR NON-PRESERVATION OF 

THAMES PIKE. 

There is a rumour that an attempt is being made to excite 

amongst fishermen a feeling hostile to the Thames pike, on 

behalf and in favour of the trout which the Thames Angling 

Preservation Society have been for some time past industriously 

breeding at Hampton, and turning into the river ; and also that 

this ' 

trout mania,' if the expression is admissible, is now alleged 

as an excuse by a good many fishermen for an indiscriminate 

slaughter, by fair means or foul, of all pike that may fall into 

their hands, whatever be their size or condition. I trust this 

report may prove to be unfounded, or at any rate greatly exaggerated 

; but yet I have generally found the proverb true, which 

' 

says that there is no smoke without a fire,' and therefore as 

one who, in common with, I am sure, thousands of my feUow- 

trollers, has stored up many pleasant memories of many pleasant 

days spent amongst the 'lazy lilies' and pikey pools of the 

Thames in pursuit of this fish, and the sport against which a 

set is now, it appears, being made, I cannot allow the occasion 

to pass without raising my voice in terms of strong warning 

and protest, protest against the unsportsmanlike proceedings 

alluded to, and warning against the strong delusion on which 

they are apparently based. Moreover, even if the reports of 

what has actually occurred have been exaggerated, there is 

another very excellent proverb, more generally acknowledged


than acted upon, which says that 'Prevention is better than 

cure.' The 'strong delusion,' then, to which I refer is the 

assumption (under whose cegis these quasi judicial murders are 

being perpetrated and winked at) that the Thames can be 

denuded of its pike, and can be made a trouting river a river, 

that is, capable of maintaining a sufficient stock of trout to offer 

the angler a fair day's wage for a fair day's work ; 

in other words, 

to enable him to calculate upon a certain number of fish in his 

creel as the probable result of a given expenditure of time and 

skill. If a river will not do this, it is worthless to the fly-fisher, 

and is not a trouting river in the only valuable sense of the term. 

chance of such a consummation so far as the 

Now, is there any 

Thames is concerned ? Let us see what are the facts of the 

case. 

The first fact is that the pike could not be destroyed ; not 

only not absolutely, but not even so as practically 

to affect 

the trout question at all. How, indeed, can it be expected 

that a few years of permissive poaching under the Thames 

should effect what all the com- 

Angling Preservation Society, 

bined efforts of netting, trimmering, and every conceivable mis- 

management 

and abuse for centuries have been unable to 

accomplish ? What could, and probably would, be accomplished, 

would be to reduce the stock of pike just sufficiently to make 

the river entirely unattractive to Thames trollers, of whom there 

are at present, I believe, somewhere about twenty for one trout 

fisher. 

But supposing, for the sake of argument, that the pike could 

all be destroyed, and that the Society continued, or increased 

their trout breeding operations, is there good ground for be- 

lieving that the river could ever be made a trouting stream, in, 

as I have already pointed out, the only useful sense of the term ? 

So far from it, the assumption, nay, I may say 

the cer- 

tainty, is exactly the opposite way ; and I will undertake to 

prove to any unprejudiced mind, not only that the change 

would fail to improve the trout-fishing which already exists, 

but that it would be positively detrimental to it. 

I 2

Ii6 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

What are the peculiar characteristics, the essential natural 

conditions of trouting rivers ? Are they not shallows, sharps, 

gravels, scours, eddies, mill-races, and every other form and 

combination of swift-running water from mouth to source? 

the very antithesis, in short, in every particular of the still, 

weedy, slow-gliding Thames, with its miles of reed-bed and 

clay banks, and its interminable ' 

deeps,' in which nothing but 

the shadow of the trees seems to have movement ? Now every 

one who has given much study to questions of pisciculture knows 

that certain naturally adapted conditions of soil and water are 

indispensable to the wellbeing of certain kinds of fish as, for 

instance, to the grayling clay, to the pike weed, and to the trout 

the class of water I have attempted to describe ; and that you 

might as well expect to produce a large stock of either of them 

without such natural adaptation as to cultivate pine-apples at 

John o' Groat's, or ptarmigan in the plains of Hindostan. I un- 

hesitatingly assert, therefore, without fear of contradiction, that 

the Thames is, and always will be whilst it remains cut up into 

a series of lock ponds, totally and irremediably unfit for a 

trouting river ; and I challenge the mention of any single 

instance of an English river analogous to it in which similar 

results are not found to obtain. The Hampshire Avon, 

perhaps, in some portions of its course, presents more points of 

resemblance than any other river with which I am acquainted, the 

part of locks being performed by a succession of mill-dams and 

eel-stages, with slow-running, often deep, always weedy reaches 

between ; and here we find almost identically the same con- 

ditions as regards fish viz., plenty of pike, and a few large 

trout. Or I might take the river Lea as probably an equally 

good instance, and one perhaps better known to Thames 

fishermen. But go where you will, I believe you will find the 

rule to be Medo-Persian in its unchangeableness. 

And this brings me naturally to the second point which I 

have undertaken to prove that even the at-present-existing trout 

fishing would suffer rather than gain by the deterioration of the 

j (ike. At present the river contains a fair sprinkling of splendid


trout, of almost unequalled size. The pursuit of these affords 

a keen excitement to a number of first-rate fishermen, both 

trailers and fly-fishers men whose skill, which has been 

considered unequalled, is only surpassed by the patience with 

which, day after day, and even week after week, they will 

pursue some one of these historic leviathans, pitting their 

brains against his (perhaps almost as highly educated !) and at 

last hauling him gurgling into the net, after a death struggle 

the excitement and triumph of which has been multiplied in 

an exactly corresponding ratio to the number of hours of toil 

and thought they have expended in achieving the result. The 

capture of one of these monster Thames trout is indeed, par 

excellence, the ' 

blue riband ' 

of angling and it is 

; probable that 

there is no other feat, not even the killing of a 4o-lb. salmon, 

which is so often looked back upon with pleasure, and re- 

counted with pride in after days. It seems really almost 

doubtful, therefore, whether a slight increase in the number of 

these great trout would produce a corresponding increase of 

pleasure, as whatever tended to diminish the difficulty would, 

of course, equally diminish the honour and gratification. If 

this should sound somewhat Quixotic let it be borne in mind 

that the Thames trout-fisher in very many, probably, in the 

great majority of cases, is not a tyro or Cockney angler, far 

less a mere pot hunter. He has probably had his surfeit of 

the best sport, whether with trout or salmon, that the three 

kingdoms and perhaps Norway and Canada also can offer. 

He has wetted his flies in the swirling pools of the Blackwater 

or the Thurso, or filled his creel to his heart's content by the 

teeming waters of the Driffield or the Itchen, the Test or the 

Teme ; and therefore he is satiated with slaughter, or he is 

getting old, and ' 

' 

with stiff limbs and frosty pow 

shoulder, as of yore, his twenty-foot Castle Connel ; 

cannot 

but at any 

rate, he requires a peculiar class of fishing to give him any 

peculiar pleasure, and that pleasure he finds in killing a big 

Thames trout. And therefore, as I have said, it really seems 

doubtful whether anything that tended to diminish the difficulty

n8 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

of catching the said trout would not also somewhat diminish 

the general fund of amusement yearly derived from the sport ; 

but if this slight increase in numbers was to be accompanied 

by a corresponding decrease in size, then assuredly the fisherman 

would 'gain a loss' and nothing else; and that such 

would actually be the effect of impoverishing the stock of pike 

seems inevitable. For what says experience? Why, that a 

given water will only support a given quantity of fish of a 

particular breed, and that you may take that quantity out 

either in numbers or in weight, but not in both. All waters 

which breed a heavy stock of pike breed, if any, trout cor- 

respondingly large. This is the case in both the rivers 

which I have already mentioned, and the rule seems to 

hold good as well in lakes as in rivers. Take, for example, 

in the three divisions of the kingdom the three lakes most 

celebrated for the great size of their trout viz., Windermere 

in England, Awe in Scotland, and Corrib in Ireland, and 

what do we find? Why that all three are almost equally 

celebrated for the number or size of their pike. So that in 

fine ' 

the greater the stock of pike, the larger the size of the 

trout,' may be almost taken as the formula of the question. 

The conclusion, then, which I would earnestly desire to 

press upon all my brother fishermen of the Thames, is Make 

the best of what you have got, and in grasping at the shadow 

do not drop the substance ; instead of attempting to destroy, 

preserve by every possible means your pike, from which we have 

all had so much sport for so many years ; and, 

as the most 

obvious and important rules, do not begin killing them until 

the beginning of July or middle of June, at the earliest, and 

then throw in again all that are under a pound and a half in 

weight, by which two means you will ensure (i) that your 

pike shall not be killed until they are in decent condition for 

the table ; and (2) that before being killed at all they shall 

have had the opportunity of contributing at least once towards 

the replenishment of the stock of the xiver.


With regard to the direction in which to cast the spinning- 

bait ' 

doctors disagree,' although, so far as stagnant waters are 

concerned, little difficulty can he felt, as the obvious rule is to 

cast over the place in which the fish are judged most likely to 

be. With rivers, however, the case is different, and the cast 

straight across stream and the cast straight down stream have 

both had their advocates. If the late lamented Mr. W. C. 

Stewart had been a pike fisher, no doubt he would have recommended 

the cast straight up stream. ... As in other matters, 

I believe that the truth here lies midway between the two 

extremes advocated between, that is, the straight across 

stream and the straight down stream theories. And putting 

aside exceptional circumstances, which, of course, make their 

own rules, the best direction in which to cast with the spinning 

bait over running water is diagonally, or in a direction rather 

slanting down and across stream. 

This conclusion would seem to be unavoidable if we con- 

sider what are the objects to be attained. They may be stated 

thus : 

To cover the greatest extent of water within a given time ; 

to present the bait in the position most attractive to the fish ; 

and to make sure of hooking him when he takes it 

Now, to begin with the first of these desiderata. It is clear 

that by drawing the bait from one side of the stream to the 

other the greatest area of water will be fished, and for this 

reason that in order to give the proper intervals between the 

casts when throwing straight down stream, it would be neces- 

sary to move the boat across the current a yard or two at a 

cast until it reached the other side, and then drop down stream 

twenty or thirty yards before a fresh series of casts could be 

commenced, whereas when thrown diagonally or across, it is 

only necessary to let the boat drop down on one side of the 

river without delay or hindrance. Moreover, supposing the 

spinner to be without a boat, he would, 

to casting down stream, never be able to fish more than one 

side of the water, and that close to the bank. 

if he confined himself


Thus, in the question of the amount of water covered, the 

must be held to be radically bad, the argu- 

' 

cast down stream ' 

ments being about equally divided between the ' 

' 

cast diagonal 

and the ' 

cast straight 

' 

across ; but on the second point, viz. 

the presenting of the bait to the fish in the most attractive 

manner, the advantage will be found to be all in favour of 

the .diagonal mode of casting. 

The fish, it will be remembered, lie with their heads up 

stream ; and the object, must, of course, be to show them the 

bait, whilst showing them at the same time the least possible 

proportion of the line or trace. Bearing this point and a 

most vitally important one it is in view, the cast straight dmvn 

stream will again be at once ' 

put out of court,' inasmuch as it 

is evident that, except at the very extremity of the cast, the 

whole of the line and trace must pass right over the fish's eyes 

before he can possibly see the bait The question, therefore, 

narrows itself as between the ' 

diagonal ' 

and ' 

straight 

' 

across 

casts ; and as the cast diagonal fishes at least one-third more 

water than the cast straight across without any counterbalancing 

drawback, and indeed, with an additional gain in the item of 

making the bait spin better, inasmuch as it is worked the whole 

time more against the stream, it can hardly be doubted that 

the jury will find a verdict in favour of the diagonal cast, fur 

all ordinary river spinning. 

STRIKING AND PLAYING. 

So far as to casting. Presuming the spinner to have 'run' 

a fish, the next point is to strike him, a part of the performance 

which is much more critical than many trailers are, perhaps, 

aware of. Whatever may be the case as to ' 

striking from the 

reel ' 

in the instance of salmon or trout fishing when only a 

single, or at most a double, hook has to be made to penetrate 

over the barb, there is no doubt that in fishing for pike with a 

large bait, decorated with some half-a-dozen hooks, striking with 

a tight line is most essential to the proper hooking of the fish.

J HO.W AND WHERE TO SPIN. 12 1 

The usual manner in which a pike seizes the bait is cross- 

wise, and in this position it is probable that the points of 

several hooks will be pressed upon by some part of the mouth, 

whilst the bait also to which they are attached is held by his 

sharp teeth and powerful jaws. The whole of this resistance 

must be overcome, and that sharply and at a single stroke, 

before a single hook can be expected to penetrate. Nor does 

the action of the fish himself, as in the case of salmon-fishing 

with the fly, tend to drive the hooks home. The salmon, as 

soon as he has taken the fly, turns head downwards, and dis- 

covering probably, almost instantaneously, the deception that 

has been practised upon him, instead of holding on to, naturally 

lets go of the fly in his mouth, the result of the two opposite 

simultaneous evolutions being, with considerable probability, to 

strike the hook firmly in. In the case of the pike all this is 

reversed. The pike does not, as a rule, immediately turn in 

the opposite direction, nor has he the slightest inclination, at 

any rate for some few brief moments, to eject the bait which is 

not a sham but a reality. 

What he does do is generally to sail about quietly with the 

bait in his mouth, sometimes holding on to it, and even apparently 

tugging at it more or less vigorously until brought up 

close to the side of the boat, leading the .inexperienced spinner 

to imagine that, he has been hooked, whilst, in point of fact, 

for the whole time he has only been 'holding on.' When 

frightened, or, perhaps, when realising that there is something 

abnormal about the bait he has just seized, he will I was 

about to say, drop it, but that he cannot do owing to the nature 

of his jaws and his teeth he will free his mouth from it by a 

vigorous shake, somewhat after the action with which a terrier 

shakes a rat. 

It is at this moment that the best chance lies of the pike 

hooking himself, but it is, at the best, evidently a very uncertain 

one, and I should advise the troller not only to strike as soon 

as he runs a fish, but to continue striking until the fish commences 

a sort of tearing struggle,., .which is a very different


thing to the sensation produced by his only holding on to the 

bait The stroke should be as hard as the tackle can bear with 

safety. 

I have repeatedly, on the bright shallows of the Avon, 

been able to watch exactly the effects of my stroke both upon 

the bait and upon the pike, and I have been astonished how 

little result of any kind is apparently produced except with the 

very hardest blow. 

Sometimes, however, and especially where a pike is hooked 

at the end of a long cast, it is almost impossible for the troller 

armed with civilised gear, to strike a pike effectively, and in 

such cases he must take his chance, never, above all things, 

allowing slack line for an instant. The argument as to the 

difficulty of getting a number of hooks to penetrate was, of 

course, vastly increased with the old-fashioned form of three 

triangled spinning flights. With such flights it has been calcu- 

lated that a loss occurs of certainly not less than fifty per cent, 

of the fish run. 

This may, probably, seem an excessive average, partly 

because few fishermen keep an exact register of their runs and 

losses during each day's sport, but of corroborative testimony 

as to the fact being as stated, there is an embarras de richesses. 

One has been already given at page 81-2, from a recent writer 

in the Fishing Gazette. Here is another from the visitors' book 

at Slapton Leigh Hotel: 'Oct. 8, 1862 Mr. Clarke caught 

ninety-one pike all by spinning and lost ninety-three others 

after hooking them.' Robert Salter refers to these losses in 

his ' Modern Angler,' second edition, page 103, where he says, 

'Snap-fishing (spinning) cannot be considered the most certain 

method of taking pike, because so many are missed after 

striking them.' Professor ' 

Rennie, in his Alphabet of Angling,' 

also mentions the fact, but attributes it to the pike not being a 

leather-mouthed fish. Salter, who is entitled in some sense to 

be considered the ' 

father of spinning,' as Nobbes was called 

the ' 

father of trolling,' was, no doubt, a skilful performer, pro- 

bably one of the best of his time, and his testimony, therefore, 

may be taken as conclusive.


In former years I myself fished for pike with many of our 

best spinners on the Thames, amateur and professional, from 

the late Tom Rosewcll downwards, and I can unhesitatingly 

endorse the fifty per cent, estimate for losses after striking. 

Indeed, I should say the estimate erred on the score rather of 

moderation than of excess. In the case of indifferent spinners, 

the average of losses would doubtless be considerably greater. 

It has been already shown that with my tackle the losses after 

striking have been found to be enormously less, being calcu- 

lated by several independent authorities as not exceeding one 

in six, or a little over sixteen per cent, in lieu of fifty. Taking 

them, however, at say even twenty-five per cent., the difference 

still represents one-fourth of the total catch. 

I should think this was a fair average of the losses for a 

fair average of days, but every spinner knows that there are 

occasions when pike seem hopelessly off the feed and will only 

take the bait between their lips just by way of playing with it as 

it were. On such occasions it is very 'difficult to say what 

the percentage of losses after striking might, or rather might 

not be. 

When fishing last year at Leeds Castle with my friend, Mr. 

Wykeham-Martin, I had an experience of this sort which I shall 

not forget in a hurry. The water was thick after a flood of, in 

that part of the country, almost unprecedented dimensions, and 

this, no doubt, put the fish with which these beautiful waters 

are plentifully stocked off their feed. They merely toyed with 

and teazed the bait ; nibbled it, flipped at it with their tails for 

aught I know, did everything, in fact, except attempt to swallow 

it and the result was a ; 

proportion of misses to kills, the figures 

of which I cannot give because, unfortunately (or fortunately ?) 

I did not keep them, but it was something portentous. What 

it might have been with the unexpurgated tackle can only be 

conjectured. Very likely the couple or brace or so I did eventually 

succeed in bagging would have been represented by a 

' 

' 

duck's ! egg 

No doubt, the great size and thickness in the wire of the

124 


hooks used in these old fashioned spinning flights, contributed 

much to the heavy percentage of losses. 

The shape or bend of the hooks is also a very critical point 

as regards the killing powers of any flight. The difference in 

the killing power between a triangle of Limerick hooks and one 

' 

of my pattern, or even of the Sneck ' 

bend is not less, perhaps, 

than one hundred per cent, against the first named. Round 

bends and Kendal bends stand about midway in penetration; the 

differences in each case being caused, to a great extent, by the 

different angles at which the points of the different hooks meet 

the skin of the fish's mouth when the line is pulled tight. 

The following table shows the results of experiments I have 

tried with four hooks, selected at random from the stock of a 

London fishing-tackle maker (they were all No. 2*s of his 

sizes) : 

Bend of 

hook. 

Limerick 

Average pressure required 

to penetrate over barb. 

........ 3 Ibs. 

Round 2i Ibs. 

Kendal 2^ Ibs. 

Sneck i A Ibs. 

Now, suppose that only one triangle is used (as in my No. i 

Flight), of the same size as that above, and of the ' 

Sneck ' 

and that no other hook on the flight touches the fish. Well, 

bend, 

it is 

probable, we may assume, that two of the hooks of this triangle 

will be in contact with the pike's mouth ; therefore a stroke 

equal to three pounds pressure at the very least \\ill be required 

to fix these two hooks over the barb, and that without taking 

into account the resistance offered by the holding of the bait 

itself between the fish's jaws. Have any of my readers ever 

tried what the pressure actually exerted by an ordinary stroke 

with a jack-rod is at, say, twenty five yards? If not let me 

suggest a slight experiment which will assist them, perhaps, 

in future in judging what the force really exerted by ordinary 

striking is : 

Take a three-pound weight, and adding another pound to

; HOW AND WHERE TO SPIN. 125 

represent the loss of power caused by the obstruction of the 

water, and two more to allow for the pressure of the pike's 

teeth on the bait itself (six pounds in all), attach the end of your 

trolling-line to it, and using an averagely stiff jack-rod, see how 

much striking force is required to be exerted in order to move 

the weight smartly say, four inches at twenty-five yards dis- 

tance. If the bait be very heavy, or larger-sized hooks be used 

or more of them, or of a less penetrating ' 

bend,' a little calcula- 

tion on the foregoing basis will easily enable the spinner to 

adjust the weight used in the experiment so as to represent the 

average pressure or force required for an efficient stroke. 

It is, therefore, strongly recommended to all spinners, as the 

very alpha of their craft, and notwithstanding the opinions to 

the contrary expressed by many angling authorities, fa strike, 

and that the moment they feel a run. All other rules, such as 

' 

giving the fish time to turn,' ' 

waiting till he shakes the bait,' &c. 

&c., are useless, and, indeed, generally impossible in practice. 

Again, the pike, with many other predacious species, shows a 

great reluctance to let go a prey once seized. Most of us have 

probably witnessed this pertinacity 

in the case of both eels 

and perch ; and the stickleback, as is well known, 

will let 

itself be pulled out of the water by its hold of a worm. On one 

occasion, for the sake of experiment, I fastened a large cork to 

a string, and drew it across a pike pond, giving it at the same 

-time an irregular, life-like motion. It was quickly seized by a 

fish of about two pounds, which made a most determined re- 

sistance, running out the twine as if really hooked, and only 

relinquishing its grasp of the cork when within arm's length. 

The experiment was repeated several times with a similar 

jresult. 

Therefore, I say once more, Strike, and strike hard ; and 

repeat the stroke until a violent tearing struggle is felt ; 

such a 

struggle almost invariably beginning the moment a fish really 

feels the hook, and being easily distinguished from the sluggish 

resistance, sometimes absolute inaction, experienced when he 

is only 'holding on.' It is generally large unwieldy pike which


act in this fashion, and an attention to the above suggestion will 

not unfrequently save the loss of the best fish of the day. 

Always strike doum stream when feasible, and, when fishing 

in still water, in the opposite direction to that in which the fish is 

moving the hooks will thus be brought into connection with 

his jaws and the soft parts at the corners of the mouth, instead 

of being pulled, as it were, away from him. In the majority of 

instances, however, neither time nor circumstances admit of 

these rules being adopted, and in such cases the simplest and 

safest plan is to strike straight upwards, the spinner being always 

prepared for shortening the line the moment the stroke is made 

in case the fish should make a rush towards him. 

In regard to playing pike after being hooked, the golden 

rule is, first, to keep a steady and even strain upon them with- 

out intermission ; secondly, to get them into the basket with as 

little delay as may be. 

The maintaining of a sufficiently heavy strain is particularly 

necessary in pike-fishing, where stiff rods are used, and flights 

containing several hooks, as the sudden slackening of a foot or 

two of line is sufficient to restore such a rod to the straight 

position from which it has been comparatively little bent, thus 

removing the strain altogether ; whilst the tendency of using a 

good many hooks on the same bait is, of course, to lessen the 

pull on each particular hook. 

Even with a ' 

swishy ' 

salmon or trout rod it is always desirable 

to keep up a certain steady strain on a fish, although in this case 

a slackening of at least two or three feet of line must occur to 

restore the rod to its straight position, and remove the pressure 

from the hook ; whilst the fact of the hook being single 

diminishes the probability of its becoming unfixed, and in- 

creases the chance of its tearing out of its hold. 

Should a fish run under or into weeds, there is but one plan 

to be pursued tighten the strain upon him to the very utmost 

that rod and line will bear ; by this means the line will fre- 

quently act as a knife and cut its way, with the fish, through all 

obstacles. But whether the expedient fails or succeeds, it is the


only one that can be adopted ; if once the fish passes under 

the weeds without the line cutting through, the latter forms an 

angle at the point where it strikes the obstacle, and all power 

over the fish is instantly lost. Not one large fish in twenty will 

be brought to basket under such circumstances. 

LANDING. 

For landing a pike with the gaff I have already given what 

hints occur to me at page 33. 

If neither landing net nor gaff 

is accessible the best plan is to grasp the fish as tightly as possible 

just behind the head and either lift or jerk him on to the 

bank. 

In regard to the landing of pike, as on most other matters 

piscatorial, there are, of course, many varieties of opinion. One 

warning I would give, however, do not follow Nobbes' suggestion 

to land him by ' 

putting your fingers in his eyes,' nor by his gills, 

though we have the authority of the father of trolling for the 

fact that ' some will adventure to take him thereby,' although, 

' 

as he quaintly observes, the hold is neither so secure nor so 

safe for the fisher, because the fish in the heat of passion may 

accidentally take revenge upon his adversary by letting him blood 

in the fingers, which way of phlebotomy is not esteemed so 

good.' Probably no very elaborate argument is required to 

recommend this latter remark to the judgment of pike-fishers. 

Of late years I never go out pike-fishing without a gaff, but 

in former years I disdained the use of anything longer or 

stronger than my own fingers, and it is curious how seldom I 

lost a fish in consequence. On one of the few occasions on 

which I hooked so large a pike (23 Ibs.) that I could not manage 

him myself, the late Mr. Frank Buckland was luckily close at 

hand, and wading heroically into the water carried the fish out 

in his arms. 

I once performed a similar operation for the benefit of a 

pike my wife had hooked below the Flax Mills at Fordingbridge. 

This troublesome individual weighed only 9 Ibs. or 10 Ibs.


but then there was a lady In- the case which makes all the 

difference. 

To come back to pike-spinning. I have often been asked 

when is the proper time or when are the proper occasions for 

using the spinning bait ; my answer has been 'always,' except 

when the water is so full of mud and weeds as to be 'impossible.' 

Such advice is, however, seldom really required as men who 

have once taken to spinning rarely care very much for any 

other method of pike-fishing. Moreover the spinning-bait is, 

with the exceptions above indicated, always killing from June 

to the end of February that is during the whole season when 

pike can be taken. When, however, the water is much discoloured 

by a flood, a live bait, such as a roach or dace, or any- 

thing that looks large and bright, is the best and, indeed, 

practically the only chance. When a river or lake is so much 

overgrown by weeds as to make either the live-bait or spinningbait 

impracticable, the gorge-bait should be substituted, and 

only on such occasions should I personally ever resort to it. 

What is the best weather for spinning? I must confess my 

inability to answer this question. I doubt if there is any rule 

as to the state of wind and weather by which the most ex- 

perienced pike-fisher can really prognosticate what will be a 

good day for spinning, and what for live-bait or trolling, of 

even whether the day will prove good for pike-fishing at all. I 

have been led to this opinion by a careful observation of the 

condition of weather and water existing on days on which I have 

had the best and the worst sport, and I cannot say that I have 

ever been able to make out that there was any rule or system 

whatever traceable in the result. In this I am confirmed by 

Captain Warrington, of Sandhill House, Fordingbridge, a most 

experienced pike- fisher, who assured me that he had kept an 

exact register of the state of the wind, water, barometer, &rc., 

on the days when he had been jack-fishing for a great many 

years, and had not been able to arrive at any result whatever, 

the results, in fact, were altogether contradictory and un- 

intelligible.

HOW- AND WHERE TO SPIN. 129 

Many plausible rules on these subjects have, however, been 

laid down by other authors. Nobbes recommends to fish in 

the morning and evening in hot weather, and all day long in 

cloudy weather, and pleasantly remarks that ' 

it's the wind and 

the cooler clouds when Zephirus curls the waves with a brisk 

and delightsome gale that invites a fish to repast. 5 

This quaint 

author says, 'A northern wind indeed is sharp and piercing, 

and will weary the fisherman's patience, because Boreas his 

breath is more nipping than that of his fellows, and the north- 

east carries a proverb with it enough to discourage a fresh- 

water shark.' 

Another author favours the sharp breeze that sweeps the 

half-frozen dyke 

And hungers into madness every plunging pike. 

Whilst the majority are of opinion that 

When the wind is in the south, 

It blows the bait into the fish's mouth, 

and pronounce that Eurus is neither good for man or beast. 

Stoddart, writing principally with regard to Scotch waters, 

says : 

As to the weather and state of water best suited to pike-fishing, 

the former I esteem the most when dull and warm there ; being at 

the time a breeze from the south or south-west. Sunny glimpses, 

now and then, are not unpardonable, and the approach of thunder, 

so inimical to the hopes of the trout-fisher, may be held auspicious. 

On cold days, however windy, pike seldom bite well, although in 

Teviot, during the spring season, I have met with exceptions. In 

this river also I have noticed that these fish are in high humour 

for taking immediately before a flood, and when the water is just 

beginning to swell. This is owing no doubt to the anticipations 

entertained by them, through instinct, on being deprived for some 

length of time of their usual food, which, during a thick muddy 

water they are unable to discern and secure. They moreover bite 

freely when the river is of a deep-brown colour, and I have caught 

them in pools highly impregnated with snow ; in fact, there is no 

state of water, actual flood excepted, during which the river pike I 

allude to (Scotch) may not be induced to take. 

II 

K

130 

Baily says : 


Never go pike-fishing when it freezes sharp. . . . Although 

some anglers say that pike will bite well in such a state of weather, 

I can assure you they are very much mistaken. In January and 

February, when the weather is open and a little sunshiny, and the 

water clear, with a gentle breeze blowing, pike will bite -well. A 

calm still day is bad for pike-fishing at any time of the year, but 

particularly in summer when the weather is hot, but they may be 

taken on such days in the morning and evening. A good rough 

wind will keep them alive in the roughest weather. As a general 

rule, however, you can take great store of pike in spring, summer, 

autumn, and winter, if the water is clear and rippled by a gentle 

breeze and the day cloudy. 

breeze from what- 

Probably the real truth is that a good 

ever quarter it may blow is favourable for jack-fishing, and 

particularly for spinning, whilst with regard to water the only 

rule which can be considered to have any general significance 

is that a full fresh stream is usually preferable to a water that 

is low and bright. 

As regards the depth at which the spinning-bait should be 

worked, that depends entirely upon the state of the water with 

reference to weeds and other circumstances. It will be generally 

found, however, that in hot weather the fish lie near the surface, 

and in cold weather near the bottom, so that the bait should be 

spun ' 

shallow ' 

or ' 

deep ' 

accordingly. 

In 'leading' the trace for the purpose of regulating the 

depth, it should always be borne in mind that to sink a large 

bait to a given depth requires a heavier lead than is necessary 

in sinking a smaller bait. Thus, if a half-ounce lead will sink an 

ounce bait to the depth of one foot, a lead of an ounce in weight 

would be required to sink a two-ounce bait to the same point. 

This is owing to the fact of the bait being as nearly as may 

be of the same weight as the water. It has been proved that in 

ordinary river water a fresh killed fish of 19 Ibs. weighed i.{ Ibs. 

only. The tendency of the bait being to remain on the surface of 

the water where it is thrown, it is obvious that the larger the 

bait the heavier must be the weight to carry it down to the same


place in a given time. Moreover, the larger the bait (or, in 

other words, the greater its vis inertice) the greater inclination 

has the line when pulled upwards from the top of the rod to 

lift the sinking lead to the level of the bait. Thus, there is a 

compound resistance to be overcome in weighting a large bait 

to sink deeply. 

PIKE-HAUNTS. 

The haunts of pike vary considerably at different times of 

the year, and vary also with the nature of the particular waters, 

but it usually prefers a medium depth of water plentifully 

supplied with weeds and flags, selecting, if possible, a gravelly 

or sandy bottom. 

The neighbourhood of reeds, docks, bulrushes, and the 

broad-leaved water-lily are its favourite resorts, and of these a 

flooring of lilies, with from three to five feet of current over it, 

and a wall of reeds at the side, springing from the bottom, is 

the best. Indeed, it may be said that the reed and the lily are 

to the pike what the hollybush is to the woodcock. In lochs 

and meres the most shoal and weedy parts, small inlets, and 

little bays, or the mouths of streams, where minnows or other 

and in 

fry congregate are generally the best spinning grounds ; 

rivers, back waters and dam heads, eddies between two streams, 

or, in fact, any water that is weedy, of moderate depth, and not 

too much acted upon by the current. 

As a general rule, pike will be found during the summer in 

or close upon the streams, and in winter, after the first heavy 

flood, in the large eddies and deeps. 

K 2


LIVE-BAITING. 

TACKLE AND HOOKS. 

LIVE baiting, or live bait fishing, divides itself for all practical 

purposes into two categories the first, which may be called 

snap live-baiting, where the fish is struck immediately, and the 

second, which, but for the confusion of terms, might be called 

live-gorge-baiting, where the fish is allowed to pouch or gorge 

before striking. In both cases leads of some sort are used to 

keep the baits down, and (although not always) floats to keep 

them up ; as also to indicate the 'runs.' 

There are two methods of using the snap live-bait ordi- 

narily practised, one with a float, and the other with what is 

called a 'paternoster.' To deal first with float-fishing : There 

is little difference between this and ordinary float-fishing, ex- 

cept in the strength of the tackle and size of the float used, 

the object being, of course, to prevent the bait, which is often 

$ Ib. or even ^ Ib. weight or more, from it pulling under water. 

The hooks used are generally of gimp and a barrel-lead or 

bullet is run on the line to i ft. or ft. i^ above the bait. Sup- 

of water to be fished to be about 6 ft. and the 

posing the depth 

bait to swim about i^ ft. from the bottom, that would leave 

about 3 ft. between the lead and the float and i. 1 

, ft. in which 

the bait could ' 

play.' 

A great variety of patterns of live-bait tackle are given by 

some of them tolerably good, others (and they 

various authors ; 

are the majority) execrably bad whilst a few are simply impossibilities, 

as no live-bait could survive their application more 

than a few minutes. Here is an example of the last, taken from

LIVE-BAITING. 133 

F. T. Salter's ' 

Angler's Guide and Complete Practical Treatise, 

c.,' 2nd edition, temp. 1815. He calls it the ' 

Bead-hook ' 

: 

The bead hook is formed of two single hooks tied back to back, 

or you may purchase them made of one piece of wire tied to gimp ; 

between the lower part of the shanks is fastened a small link or two of 

chains, having a piece of lead of a conical form, or like a drop-bead, 

(from which it takes its name) linked by a staple to it. The lead is 

put into the live bait's mouth, which is sewed up with white thread. 

This is not much unlike thrusting a kitchen poker down a 

man's throat and then stopping up his mouth with pitch- plaister. 

And yet this prodigious piece of absurdity is quoted with lauda- 

tory expressions by a whole string of authors. 

A tackle that exemplifies the ' 

execrably 

found in Elaine's ' 

' 

bad class is to be 

Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports,' one of the 

least trustworthy manuals, so far as fishing is concerned sound 

as it may be on other subjects that I am acquainted with, and 

yet one of the most quoted by modern compilers. 

With hooks of the proportionate size shown in the diagram 

of this tackle, the chances are about three to one that no pike 

would ever be struck by them at all, but if he were so struck 

the likelihood of his being brought to basket without his cutting 

one or other of the two suspensory gut links (the whole tackle is 

to be made of single gut) would be small indeed. And yet 

Ephemera, in his 'Handbook of Angling' (p. 142, 3rd edition), 

calls this miserable abortion I can characterise it by no milder 

term 

' 

the best ' 

live-bait tackle extant ! 

These sort of betises (for the foregoing are only specimens, 

if flagrant ones) which are to be found cropping up everywhere 

in fishing books, make us almost ready to agree with a review 

in a recent number of the Fisherman's Magazine, which 

affirmed that the gentle craft was afflicted with a literature as 

large, perhaps, as that of all other field sports put together, and 

of which nine-tenths would appear to have been written for the 

express purpose of showing how ignorant it was possible for 

men to be on subjects on which they nevertheless thought 

themselves competent to instruct others.

134 


A really efficient live-bait snap-tackle, and one which has 

been extensively used for many years by pike-fishers 

on the 

Thames, was, I believe, the invention of Henry R. Francis, 

Esq., M.A., author of the 'Fly Fisher and his Library.' 

It consists first of a triangle composed of two large hooks 

and one small short one, whipped on to them, with a move- 

able lip hook above. The lip hook is put through the bait's 

lip (not lips, N.B.) and the small triangle hook into the back 

just at the insertion of the back fin. The result is a bait which, 

when once a pike has taken hold of it, is exceedingly good for 

as ordinarily employed, however 

returning the compliment ; 

that is by attaching to lip and back fin it cannot be said to 

embrace all the qualifications really necessary to the ideal of a 

perfect snap live-bait tackle. 

One great objection to it is that the bait is suspended in a 

most unnatural position in the water, standing, in fact, except 

when it rights itself by a sudden muscular exertion, upon its 

tail. This, of course, prevents it freely 

' 

roving,' to use the 

technical expression, and its orbit of attraction is limited to a 

comparatively small compass. When, moreover, the bait does 

exert itself for a swim its first effort is naturally to carry it to 

the surface of the water which is contrary to the theory of live- 

baiting and the object of the leads. 

Of the minor imperfections, it may be observed that any 

hooking of the lips of the live-bait is to be avoided if possible, 

as it interferes with the respiratory functions and necessarily 

tends to shorten the existence and lessen the vitality of the bait. 

What is wanted is, firstly, that the hooks should be sus- 

pended in such a position as to be certain of striking when the 

bait lies in the pike's mouth in its normal position, i.e. cross- 

wise ; secondly, that the lips and the respiratory organs of the 

bait should not be interfered with, and thirdly, that the position 

of the bait on the hooks when in the water should be the 

normal one, namely, horizontal, or nearly so, and with the head 

pointing rather downwards than upwards, to prevent the tendency 

of the bait to rise to the suiiuce.


Curiously enough the tackle I have been describing very 

nearly fulfils them all when its mode of attachment to the bait 

is changed from the lip and back n 

either to the back and flank, vide 

engraving, or to the back and 

pectoral fin, (position shown in 

miniature live-bait, illustrating 

Mr. Jardine's tackle, p. 169, but 

the top hook inserted further 

back, quite behind the dorsal fin, 

in 

fact). This shifts the bait 

from perpendicular to horizontal, 

or, better, with head pointing 

rather downwards. 

In the tackle itself, the only 

change is the brazing on of the 

small hook, a (vide cut), to the 

two large ones laterally instead 

of in the ordinary position. 

The 

adjustable back hook, which is 

intended to pass through the 

back, under, or behind, the in- 

sertion of the dorsal fin, l>, can 

easily be moved up and down on 

the line in the same way that a 

lip hook is moved on a spinning 

flight, by pushing the gimp upwards 

or downwards through the 

SNAP LIVE-BAIT TACKLE. 

metal loops, c c, and tightening the coils from the opposite end. 

The back hook, b, having been attached, the small lateral hook, 

a, is now inserted under a small strip of the outer side-skin, so 

as to keep the double hooks in their proper position close to the 

side of the bait, as shown in the miniature diagram above ; or 

else under the insertion of the pectoral fin as described. If 

the small hook were not brazed on laterally, the large double 

hooks, d d, would stand further away from the bait and would

136 


be proportionately more unsightly and less efficient. The tackle 

shown is of the proper size for a dace 6.^ in. long, a very fair 

medium size. 

A very good variation of this tackle, and one excellently 

well suited to large baits and long casting, is that which has 

been for many years very generally in use at Slapton Ley. It 

consists of two large triangles ; 

the upper (and larger) one with 

a metal loop at the end of the shank, through which the gimp 

passes freely, and the lower one lapped on to the end of the 

trace in the ordinary way. The mode of baiting is precisely 

the same as that just described and elsewhere indicated, with 

a diagram, by Mr. Jardine where the insertion of the pectoral 

fin is the point of attachment for the lowest 

LIVE-BAIT FLOAT, 

IIALK SIZE. 

triangle. The difference which is merely 

one of detail, not of principle is that 

instead of the triangles consisting 

of 2. 

large hooks and i small one, the hooks 

in each triangle of the Slapton Ley tackle 

are all of the same size, and the effect of the 

lip hook, for shortening or lengthening the 

tackle, is obtained by twisting the gimp 

several times round the shank of the upper 

triangle before passing the latter through the 

back just behind the dorsal fin. 

With this method the bait ran easily be 

cast 30, or even 40 yards, when there is a 

favourable wind. 

The bait should always hang slightly head 

downwards, which prevents its attempting 

constantly to swim to the surface of the water, and keeps 

it in 

its proper position without in any degree interfering with its 

perfect freedom of motion. 

The float (half-si/.e) represented, which is the ingenious 

invention of Mr. R. 15. Mansion, editor of the J''is/ii>; Gazette, 

has the advantage of being delached in a moment from the line 

through the slit, so that a larger 

or smaller float can be substituted


without any loss of time on a change of baits ; it has been 

' 

under the title of the Gazette Float.' 

registered 

Fishing 

In order to fish very deep water, the Nottingham or ' 

velling ' 

tra- 

float (figured at page 215), made sufficiently large to 

bear up the weight of the bait and line, may be used. With 

this tackle there is practically no limit to the depth that can be 

effectually fished. 

It will be found a convenience for keeping the reel line from 

' 

to thread ' 

sinking and becoming entangled with the live bait, 

three or four pieces of cork about the size of a cherry at a dis- 

tance of two feet apart. These can be put on 

with a baiting needle before beginning, and the 

elasticity of the corks will generally suffice to keep 

them in their positions. They have the additional 

advantage in that when the float disappears under 

the surface they indicate the direction which the 

fish has taken. 

The trace below the running line should be 

divided into two parts that above the lead, and 

that below. That above, say 

made either of stained gimp or twisted gut, or in 

fact of either of the materials already mentioned 

2 ft. or 2^ ft., may be 

as suitable for spinning traces. The lead itself 

should be what is known as ' 

pipe-shape,' and it 

should be prevented from slipping off the trace by 

the latter being attached to a hook swivel, the 

loop of which \vill prevent the lead slipping over 

and will be found very convenient for the purpose 

The arrangement of the lead 

of changing flights. 

and swivel is shown in the diagram, the trace 

being continued upwards (2 ft. or 2.7 ft.) from the LIVE-BAITING 

point marked A, and, for the ' 

below lead' ANn LOOPportion 

S \V I V F L 

\\ ft. of gimp with the flight being attached to 

the hook swivel B. A lead of the shape shown is neater, and 

shows less in the water than one of the bullet form, and is 

therefore preferable.

138 


Both lead and float, as to its lower part, should be painted 

with some dark green or weed colour tint ; or, failing this, var- 

nished with Brunswick black. The upper part of the float shoul^ 

be painted black, as that colour shows better than any other ; 

at twenty-five or thirty yards off in roughish water, a white or 

green topped float is often very difficult to see, and the fisherman 

is, so to speak, kept making shots at a target without any 

bull's eye. 

The trolling rod used for spinning will also answer perfectly 

in every respect for live-bait fishing, using one of the shorter 

tops already mentioned, page 12. 

In live-bait fishing with this tackle, a fish should be struck 

the moment a ' 

run ' 

is perceived, that is, when the float goes 

under water or moves away with greater rush and rapidity than 

the bait itself could be supposed to exert. The stroke should 

be a sharp one as recommended in spinning, and continued 

until a violent tearing struggle is felt ; it will frequently happen 

otherwise that whilst the troller thinks his pike is hooked, the 

latter is merely holding on to the bait at his proper pleasure. 

LIVE-BAITS. 

The best live-bait, according to my experience, is either a 

small dace or a very large gudgeon, that is, for clear waters, and 

except where pike run unusually large. In the latter case, or 

where waters are much discoloured, bigger baits with brighter 

scaling will be found more effective, and there are some very 

successful live-bait fishers in my experience who use nothing 

but roach. 

I would impress again, however, upon the reader that with 

every description of pike snap-tackle, whether spinning or live- 

baiting, the larger the bait, the greater the chances against 

hooking the fish, and this is a rule to which from necessity no 

tackle can be excepted. Four or five ounces is about the 

maximum weight which can be properly used on live-bait snaptackle 

with any reasonable certainty of hooking a fish. When


larger baits are necessary, and I have known several cases in 

which fish of half a pound and upwards were commonly used, 

recourse should be had to the live-bait gorge-tackle. 

Where pike are over-fed or obstinately shy of the ordinary 

with which 

bait, it would be as well to try them with gold-fish, 

I have succeeded in catching pike under circumstances that 

gave me considerable faith in them. If gold-fish are not forth- 

coming, a small carp will also form a variety and be found a 

killing as well as a long-lived bait. To quote from myself if 

it is permissible 'the principle which is so generally admitted 

in the case of men and the higher animals, holds good 

also in 

that of fish : if you want to attract them and stir their appetites, 

offer them a novelty no matter what but something that 

they have not been accustomed to. Thus, as a rule, were I 

fishing a river in which there were no "ground swimmers," I 

should try a gudgeon ; if there were no surface swimmers, a 

dace or a bleak ; 

and so on. 

' 

How, if not upon this principle, is to be explained the 

indisputable fact that the " spoon," at first so deadly both for 

pike and trout, is now almost disused on many waters where it 

was originally most successful? Indeed, so convinced am I 

that " novelty hath charms " even for the rugged breast of the 

pike that I have more than once been on the point of rigging 

conclusions with ! 

up a plated fork instead of a spoon, to ' 

try 

In stew ponds, where pike are kept and regularly fed, not 

only eels, but also frogs form a most acceptable variation of the 

dietary. A friend of mine, when living not far from Great 

Marlow, had in his gardens a stew pond which was kept well 

stocked with pike by supernumerary captures out of the neigh- 

bouring Thames. Some of these jack were of easily recognisable 

size and had their own names, to which, indeed, local 

tradition said that they were in the habit of responding when 

called. I have often watched Thomas, the tyrant undisputed 

of this small watery domain, and I have noticed that the 

observation was mutual. I have watched to see whether the 

state of domesticity, so to speak, would have any corresponding

MO 


effect upon his character, and whether when I threw him a frog 

and addressed him caressingly as 'Tommy,' the steely cold 

glance of his motionless eyes would soften, and possibly the 

corners of his grim mouth relax into a convivial smile. When 

I threw him the frog, the corners of his mouth did, indeed, 

relax, but, alas ! it was only for the purpose of enclosing therein 

the savoury morsel. Was it a judgment upon him for his in- 

gratitude, that my amphibious offering was very nearly proving 

his destruction ? . . . 

' 

was the next sized pike in the 

Charley ' 

pond, and unperceived by me, was lying under the broad 

leaves of some water-lilies not two yards in front of the spot 

where the frog was thrown. The result was that both fish 

and ' 

simultaneously rushed forward open-mouthed, Charley ' 

being rather the smaller of the two, fairly darted into the 

extended jaws of his vis-ct-vis. It appeared at first likely that 

one or both would be choked, but eventually they managed to 

separate, with probably no worse effects than some scratches 

on one side and a few broken teeth on the other. 

It would seem, however, from the following account, written 

by Mr. Edward H. Cooper, in the pages of Land and Water, 

that it is by no means impossible to more or less tame a pike 

in a stew-pond. A pike who offers his back to be ' 

with a small stick ' 

stroked 

may be considered to have made consider- 

able progress on the road towards domesticity. 

When I was residing in Suffolk as a country clergyman, says 

Mr. Cooper, I became acquainted with various peculiarities dis- 

played in the pike tribe, the relation of which, I think, may prove 

to the readers of Land and Water. 

interesting 

Having to use water from a small pond for all domestic purposes, 

I procured a small pike about eight inches long, and as 

nearly as I could judge about nine months to a year old, certainly 

not more (but I have found by experience that the sixe of fish 

much depends upon the quantity of food they are able to procure, 

more so than upon mere age). The purpose for which 1 got the 

pike in question, was to keep the pond, which was an artificial one, 

free from all water delilcrs, as frogs, newts, lizards, and dragon fly 

larva;. This he speedily did, and most rapidly increased in bulk.


A bout three months after the fish had been placed in the pond, it 

was coated over with ice, and remained so most of the winter. 

Consequently I lost sight of my pike until the return of the following 

spring, when he made his re-appearance at the surface of the 

water, very much thinner, it is true, but grown certainly four 

inches. Having cleared the pond of all kinds of beetles and other 

aquatic food, I had to resort to other means of keeping the fish 

alive. For this I purpose used to throw into the pond daily three 

or four frogs, which the pike greedily devoured before they had a 

chance of escaping. 

As the summer advanced, the number of frogs were increased 

to eight or ten a day, all of which were most eagerly taken, as also 

were large worms, small ones being rejected with scorn, even if 

they came invitingly close to the jaws of the fish. Regularly every 

morning Jack would rise to the surface as soon as he saw me 

approaching the pond, and instantly begin to wag his tail and fins 

with delight, and apparent joy ; he would then follow me round 

the pond several times in succession to receive his allowance of 

frogs, and even allow himself to be quietly stroked down the back 

with a small stick. This continued until the month of October, 

when the pike would be about two years old ; unluckily a scarcity 

of frogs began to make itself apparent in my garden, so having 

found a ground lizard under a creeping plant, I resolved to try 

whether or no the pike would eat it. No sooner had I thrown the 

reptile into the pond, than it was seized and devoured, but with 

this unfortunate result : in half an hour after swallowing the land 

lizard, the pike became uneasy, and commenced to swim backwards 

and forwards as if in pain, and this continued with increasing 

vehemence every hour until the following day, when having com- 

pletely changed his colour to a sickly ashen hue, he turned over 

and died. 

Upon getting the pike out of the water, I found that it weighed 

just upon four pounds : its body was very bloated. I did not, however, 

examine the contents of its stomach. 

According to some, there is a special antipathy between the 

pike and the frog, the latter fixing himself upon the pike's head 

and endeavouring to eat out its eyes. Dubravius, Bishop of 

Bohemia, is quoted by Walton as having 

of these experiments in optics. 

been witness to one 

The bishop, he says, that had beheld the battle, called his

142 


fisherman to fetch his nets, and by all means to get the pike, that 

they might declare what had happened ; and the pike was drawn 

forth, and both his eyes eaten out ; at which, when they began to 

wonder, the fisherman wished them to forbear, and assured them 

he was certain that pikes were often so served. 

A recent writer, commenting on these alleged practices of 

the frog, describes how 

Some four years ago, about the middle of April, while sauntering 

by the side of a large pond, I espied, not far off, and drifting 

towards me, a frog, seated on what I at first supposed to be a 

piece of rail. On a nearer approach I found that, instead of a 

piece of rail, froggie was composedly squatted on the back part of 

the head of a 5 Ib. or 6 Ib. pike. The fish leisurely swimming 

on the top of the water passed within three yards of the spot where 

I was standing. I never witnessed a similar circumstance before 

or since. 

Further on he says : 

As to the eating of the eyes, I am rather sceptical on that 

but that frogs occasionally locate themselves on the heads 

point ; 

of pike there can be no doubt ; but the question is, what takes 

them there? Can it be that in spring some pike are afflicted with 

a fungus or parasite on their heads and backs, and that the said 

parasite is so appetising a morsel for the frog that he braves all 

dangers in order to obtain the coveted bonne boitche, and that the 

pike (at this particular season), out of gratitude, spares the frog's 

life? a mutual understanding having taken place between them, 

after the manner of Herodotus' story of the trochilus and the 

crocodile, wherein he relates that ' 

the crocodile, when he gets out 

of the water on land, open his jaws, and then the trochilus enters 

his mouth and swallows the leeches. The crocodile is so well 

pleased with this service that he never hurts the little bird. 

The outcome of enquiry into this subject 

instituted some 

time ago by a German paper devoted to fishing subjects, 

appears to be that the frogs which have been noticed on the 

heads of pike and, perhaps, other species, did not occupy that 

'coign of vantage' for the purpose of obtaining a dinner, but 

rather that the explanation of the matter is to be found in the


sexual instinct so strongly developed in the frog at certain 

seasons of the year. 

My attempts to fascinate my friend's large pike remind me 

of what once happened to Lady Barrow, at that time better 

known as the beautiful Miss Croker, who fancied that by the 

dominant power of the human eye, and doubtless of her own 

beaux yeux in particular, she would fascinate a grisly old 

African lion, a- la Van Amburgh. The experiment appeared 

to be proceeding successfully, when suddenly the object of it 

sprang up, and with a mighty roar dashed himself furiously 

against the bars of the cage. The effect was electrical. Most 

of the spectators took to their heels, while the beautiful operator 

herself fell back fainting into the arms of one of the party I 

believe the Duke of Wellington 

tomed to being 'lionised.' 

who was, of course, accus- 

The quantity of food a pike will consume in a stew-pond, 

and his consequent growth rate are points upon which opinions 

and experiences differ widely, and to procure positive data 

upon must clearly be a matter of great difficulty. 

One writer mentions that eight pike, of about five pounds 

each, consumed nearly 800 gudgeons in three weeks, and that 

the appetite of one of them was almost insatiable. There is 

no doubt, however, that this dietary 

might be reached. Mr. Stoddart, 

is far below the limit which 

in his ' 

Angler's Companion ' 

(p. 298), makes a curious calculation of the ravages committed 

by pike in the Teviot, and also states that in some lochs in 

Scotland the fish has been known to eat its own weight of baits 

every day. 

From frequent opportunities of watching the feeding and 

management of pike in stews, I should say that a fish of five 

or six pounds would eat, if permitted, at least twice its own 

weight of fish every week ; whilst, on the other hand, it can be 

almost starved for a very considerable period without suffering 

perceptibly ; and in one instance already alluded to, namely, 

that of the pike in the Zoological Gardens, 

the increase of 

\veight has only been \\ Ibs. in ten years. This capacity of

M4 


existing under such opposite extremes of diet throws an addi- 

tional difficulty in the way of drawing, from the growth 

rate in 

stews (where only it can be conveniently tested), a correct 

deduction as regards that in ordinary waters, as we are deprived 

of the means of gauging the amount of food really required. 

Of one point, however, I have fully satisfied myself, viz. 

that during the first year the maximum growth, in open water, 

does not much exceed half a pound. The grounds for this 

conclusion are briefly as follows : Pike spawn in March or 

April ; in June, when pike-fishing properly commences, I have 

not unfrequently taken, and seen taken, with the net, small 

jack of about an ounce, or a little more, in weight ; in September, 

again, I have, with a minnow, constantly taken them of three or 

four ounces ; and in January and February specimens of from 

five to seven ounces ; whilst I have never, within my memory, 

caught the smaller sized fish at the later periods, or vice versa, 

thus pointing closely to the inference that at these seasons 

there were young jack of these respective sizes, and none others 

in other words, that the different sizes represented the different 

stages of growth. These I believe to be the fish of about f Ib. 

of the following season. 

With regard, however, to the growth rate of pike in open 

waters doctors again differ, and it has been by various authors 

estimated variously at from i Ib. to 5 Ibs. a year. My own 

experience as to pike growth I am not now speaking of the 

growth during the first year leads me to believe that the 

above wide divergency of opinion is very likely not so far from 

being justified by facts as might be supposed, and that the 

growth rate of pike in open waters is susceptible of very great 

variation, depending upon the nature of the water and other 

circumstances, but principally upon the amount of food supplied 

to them. 

The following correspondence took place on this subject in 

the Field some years ago, and as the experience of the writers 

is personal and apparently trustworthy, the letters may probably 

be of interest :


GROWTH OF PIKE. 

I think it possible that *J. B. H. ' 

(who asked a question 

about the growth of pike last week) may be glad of the little information 

which I can give (the result of my experience). A few 

years ago I stocked a piece of water five acres in extent with pike. 

The piece of water is near Lymington, the property of my brother. 

I can positively state that there were no pike in the water when I 

stocked it. 

I put in some pike, all of them under i Ib. each in weight, in the 

early autumn. Exactly three years afterwards, in the early autumn, 

I caught two pike in that piece of water, each weighing 12 Ibs. I 

am sorry that I cannot commence calculating the increase of weight 

from March, after the spawning season. In this piece of water, 

therefore, the pike increased in weight nearly 4 Ibs. a year. The 

piece of water is well stocked with roach and other small fish, and 

has a gravelly bottom generally. SIDNEY BURRARD (The Mount, 

Isle of Wight, Dec. 10). 

In June, 1855, Richard Briscoe, Esq., whilst fishing in Melbourne 

Pool, Derbyshire, caught a pike which weighed 20 Ibs. This fact is' 

interesting as being one step towards solving the progressive growth 

question of the 

of pike. The pool was emptied of water and 

cleaned out, and stocked with pike and other fish on Dec. 16, 1847, 

so that this pike had grown to that weight in rather more than 

eight years and five months. This pike was 3 ft. 3 in. long and 

1 8 in. in girth round the shoulders. His head was small in proportion, 

his body in prime condition, beautifully marked, bright and 

symmetrical in shape, and the fish was evidently in the prime of 

life. 

I once saw a pike on August 26, which was in good condition, 

but a very old fish ; and although it measured 3 in. longer than the 

one just described, and about the same in girth, it only weighed 

1 6 Ibs., or 4 Ibs. lighter. This fish had lost some of its teeth, and 

had the most ferocious shark-like head I ever saw in a pike. 

It is generally supposed that pike grow more rapidly in Mel- 

bourne Pool than the Trent. Mr. Kinsey, of Melbourne, put a pike 

into a well when a few inches long ; food was given to it for several 

years, but it grew very slowly, and at last reached 3 Ibs. It lived 

fourteen years, and latterly became very tame so much so as to 

take food from the hand. If a worm were tied to a string and put 

II. L

146 


into the water, it would seize it with great avidity, and rather than 

loose its hold allow itself to be lifted out of the water. By constant 

teasing in this manner it became very shy, and upon anyone ap- 

dived to the bottom and secreted itself. In 

proaching the well, 

order to prevent it being annoyed the owner put a haystack over 

the mouth of the well, so that during one whole summer it lived in 

total darkness. JOHN JOSEPH BRIGGS (King's Newton, Derby). 

My experience is not exactly in the form 'J. B. H.' wishes, 

though possibly what I can state of my own knowledge may be 

acceptable. 

I placed in a mill-pond of about two acres, fed by a strong 

stream, the finny denizens of which consisted entirely of carp, 

roach, and perch, a small jack (secured with a wire about six inches 

long). It was a female ; and once in each of the three following 

years, and about the same period, I caught and weighed her. She 

increased in each year exactly 4 Ibs. I then turned in another, 

which proved a male. The pair bred for three seasons ; and in 

walking round the water on any day in summer, I could see the 

produce of those years (I once witnessed the operation of spawning) 

basking. The first did not exceed \\ lb., the second lb., and the 

third not 3 oz. The little fish would then be two and a half years, 

one and a half years, and half a year old, or thereabout. 1 added 

other larger fish, which I have reason to believe made equally 

rapid growth as their parent fish, and 1 attribute it solely to a 

change of water. 

It is commonly thought that pike take their prey by a stealthy 

rush. It may generally be thus ; but I have in more than one 

instance seen a most exciting chase. One especially rises to my 

mind in this very water. A fish of about 4 Ibs. had separated a 

large roach from the shoal, and followed his prey as persistently, 

turn for turn, as a greyhound would a hare. The fish were in sight 

for probably two minutes, in shallow water, and neither seemed to 

gain or lose an inch. Both were completely exhausted. What the 

result was I never knew, as eventually they got into deep water, to 

my great disappointment. Occasionally Master Jack would try to 

check the course of Miss Silverside, by (I have no better term) 

sucking in water, and discharging it through the gills. This had 

momentary effect ; but ' he took nothing by the motion,' as the 

operation told on his own speed. On another occasion the fish 

succeeded in taking his prey, commonly the result, I believe. 

GLAN NANT.


I extract the following from the published works of the 

authors mentioned : 

Nobbes says : 

One pike of 40 inches might haply be of as many years standing; 

not that a pike grows just about an inch a year, for that is a thing 

some grow faster, some slower, accord- 

that is hard to determine ; 

ing to the diversity of their water and their feed. River fish are 

thought to grow much faster than pond fish, except the pond be 

very large and have a good stream run through it ; for there is 

nothing helps so much to the feeding of pike as fresh water. Jacks 

or pickerels grow faster than great ones, and I have observed in a 

clear and springing brook that a jack spawned in March will take 

a bait in October following, and will be increased to 18 inches the 

next March (?). 

In standing water, as moats and ponds, he grows 

nothing so fast ; for to try the experiment 

I have taken one out 

with a cast-net in May, measured him and marked him on his tail, 

and about Michaelmas I have taken the same fish, and he hath 

not increased in length above 2 inches, and very little in breadth. 

A river fish will grow very fast until he come to be 24 or near 30 

inches, then he stands a little more at a stay, and spreads himself 

in thickness ; after that he will grow a long time, and be much 

longer growing to his full bigness from 30 inches than he was 

increasing to that proportion. 

The following is 'Ephemera's' opinion : 

Young pike grow rapidly, and it is said by the end of the first 

year attain a weight of 2 Ibs. I doubt it, and am persuaded that 

pike do not each add every year a pound to its weight. They 

may do so for a few years, but the time comes when their growth 

is stationary (!), size varying according to their good and bad con- 

dition, which is regulated by food and the seasons of the year. 

(From Yarrell): 

' 

Block says the young reach the length of 8 to 10 

inches the first year; 12 to 14 inches the 1 second; 8 to 20 inches the 

third ; and there are proofs on record that from this last size, pike, 

if well supplied with food, will grow at the rate of 4 Ibs. a year for 

six or seven successive years. Rapid growth requires to be sus- 

tained by a proportionate quantity of food.' 

' 

Piscator ' 

(' Practical Angler,' p. 240) has the following : 

The pike is a rapid-growing fish, though his increase in bulk

148 


will depend in a great measure on the supply he can obtain. 

Instances have occurred of their growing at the rate of 4 Ibs. 

a-year for several years, in proof of which Mr. Jesse states that he 

saw three pikes taken out of a pond in Staffordshire belonging to 

Sir S. C. Jervoise, two of which weighed 56 Ibs. 

The pond was fished every seven years ; so that supposing 

store pike of 6 or 7 Ihs. were left in, the growth of the pike in 

question must have been at least to the extent above stated. Still 

I apprehend that it can only be under very favourable circumstances 

that such a rapid increase in growth will take place ; 

and from the 

result of my own observations in the different waters I have fished, 

I am inclined to think that an annual increase of about 2 Ibs. is 

nearer the usual average and in small ; hungry waters I am certain 

the growth is much less, . . . whilst Griffiths states that in its first 

year it is often n or 12 inches long ; in the sixth has been known 

to measure 6 feet, and in the twelfth about 7 or 8 feet, . . . very 

probably, also ; as is known to be the case with tench and carp 

(and the same is also believed with respect to trout), the progeny 

are inclined to grow large or small in proportion to the parent 

stock from which the race is propagated. 

' The growth of pike,' 

says Dr. Badham, 'under favourable circumstances, during the 

earlier portion of life is occasionally at the rate of 4 Ibs. per annum ; 

after twelve years he diminishes probably to i or 2 Ibs., and lessens 

still more as age advances.' 

Bowlker says : 

The young are supposed to be of very quick growth, the first 

year it arrives at the length of from 6 to 10 inches ; the second 12 

to 15 ; and the thiid from 1 8 to 20 inches. 

According to Hofland, 'if well supplied 

with food and 

suitable water, they will increase in weight from 3 to 4 Ihs. 

annually ;' and Stoddart states that he ascertained pretty accu- 

rately that the average weight of a two-year-old 

Teviot fish 

runs from 2 to 5 Ibs. (a tolerably wide margin !) 

The following is an extract from a letter which I received 

from Dr. Genxik : 

In Moravia this year a cousin of mine found in one of his carp 

ponds where always small pikes are put in, and is fished regularly 

every three years, a pike in splendid condition of 44 Ibs. Austrian.


The pond is always drawn and gets nearly dry for at least ten 

days before it is again filled and fresh stocked. How many times 

this jack escaped the nets of the wading men I have no idea ; but 

the Verwaller (bailiff) of the estate assured me that just eighteen 

years ago this tank or pond lay quite dry for the whole winter and 

spring till harvest and they made hay on the dry ground, afterwards 

it was filled and stocked again. 

At whatever rate, however, the pike grows, whether rapidly 

or slowly, the one point beyond dispute is that he does grow, 

and that to a size which, when he is suffered to attain to his 

full development, would probably astonish this sceptical age of 

anglers, who will scarcely believe even in Mr. Alfred Jardine's 

twenty- and thirty-pounders, although produced in evidence, 

both cast and stuffed at the Fisheries' Exhibition. So far as 

this species is concerned, the exhibition of casts of fish by Mr. 

Jardine and others, few as they were numerically, sounded, I 

believe, the death knell of taxidermy. 

In all that constitutes the perfection of simulation or the art 

of making the unreal appear as the real, casting 

is immeasur- 

ably ahead of fish-stuffing. You have, in fact, the exact representation 

of the fish, scale for scale, as he appeared fresh out of 

the water, in full length and unshrunken proportions. With a 

stuffed fish, on the contrary, neither his length nor his girth is 

ever really accurate. Fish vertebrae are separated by a sort 

of gelatinous substance, forming a separation between the 

several joints, which, after a short time, becomes desiccated 

or dried up, thus contracting the several bones and shortening 

not inconsiderably, the total length. A similar shrinking process, 

though from somewhat different causes, takes place in the 

girth. The colouring also in the cast is that of the fish just 

after his decease 

Before decay's effacing fingers 

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers. 

And last, not least, the fish-casting is practically inde- 

structible by time, and does not cause the disagreeable smell 

produced by the old mummified specimens of the art of the

ISO 


taxidermist, no matter how scientifically tittivated in the ordinary 

manner. Besides Mr. Jardine's ' 

pike aforesaid, alone 

worth going to the Exhibition to see there was in the same 

gallery a very beautiful cast of a grayling 

of about 2 Ibs. 

weight, which was a model of fish-loveliness, and seemed to 

do everything but swim. I am very sorry that I have for- 

gotten the names of the artists by whom these casts were made, 

so that I am not able to associate their names with their 

exhibits. 

To return. There is, as I was observing, a civil sort of 

disbelief amongst modern writers and their readers as to the 

accounts of very large pike, although these are handed down 

to us in many cases by witnesses in every way credible. The 

prevailing impression appears to be that a weight of 30 Ibs., or 

at the utmost 40 Ibs., is about the real maximum of weight 

attained by this fish. 

I could easily refer, however, to many attested examples of 

pike having been taken in the British Islands up to the weight 

of 70, 80, or even 90 Ibs. ; but a single instance, too well 

authenticated to admit of doubt, 

will suffice. I refer to the 

case of the Kenmure Pike mentioned also by Daniel in his 

' 

Rural Sports,' and by Dr. Grierson and other authors the 

weight of which was 72 Ibs. It was taken in Loch Ken, 

Galloway, a sheet of water belonging to Kenmure Castle, 

where the head of the fish is stillpreserved, and may be seen by 

anyone sufficiently curious or sceptical to desire ocular demon- 

stration. 

To the Hon. Mrs. Bellamy Gordon, of Kenmure Castle, 

my best acknowledgments are due for an interesting account, 

written on the spot, of this gigantic pike and its capture, as well 

as for a photograph of the head of the fish, as it now appears, 

with its proportions. These latter would be scarcely intelligible 

without the assistance of the photograph ; but, to give a general 

idea of the size of the fish, I may quote 

one measurement 

1 The fish casts exhibited by Mr. Jardine were, I understand, executed by 

my friend, the late Mr. Frank Buckland, and painted by Rolfe.


that across the back of the head, the width of which was nine 

inches. 

Of this pike, Stoddart says that it is the largest known to 

have been captured in Scotland with the rod and fly. 

Colonel 

' 

Thornton, however, in his Sporting Tour,' refers to one taken 

from an insignificant sheet of water on Lochaber, of the extra- 

ordinary weight of 146 Ibs., and in Loch Alvie, which is not far 

distant, he himself caught one that measured 5 ft. 4 in. in length, 

and which weighed 48 Ibs. This fish Colonel Thornton states 

he caught with a gorge-hook ; but Hofland has this note on the 

subject: 'The gallant Colonel has been celebrated for the 

use of the long bow, and I have heard it stoutly asserted on 

the other side of Tweed, 

' 

Trimmer ! 

that the fish was taken with a 

Again, as to the measurements, ' 

Piscator ' 

(' Prac- 

tical Angler ') gives the length at 4 ft. i in. from eye to fork, 

extreme length 4 ft. 9 in., instead of 5 ft. 4 in. as stated by its 

captor ; and even in the question of the locus in quo, as to 

which one would suppose that he could not be mistaken, the 

Colonel's accuracy has been grossly impugned, for Daniel 

asserts positively that the water in which the fish was captured 

was not Loch Alvie, but Loch Paterliche ! 

Well hast thou said, Athene's wisest son, 

All that we know is nothing can be known. 

The attempt to delineate a great fish, or the taking of him, 

must certainly exercise some mystifying influence upon the 

piscatorial mind, for we find even Stoddart, generally so ac- 

curate, when alluding to the celebrated Kenmure pike, going 

out of his way to describe him as having been taken with the 

fly, whereas, from the account which I have in my possession, 

written on the spot by the desire of Mrs. Bellamy Gordon, it ia 

clear that he was captured by the spinning-bait Sir John 

Hawkins in his notes to the ' 

mentions the 

Complete Angler ' 

case of a pike taken in 1765 in a pool at Lillishall Lime Works, 

which weighed 170 Ibs., and had to be drawn out by several 

men with a stout rope fastened round the gills.

152 


In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the head of a pike is 

stated to have been preserved, the owner of which turned the 

scale at 70 Ibs. ; but the curator of the museum informs me 

that this head is not now in the collection. 

The capture of a pike weighing 96 Ibs. in Broadwood Lake, 

near Killaloe, is chronicled by the author of the 'Angler in 

Ireland,' by Mr. Robert Blakey, and by 'Ephemera' in his 

'Notes to Walton's Angler' (1853). Each of these authors, 

however, introducing just sufficient variations in the weight of 

the fish and other accessories as to impart an agreeable air of 

novelty to his account The first historian of this Irish pike 

was, so far as I can make out, ' 

Piscator/ author of the ' 

Practical 

Angler,' who gives the additional particulars that ' when carried 

across the oar by two gentlemen, neither of whom was short, 

the head and tail actually touched the ground,' so that the 

length of this pike (putting the men only at 5 ft 6 in., and 

allowing nothing for the curve of the fish over the oar) must 

have been close upon 10 feet. But then perhaps they were 

Irish feet ? 

A pike of 90 Ibs., however, was stated a year or two ago in 

the Field to have been actually killed at that time in the 

Shannon ; and Patrick Hearns of Ballina read in a local 

paper 

' 

that a monster pike has been found dead on one of the 

Ballina Lakes. He was driven ashore by the great storm j he 

was above 60 Ibs.' 

From Lake Constance we read of one of 130 Ibs. : 

It may interest some of your readers that on May 22 List a 

monster pike of 60 kilos (about 130 Ibs. English) was caught by 

net in the Lake of Constance by two fishermen named Adlermeister 

and Obermann. The fish was bought for 100 fr. by Mr. 

Stenenneister, of the Wienerhof Hotel, at Kard, and when cut 

open a full-grown wild duck was found inside. My information 

is from the daily St. Gall paper of May 26, which I enclose. 

JOHN KNECHTLY, 6 Carey Lane, London, E.G., June 4, 1877. 

In crossing the ocean we should naturally expect something 

' 

big ' 

from our Transatlantic kinsmen, and accordingly in the

' American Angler's Guide ' 


we find that ' 

in a pool near New- 

port a pike was captured weighing 170 Ibs.' not a bad 'take' 

that, even for a Yankee trolier. 

Not long ago I received from the late Dr. Genzik of Lintz, 

who kindly furnished me with much interesting information 

concerning the Continental pike, some facts in regard to the 

size attained by these fish in Bavaria, the Tyrol, &c., which may 

probably be new to many of my readers. He assures me that, 

in the fish-markets of Vienna, Lintz, and Munich, pike are not 

unfrequently exposed for sale of 80 Ibs. and 90 Ibs. weight and 

that at Obernenkirchen he himself saw a pike taken 

upwards, 1 

out of a large tank or preserve, which, after being cleaned, 

weighed 97 Ibs. and some ounces ; and that an officer of 

Tyrolese Rifles informed him that whilst at Bregentz during 

the autumn of 1862 he was present when a pike was caught 

weighing upwards of 145 Ibs. 

Dr. Genzik also testifies in a letter written to me some time 

ago that once when crossing the Gmunden Lake, he himself, 

in company with Mr. Hepburn, captain of the steamer, saw, 

not thirty yards from the boat, a pike jump high up into the 

air three times running; he was 'surely 18 ft. long.' It was 

close enough for him to see distinctly the ' 

large 

ribbons ' 

his sides. 

The age attainable by pike is another debated point, and as 

I don't anticipate attaining to centenarian honours it is not 

likely that I shall be personally in a position to corroborate or 

contradict the statements of the orthodox on the subject. 

Your pitcher shall break on the musty shelf, 

And mine by the dazzling stream, 

as poor Gordon, of bright, but short-lived, Australian fame, 

1 The fishermen on the Danube, near Strudel and Wirbel, have legends of 

pike 15 and 29 feet long, which break through all their nets and at ; Traunkirchen, 

on the Gmunden Water, there are still living some fishermen, who declare that 

about twenty years ago, when dragging the lake, they enclosed a pike longer 

' 

than either of their boats, and that they began, as they expressed it, to say 

their prayers,' thinking the enemy was on their nets the ; pike, however, with 

one spring, jumped over the nearest boat and escaped. 

on

154 


writes in one of his spirited ballads. Pennant, whose respect- 

ability no one will presume to question, refers to a pike of ninety 

years old. Pliny considered it as the longest lived, and likely 

to reach the greatest age of any fresh-water fish ; whilst Sir 

PVancis Bacon, agreeing in this view, limits its probable maximum 

to forty years. Sir Roger L'Estrange has even gone to 

the length of complaining of this 'pike longevity,' which, as he 

quaintly observes, 'is a pity, he being an absolute tyrant of the 

fresh water as the salmon is the king thereof.' 

Dr. Badham chronicles the age of one ' 

historic pike,' in 

the College-pond at Cambridge : 

Almost every piece of water, says he, maintains some such tra- 

ditionary patriarch. Not long ago one of these hale old water-foxes 

was to be seen in a parallelogram college-pond at Cambridge, 

who still continued to champ the green duckweed with a smack, 

and to flounder heavily amongst the green water-lilies, on his 

veteran flank as he used to do in our pupilary days some twenty 

years back. He has seen out many a generation of bed-makers 

and ten-year men. The lodge has had many a new caput, 

and the 

kitchen many a new cook, since he first swam there ; yet amidst 

all these culinary changes, no maeson has been permitted to lay 

fraudulent hands upon him ; his safety is supposed to be identified 

with the interests of the college ; and thus protected by common 

consent from hook and every harm, want has from generation to 

generation been carefully met by his trusty nomenclator, a whistling 

' 

Since putting the above into type, we have 

gyp. A note adds : 

learned with regret that burglarious hands have carried off an 

historic pike from the fellows' pond of the same college. May some 

ex ossibus ultor from his 

crime !' 

ribs, stick in that fellow's throat for his 

The famous story of the pike with the brass ring round its 

neck that was put into the Kaiserwag Lake by one of the 

German emperors, and there lived to the age of 267 years, 

is probably familiar to us all, as it has been a staple commodity 

with the book writers and book makers of every generation 

since the sixteenth century. I think I put the coping stone to 

the edifice which fact and fiction have conspired to rear 

on this foundation by producing from the old black-letter


volume of Conrad Gesner, an actual facsimile of the ring. 

But 

(I am thankful to say) these things are all written in the ' Book 

of the Pike,' to which I refer any of my readers who are curious 

on the subject That in olden times it was the custom in some 

countries to put rings into the gills and round the necks of fishes 

there is no reason to doubt. 1 

As late as 1610 a pike was taken in the Meuse bearing a 

copper ring, on which was engraved the name of the city of 

Stavern and the date 1448. Even now the practice is not 

entirely extinct. Sacred fish are still to be found in different 

parts of the world. Sir J. Chardin saw, in his travels in the 

East, fish confined in the court of a mosque, with rings of gold 

and silver through their muzzles not for ornament, but, as he 

was informed, in token of their being consecrated to some 

Oriental Deity, whose votaries, not content to leave trans- 

gressors to his resentment, took upon 

themselves the task of 

retribution, and killed upon the spot an Armenian Christian, 

who had ventured to violate the sanctity of the place. This 

eastern custom is alluded to by Moore in his 'Fire Wor- 

shippers ' 

: 

' The Empress of Jehan-Quire 

used to divert her- 

self with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were, 

many years afterwards, known by the fillets of gold which she 

had caused to be put around them.' 

Her birds' new plumage to behold, 

And the gay gleaming fishes count, 

She left all filleted with gold, 

Shooting around their jasper fount. 

' 

Hznda, in the Fire Worshippers. 

Persia seems always to have been famous for its pike, to 

judge from the accounts of a Polish chronicler, whose name is 

unpronouncable if not unspellable. This writer vouches for 

1 Mr. Pickering, the well-known publisher and collector of angling books, 

adopted as a sort of punning monogram on the title-pages of some of his 

' 

a pike-ring,' in fact. This is the 

volumes, a ring with a pike curved round it 

only pike-ring I know of that can really be brought ' 

to book. '

156 


one, at least, which survived to little short of a century under 

the protecting aegis of a certain Shah of illustrious memory. 

Probably it was this same Shah as piscatorial pursuits and 

poetry seem to be so often united in the same person who 

kept a 'tame laureate,' and of whom an amusing story is told. 

The Shah one day wrote some verses himself and sent for 

the laureate to criticise them. 

' 

Hafiz,' said the monarch, ' 

is 

not that poetry ? ' 

The wretched bard struggled with his emotions, but his art 

was stronger than his courtiership, and prostrating himself on 

his face he ejaculated, ' 

' 

bosh ! 

May my soul be the penalty 

' He is mad, he is an ass,' cried the Shah. 'Away 

! but it is 

with him 

to the stables.' 

To the stables he was accordingly taken, but after a little 

while the Shah wrote some more verses, and sent for the 

laureate to see if his taste had improved. 

' 

Dog,' said his master, when the recital was finished ; 

you call that poetry ! 

' 

'Allah is wonderful !' exclaimed the miserable bard ; 

me back again to the stables.' 

' 

do 

' 

take 

To return to the great ring story, Nobbes thus sums up his 

judgment : 

Whether, says he, our faith will give us leave to believe the 

story of the ring or not, it is not material to our disquisitions, for 

though we cannot prove him to be so longevous as to reach hun- 

dreds, it is certain he will live to some scores of years, and one of 

40 or 45 inches, which are of the largest size, may possibly count 

as many years as inches, and some of our own countrymen have 

known and observed a pike to come within ten years of the distinct 

age of man, and had lived longer had not fate hastened his death 

by a violent hand. 

In natural connection with this part of the subject, the limit 

of duration of life, occurs that of his coming of age 

so to 

speak when does the young pickerel cast off his jackhood and 

become a pike ?


Walton says, at 2 ft.; Sir J. Hawkins, at 3 Ibs. ; Mr. Wood, 

at 2 Ibs.; Salter, at 3 Ibs. ; Hofland, at 3 Ibs., or when it ex- 

ceeds 24 in. in length; ' 

4 Ibs. ; 

Piscator '(' Practical Angler') says 

' 

Glenfin,' 3 Ibs. Mr. ; Elaine, 4 or 5 Ibs. ; Carpenter, 

3 Ibs. ' 

; 'Ephemera,' 4 Ibs., in his 

Notes to Walton,' and 3 or 4 

Ibs. in his ' Handbook on Angling'; whilst Captain Williamson 

recognises no distinction, but calls them indiscriminately pike 

and jack. 

Under these circumstances, and considering that the dis- 

tinction unlike that between the salmon and the grilse is 

purely arbitrary, it would appear to be desirable that for the 

future an ' 

' 

act of uniformity be passed ; and as the majority 

of writers seem to favour the 3 Ibs. qualification, that standard 

might, perhaps, be adopted by general consent as the point at 

' 

cast off the jack and assume the 

which the young pickerels ' 

full dignities of pikehood. 

The pike is far from being the only subject of what a corre- 

spondent 

' 

calls fish declension.' The following quaintnesses of 

fish nomenclature are taken from a book published by Randal 

Home, 

A.D. about 1688. 

A Pike. First a Hurling-pick, then a Pickerel, then a Pike, then 

a Luce or Lucie. 

A Perch. First a Hurling, at a year old a Tranling, second year 

an Egling, third year a Stitchling ci Perch. 

Ferchiing, and lastly a 

A Roach. First a Rud. then a Roachell or Roachet. then a Roach. 

A Salmon. First a Shad, then a Sprat, then a Trcut cr Salmon, 

then a Mort, then a Salmon Mcrt. then a Salmon Peal or 

Samlett or Young Salmon, then a Salmon, then a Scipper 

Salmon. A Skegger is a little salmcn which will never be 

bigger. 

A Carpe. First a Sizling, then a Sproll cr Sprall, then a Carbe cr 

Karbe. 

A Lampron. First a Barle, then a Barling, then a Lamprey cr 

Lampron. 

A Gorgeon or Gudgeon. First a Sand Gressen, then a Grundel 

or a Grundlin, then a Gourgeon. 

An Eel. First a Fansen, then a Grigg or Snigg, then a Scaffling,

1 58 


then a little Eel, when it is large then an Eel, and when very 

large a Conger. 

A Smelt or Sparling. First a Sprat, then a small Sparling, then 

a Sparling. 

A Minnow. First a Shad-bied, then a Sprat, then a Minnow. 

A Barbel. First a Barbett, then a Barbalett, then a Barb or a 

Barbell. 

A Loach. First a Lochett, a young Loche, then a Loache. 

A Lamprey. First a Lampron Grigg, then a Lampret, then a 

Lamprell, then a Lamprey. 

The fattening of pike in stew ponds has led me on insensibly, 

step by step, until I perceive how much I have meandered away 

from the direct path. I find, however, I have not quite done 

with the original text, so I must 'try back,' or, what would be 

more appropriate in a fishing essay, ' make a cast.' 

Returning then to the frog-eating propensities of the pike, 

for he is the very king stork of fable, it is a curious thing that 

although he will even seize the most unsavoury of morsels, the 

toad, the inherent nauseousness of the animal saves it, I suppose, 

from being actually swallowed its skin, like that of the lizard, 

containing a white acid secretion which exudes from small 

glands dispersed all over its body as well as from the two little 

knobs, in shape like split beans, behind the head, from which, 

upon pressure, the acid also escapes. 

To test this I used sometimes when feeding pike with frogs 

to throw them a toad, as it were accidentally, instead. It has 

usually been immediately snapped up and as immediately spat 

up again, the same toad having thus passed a more than 

Jonah-like ordeal through the jaws of almost every fish in the 

pond, and escaped with but little injury after all. 

Although, however, the pike appears to exercise a discrimina- 

ting taste in certain cases, there are very few things which, in 

a state of hunger he will not swallow or, at least, attack. Both 

land and water rats are frequent victims. Sometimes they are 

swallowed but more often ejected as in the case of the *oad, 

whether, as Captain Williamson suggests, owing to 'the resistance 

the rat mtikes, which I have witnessed to be very fierce


and under water too or whether owing to the hair or scent dis- 

pleasing them, I know not, but they do not appear to be very 

partial to the quadruped.' 

Rats which have once been gripped by a pike rarely appear 

to recover. They may, not unfrequently, be found dead in the 

weeds and bearing evident marks of pike's teeth. One very 

large brown rat which I thus found had the head and fore part 

of the body crushed almost flat by the pressure to which it had 

been subjected. The marvel, however, is not that these animals 

should often die of their injuries, but that they should ever 

succeed in escaping from the triple chevaux defrise with which 

the jaws of the pike are armed. 

An anecdote taken from Mr. Buckland's charming collection 

of ' 

Curiosities of Natural History,' illustrates the formidable 

nature of these teeth, even when at rest. 

When at Oxford, he says, I had in my rooms the dried head of 

a very large pike, captured in Holland. It was kept under a bookcase. 

One evening, whilst reading, I was much surprised, and 

rather alarmed, to see this monstrous head roll out spontaneously 

from below its resting-place and tumble along the floor ; at the 

same time piteous cries of distress issuing from it. The head 

must be bewitched, thought I ; but I must find out the cause. 

Accordingly I took it up, when, lo and behold ! inside was a poor 

'little tame guinea-pig, which was a pet, and allowed to run, with 

two companions, about the room. With unsuspecting curiosity, 

master guinea-pig had crept into the dried expanded jaws of the 

monster, intending, no doubt, to take up his abode there for the 

night. In endeavouring to get out again he found himself literally 

hooked. Being a classical guinea-pig, he might have construed 

facilis descensus Averni, it is an easy thing to get down a jack's 

mouth, sed revocare gradum t &c., but it is a precious hard job to 

get out again. 

The scratched prisoner was only at last rescued from its 

Regulus-like incarceration by Mr. Buckland cutting a passage 

for him through the fish's gills, and thus enabling him to make 

his exit d tergo. 

To the sharpness of the teeth in the mouth of this particular 

pike I can bear witness, having received unpleasant proof of


the fact when carelessly withdrawing my hand from an exa- 

mination of its contents. 

Before taking leave of live-baiting with the float it may be 

mentioned that the best time for the use of the live bait is 

generally (in rivers) after the water has cleared, or nearly so, 

after the first winter's flood. This sweeps the fish into the 

eddies and mouths of dykes, &c. ; spots in which the live bait 

can be much better worked than in the open river. Indeed, 

float fishing with the live bait where there is any considerable 

current is almost useless. 

In winter the fish lie nearer the bottom than they do in 

summer, and the bait at this time of year should not swim above 

the bottom more than one third of the total depth. Never leave 

the bait too long in one place but keep it moving either by the 

force of the current or by the aid of the rod and the hand. 

When it remains quiescent for a long time in the same spot it 

is most probable that it has hooked a weed. 

By the way, weeds should always be carefully removed from 

the bait ; notwithstanding his cosmopolitan voracity, and even 

his alleged partiality for a pickerel weed, I have never, to my 

knowledge, succeeded in inducing a pike to take a bait to which 

I knew that any portion of weed was adhering. 

Keep the bait also as much as possible in the water and as 

little as possible out of it. In the former case it is in the way 

of killing pike and keeping itself alive ; in the latter the position 

is reversed. To preserve its longevity as much as possible, as 

well as to prevent the hook breaking through, cast it with a light 

hand and not too far. 

Under the general heading of ' 

Pike Baits ' 

mention has 

been made of a recent idea of 'administering stimulants ' 

live dace and roach with a view to increasing their longevity 

and activity. Mr. W. O. Chambers having lately ventilated 

the subject in the columns of the Fishing Gazette, the following 

account of some practical experiments in carrying the idea 

into effect appeared in that paper : 

to


BRANDY AND PIKE BAITS. 

Sir, If, through the medium of your esteemed Fishing Gazette 

I may be allowed to thank Mr. W. O. Chambers for his splendid 

hint as to brandy being administered to bait before being used 

for pike fishing, I shall feel much obliged to you ; and, thanking 

Mr. Chambers, beg leave to state, at the same time, how I went 

to work and with what result. 

I started last Thursday week, about I o'clock, in search of my 

favourite sport, and reaching the spot where I intended to commence 

business, I took from my bait-can a nice bait, and gave it 

two or three drops of brandy, which seemed to have a remarkable 

effect on its nerves, and made it very lively whilst out of the water ; 

but in this case I had no opportunity of seeing what the after- 

effects were, for, as soon as I threw it into the water, it was instan- 

taneously taken by a nice pike of 6| Ibs., which I landed successfully. 

No. 2 bait was also treated with a drop or two of something warm, 

and was thrown in ; this time I had more chance to see how he 

worked. By Jove ! sir, he went about like a small steam-engine 

under water, backwards and forwards, round and round with amazing 

rapidity for about ten minutes, then under went my float, and 

I soon landed another nice fish of 5 Ibs. No. 3 bait now coming 

on the scene was treated in like manner to his companions, and 

worked with even more vigour than No. 2 had done. He was 

allowed to swim about for about fifteen minutes, and away went my 

float again ; this fellow, however, I am sorry to say, got me hung 

up in the roots of a tree, so I lost him (for the present). No. 4 bait 

came next, and he also had some grog (cold), and was allowed only 

a few minutes to enjoy himself, and a 3-lb. fish was the result of 

that bait. No. 5 bait, and the last I had, after taking a parting 

drink, was soon swimming about well, and seemed to be in a great 

state of excitement, which proved fatal to him, as he was very soon 

attacked by a hungry-looking fish, measuring 2 ft. 7 in., and 

weighing 7^ Ibs. ; this fellow gave me some capital sport, and after 

rather more than half an hour's good play he was lying with the 

other finny tribe of his own species on the grass. 

Thus, four pike I caught in about two hours, 7^ Ibs., 6J Ibs., 5 Ibs., 

and 3 Ibs., making a total of 22 Ibs., which is rather an extraordinary 

take in these waters, and I firmly believe the greater part of my suc- 

cess was due to following Mr. W. O. Chambers' valuable hint in 

your Gazette, Oct. 25th 

' 

viz., Give your bait a little brandy before 

II. M


using them.' I wonder if the smell of brandy attracts pike at all. 

Do you think it possible? Or do you account for it in consequence 

of the extra liveliness of the bait through the dose of brandy ? 

Apologising for taking up your valuable space, I am, &c., 

Maldon. A. S. ISAAC. 

Commenting on this communication, Mr. Oldham Cham- 

bers writes : 

The letter from Mr. Isaac fully establishes the views that I hold 

in relation to the effect noticed by him ; 

but some latitude must be 

given to the lively descriptive strain of this gentleman's letter. I 

disagree in toto with the sweeping assertions made by some of your 

correspondents as to the cruelty of the experiment in torturing the 

fish and inciting intoxication. One of your correspondents suggests 

that the brandy actually scorches or cauterises the delicate fibres 

of the fish, which, to my mind, is as fallacious as the preceding 

statement. I entirely agree that to advocate cruelty would be 

most reprehensible ; but the administration of a small quantity of 

brandy, such as that employed in my experiment, could not possibly 

be the means of promoting inebriation or instigating cruelty. On 

harmless and of the 

the contrary, the experiment is perfectly 

greatest service to fish culture ; and for the information of your 

readers, perhaps you will allow me to explain the nature of respiration 

amongst fishes, which will furnish an idea of the effect produced 

by the administration of spirits. 

For the due performance of respiration in fishes it is essential 

that the circulation of blood should be carried on with sufficient 

velocity to allow of the interchange of gases to take place. This is 

effected by means of the muscles in connection with the pharyngeal 

passages driving the aerated water through the branchiae. Owing 

to the position of the heart, the blood is propelled through the respiratory 

apparatus before it proceeds to the system at large. The 

physiology of respiration 

in fishes is not dissimilar to other ver- 

tebrata ; since there must be nerve force to govern the respiratory 

movements, and control the supply of oxygen to the system, so 

also must there be a nerve centre, which is situated in the medulla 

oblongata, or that portion of the encephalon forming the junction 

between the brain and the spinal cord. When a fish is removed 

from the water death ensues from asphyxia, caused by carbonic 

acid poisoning due to the drying up of the membrane covering the 

gills. Therefore, the administration of brandy to a fish in this con-


dition serves as a means of preserving vital energy and maintaining 

the action of the heart for a certain period, but does not re-esta- 

blish respiration directly, as its action would be of little avail, the 

branchiae being in the state already alluded to. If the fish be afterwards 

restored to water, the value of brandy as an aqua vitce is 

at once apparent. The dormant energy becomes immediately 

awakened, the stimulant operates on the nerve centre, the water 

moistens the gill covers, the muscles are brought into play once 

more, and the organism which before was almost at the point of 

extinction manifests vital energy which we call ' 

life.' 

Henceforth ' 

to drink like a fish,' will be an expression, it 

is presumed, in especial force amongst pike fishers. Should 

brandy and water, however, fail in any case to produce the 

desired revival, there will still be a chance left, viz. try the 

well-known alcoholic concoction beloved by the frequenters of 

American bars, called a ' 

corpse-reviver.' 

One other suggestion of a less bibulous character. If baits 

run short or seem likely to do so, it will generally be found 

better, instead of going on fishing with flabby or half-dead baits, 

to keep the bright lively baits on the hook as long as they last 

and when the bait can is exhausted to use up the defunct indi- 

viduals with spinning or gorge tackle. 

HUXING. 

Before quitting the subject of live-baiting I may, perhaps, 

refer, though rather as a curiosity than as a practical method of 

old writers as ' 

huxing.' 

live-baiting, to what is known amongst 

Dame Juliana Berners, of oft-referred to memory, describes it 

thus : 

' Yf ye lyst to have good sporte thenne tye the corde [of 

your gorge line] to a gose [goose] flote ; and ye shall see god 

halynge [? hauling] whether the gose or the pike shall have the 

better.' 

Barker also, in his ' 

Art of Angling,' refers to ' 

huxing ' 

rhyme if not in rhythm. 

M 2 

in

1 64 


And that other fine trick, 

Which our artists call snap with a goose or a duck ; 

Will kill two for one if you have good luck ; 

The gentry of Shropshire do merrily smile, 

To see a goose and a belt the fish to beguile. 1 

On this subject I may, perhaps, quote from the ' 

Book of 

the Pike.' I do not know whether the Shropshire gentlemen 

still include huxing amongst their favourite sports ; but it is 

not very long since it was practised on a reservoir near Glasgow, 

and also on the Scotch lakes Monteith and Lochmaben. An 

amusing account of an incident which happened to a Dumfries- 

shire farmer in the neighbourhood of the latter, is given by 

' 

it is also quoted by Professor 

McDiarmid in his ' 

Sketch Book ; 

Rennie in the 'Alphabet of : 

Angling' 

Several years ago, he says, the farmer kept a gander, which 

not only had a great trick of wandering himself, but also delighted 

in piloting forth his cackling harem to weary themselves in cir- 

cumnavigating their native lake, or in straying amid forbidden 

fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to check this vagrant habit, 

he one day seized the gander just as he was about to spring into 

the water, and tying a large fish-hook to his leg, to which was 

attached a portion of a dead frog, he suffered him to proceed upon 

his voyage of discovery. As had been anticipated, this bait soon 

caught the eye of a pike, which, swallowing the hook, not only 

arrested the progress of the astonished gander, but forced him to 

perform 

half-a-dozen somersaults on the face of the water ! 

For some time the struggle was most amusing, the fish pulling 

and the bird screaming with all its might ; the one attempting to 

fly, and the other endeavouring to swim, from the invisible enemy ; 

the gander the one moment losing and the next regaining his 

centre of gravity, and casting between whiles many a rueful look 

at his snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out 

their sympathy for their afilicted commodore. At length victory 

declared in favour of the feathered combatant, who, bearing away 

for the nearest shore, landed on the green grass one of the finest 

pikes ever caught 

in the castle-loch. This adventure is said to 

have cured the gander of his propensity for wandering ; but on 

this point we are inclined to be a little sceptical. 

1 Barker's Art of Angling.


The same author who refers to the huxing practised on 

Loch Monteith, also states that huxing, if it may be so called, 

by means of a kite not feathered, but papered was recently 

carried out with success on Slapton Ley, South Devon. 

All these eccentric inventions for killing pike, however, 

bear a suspicious resemblance to the trimmer, or as authors 

formerly used to call it, 

' 

Floater,' of the legitimacy of which, as 

a sportsmanlike mode of pike-fishing, opinions have fortunately 

undergone a considerable change since Robert Salter (iSn) 

wrote that on 'large pools it afforded stronger exercise and 

greater variety of amusement than any other part of pool, 

fishing.' 

PATERNOSTERING. 

The only other branch of snap live bait fishing is 

' 

paternostering.' 

The paternoster, the origin of which somewhat 

peculiar appellation I am unacquainted with, although occasion- 

ally used, and not without success, to take pike 

as well as 

perch its more legitimate province has been hitherto hardly 

considered as forming a branch of pike-fishing. The success, 

however, with which Mr. Alfred Jardine has lately developed 

and improved upon both the tackle and the mode of using 

it, has been such that this book would not be complete without 

some practical account both of the old and the new methods. 

The old tackle simply consisted of a few yards of gut or 

gimp attached to a bullet (pear-shaped best), and having two 

single hooks, No. 8 or 9 either gut or gimp, as the game 

attacked was either pike or perch which stood out from half 

a foot to a foot from the main trace. For pike-fishing the 

first hook was usually attached to the gut say a foot above the 

lead, and the second one, where a second was used, from a foot 

to a foot and a half above that. The hooks are baited by 

being passed through the two lips of a minnow, gudgeon, or 

other bait, which is then allowed to sink to the bottom, in the 

eddies under banks, weirs, and in other likely holds. The line


is kept always stretched tight between the top of the rod and 

the lead, which should be generally as nearly as possible right 

under the rod point. The bite is detected by the feel. 

When pike-fishing with the it 

paternoster, 

is better to let 

on his own account, 

the fish do a certain amount of ' 

pulling ' 

before any attempt is made by the fisherman to assist the 

operation. When the tugging becomes severe, let the paternosterer 

play his part in the operation, by at once and strongly 

raising up the rod, which ought to have the effect of hooking 

the fish if he has got the bait well into his mouth. In any case 

striking is practically useless, as the hooks are small and single, 

and at a short distance do not require much pressure to drive 

them in over the barb. Moreover, by striking, if the fish is 

not caught, both baits are at any rate certain to be lost. 

The form of this paternoster and its mode of construction 

is so simple and easily described, that diagrams are probably 

unnecessary. 

Thus much as to the ordinary method of paternostering. 

Mr. Jardine's method before referred to, differs in several par- 

ticulars as regards both construction and method of working, 

and is of so much interest to trailers, that I am specially glad 

to have the opportunity of presenting my readers with an 

account of his method, written by Mr. Jardine himself, which 

he has had the kindness to send to me for this purpose. I 

am glad to see that he has also given his views on some other 

branches of pike-fishing, which cannot fail to be of interest to 

all pike-fishers. 

But I leave him to speak for himself : 

MR. JARDINE ON PATERNOSTERING FOR PIKE, ETC. 

' 

Although spinning for pike may be considered the most artistic 

way of fishing, yet I have always found paternostering most suc- 

cessful. 

' 

My method is to use a 13-foot cane rod not too stiff, with large 

rings half inch diameter all of the same size, so that in the event of 

a tangle occurring in the line, it can pass through the rings easily, 

without checking the iish I may have hooked and am playing. To the


end of the line should be added 4 feet of salmon gut, slightly 

stained ; 

and looped on to that 1 8 or 24 inches (according to depth 

of water fished) of fine trout gut, with a oz. or f oz. plummet for 

sinker ; should you get " hitched up " and fixed fast to any obstruction, 

you have only to use sufficient strain to break the fine gut, and 

all you lose is the plummet. Then at the loops connecting the 

trout and salmon gut, attach a single paternoster hook of square bend, 

size No. 10, bound on 12 inches of medium gimp copper gimp preferred, 

as it does not show so plainly in the water and for the bait use 

a live dace (in preference to a gudgeon) about 4^ inches long, hooked 

carefully through both lips, it living longer than when hooked 

through the upper lip only. Next draw off 8 or 10 yards of line 

from the reel and fish all the nearest water, gathering up the line 

slowly with the fingers into the palm of the left hand in a kind of 

figure-of-eight (8) coil (a knack easily acquired by practice), slightly 

lifting and dropping the point of the rod but always keeping a 

moderately tight line, insinuating the bait into likely corners, eddies, 

and between weeds, carefully searching all those places usually 

frequented by pike. Then throw " 

again off the palm " to other 

places, increasing the distances and pursuing this method until all 

the water round has been thoroughly fished. A bite is known by 

the bait being arrested or shaken, when a yard or two of line should 

be paid out, three or four seconds allowed for the pike to turn the 

bait head-first into his mouth, and a firm draw, rather than a strike, 

given to drive the hook well home ; if the pike runs at once on 

taking the bait, lift the point of the rod smartly and the fish will 

be instantly hooked ; if in his rush he takes up all the line in your 

hand you will have him on the reel, and it is well in playing a fish 

to get the line as quickly as possible on the reel, as it prevents the 

chance of getting your line kinked or in a tangle. 

' A fish under 3 Ibs. carefully unhook and return to the water 

hooked some- 

uninjured ; in paternostering a pike generally gets 

where in the mouth, and is unhurt as he does not swallow the bail ; 

moreover you get much better sport by paternostering, the fish 

fighting against restraint only, and not suffering acute pain from 

having the throat lacerated or the inside torn up, as is the case 

when using dead or live-bait gorge, both of which are most cruel 

and unsportsmanlike ways of fishing. 

'In spinning for pike, which perhaps nearer approaches the 

elegance of fly-fishing than any other method, use a rod similar to 

that for paternostering, a fine plaited Nottingham line waterproofed,


the trace about 5 feet long, of salmon gut ; a gimp flight 

of either 

the " Pennell" or "Thames" pattern, to match the length of bait, 

which in preference to a gudgeon should be a dace about 4^ inches 

long, it being brighter and more attractive. A lead of the Fishing 

Gazette pattern is best, as it can be attached any distance above 

the flight, suited to the depth of water you are spinning, and there 

should be two swivels between the lead and the flight, to assist 

the rotation of the bait. 

' Much has been written about a " wobbly " bait being very kill- 

ing, but experience has convinced me that one which spins straight 

is more attractive and therefore catches most fish. It may be that 

the tackle used for a " wobbler," consisting only of a triangle passed 

through the vent and out of the mouth by a baiting needle, and a 

sliding lip hook slipped on the gimp to secure the lips of the bait, 

may answer the purpose very well when pike are mad on tJie feed, 

or in the absence of better tackle ; but with such flights as I have 

mentioned, and baits put on to spin properly, I should back them 

when used by a proficient to do most execution. 

' 

That "spinning" has its charms and advantages must be con- 

ceded, for, with no sloppy bait-can to carry, but a dozen selected 

baits instead, packed in bran, tackle case and flask in pocket, fish 

bag slung round shoulders, rod in hand, gaff in sling, warmly clad, 

and well booted, nothing is more enjoyable than to wander beside 

a "pikey" river, spinning all the likely places, catching fish here 

and there ; yet one does not get the largest fish spinning, a 

1 5-pounder being an exception ; to catch the 20- and 3O-pounders 

you must fish the deeps and " lay-byes," with " paternoster " or 

"snap;" monster pike will not come up to a " spinning bait," from 

the profundities they inhabit, but, like well-fed lazy aldermen, 

prefer the dainty morsels to be nicely presented to them. 

'When "snap-fishing" with live bait, a lo-foot stiff-built cane rod, 

with large rings, in. diameter, all one size should be used and So to 

100 yards of waterproofed Nottingham 8-plait line on a good-sized 

winch will not be too much if fishing large rivers or lakes where 

most in 

pike attain considerable size and weight. The "snaps ;; 

favour among pike-anglers are those known as "Jardinc's snap 

tackle," and consist of two triangles bound on 12 inches of moderately 

stout gimp, the end one being two large No. 10 hooks and 

one small No. I brazed together, the small hook is placed in the 

base of the live bail's pectoral fin and keeps the triangle close to its 

yills ' 

} the upper triangle is bound to the gimp 

about 2\ inches


higher ; the hooks are equal in size, No. 10, and one of them is put 

thus : 

through the base of dorsal fin, 

' The end of trace goes through a pipe lead of i oz. weight 

and is secured to a small spring swivel on which is attached 

the baited snap ; a pear-shaped float, 

sufficiently buoyant to carry the bait 

and lead, is placed on the line at a 

height in accordance with the depth 

of water to be fished. The bait is then 

gently cast some dozen yards or more 

to a likely place and allowed to swim 

about ; line can be paid off the reel, 

or the bait coaxed into fishy-looking 

eddies and quiet corners, and when a 

pike seizes the bait the float disappears 

; slack line must then be quickly 

reeled up, the fish struck at 

played, 

once, 

and if possible landed. The 

advantages of snap-fishing are mani- 

fold, you seldom miss hooking your 

prey, and if of fair size they give capital 

sport, fighting against restraint only, 

the bait not being swallowed ; after 

unhooking a small pike, it may be returned 

to the water uninjured. The 

largest are usually taken snap fishing, 

and among a host of fine ones I have 

caught by this method, were 12 pike 

over 20 Ibs. each, one of 30 Ibs., one 

of 36 Ibs., and one of 37 Ibs. 

' 

Ledgering for pike is a method 

seldom attempted, but under certain 

conditions of water and weather usually 

successful. The tackle consists of a 

bullet of \\ oz. with a hole drilled 

through it, the trace passed through 

and attached to the reel line. A goodsized 

shot is pinched on to the trace * 

JARDINE'S PATF.KNOSTER- 

SN'AP. 

2^ or 3 ft. above the bait, to prevent 

the bullet slipping too low down, and a single hook may be used 

placed through both lips of the dace or, if preferred, a " snap."

170 


1 

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 congregate 

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 hole or eddy 

place, and thus all the 

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 

above the 

paternostering or snap-fishing, I moored my punt just 

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

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

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

were exhibited at a 

largest being 9, ioi, and 13^ Ibs., and they 

at which Mr. Win. Senior 

meeting of the Stanley Anglers Society, 

(" 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 exceedingly 

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 unknown 

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


other side. The result is thus described by Mr. W. B. Lord, 

R.A., in one of his charming sketches of seaside fishing : 

Some of my readers will remember a most amusing fishing 

match by Mr. Frank Buckland fine versus coarse tackle which 

appeared in the columns of the Field, the champion knights, Mr. 

H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, fine gut paternoster, dressed silk line, 

and jack rod ; Mr. F. Buckland, ordinary coarse tackle and hand 

as our Yankee 

line ; Robinson Crusoe, ditto. The result was, 

' 

friends would say, the tallest kind of caution.' The knight of the 

jack rod and gut line being triumphantly victorious, and beating 

both his antagonists, together with the united crews of two or three 

boats anchored near them, out of the lists ! 

LIVE GORGE-BAITING. 

The live gorge-bait cannot be considered quite so sporting 

a way of fishing as live snap-baiting, inasmuch as when once 

the fish has pouched the bait his chance of escaping being 

brought to basket is or ought to be nil. It has in this respect 

the same disadvantage as trolling with the dead gorge-bait, with 

the difference that whereas the dead gorge-bait is a method of 

pike-fishing which may be used when practically none other is 

available, the live gorge-bait is only available in the same place 

as the live snap-bait, unless, indeed, in ponds or lakes where, 

whatever the nature of the sport may be, the angler lays out a 

bait for pike and wanders off in search of the sport more im- 

mediately 

aimed at a sort of 'leave-the-rod-to-fish-for-itself 

performance, not very far removed from trimmering. 

A Nemesis sometimes attends this sort of ' 

hedging ' 

arrangement 

; unless special precautions are taken it does not happen 

so rarely as once in a century that a large fish carries off alto- 

gether the derelict rod and that which pertaineth 

to it. Some- 

times it is the subject of experiments by a herd of inquisitive 

cows, and there is a still ulterior contingency, which is too 

serious to joke about, namely, that persons of indistinct perceptions 

as to meum and tmtm may save the proper owner 

further anxiety as to the custody of his pet trolling rod.

172 


A comical variation of this result is told by a gentleman 

who writes under the signature of the ' 

Medway 

Dace.' The 

narrator and his friend had left three rods and live bait tackles 

to fish by themselves. On their return after about an hour they 

made the startling discovery that their rods, lines, and baits 

had vanished : 

' 

Surely,' said H , in a voice that greatly reminded me 

of another occasion, when he came out with me and found he 

had left the top joint of his favourite rod at home, 

C.ORC.K I.IVK- 

UAI I llUOKb. 

' 

Surely 

no one has stolen our tackle ! 

' 

It looks most uncommonly like it,' I replied. 

And it certainly did. But our minds were 

soon put at rest on that point, for close under a 

tree lay the three rods, carefully placed together. 

While we were wondering how on earth they came 

there, and for what reason they had been taken 

from the pond, a youthful chawbacon, with a face 

on him like a full moon, approached 

' 

us and at 

once explained the mystery. Touching his hat, 

he said, ' 

Give landed three for ye, zur, they're 

not worry big 'uns tho'. Whort licks me is that 

they were all cort in the back ! 

' 

. . . 

Having delivered myself of this caveat or protest 

I am free to admit there is one legitimate use 

for the live gorge-bait to which I have already 

alluded, that is when the baits used are too large 

for the ordinary snap-tackle. For the shape of 

the hooks, which should be attached to about i[, feet of fine 

stained gimp, ride diagram. 

In this and the method of attaching the live bait consists 

the only difference, so far as tackle is concerned, between the 

snap and the gorge live bait. Detach the hooks from the swivel, 

and having attached them to a baiting-needle let the bait lie, 

or rather be held, flat in the palm 

of the left hand with the 

head pointing towards the right hand. Insert the point of 

the baiting-needle in the shoulder of the bait and pass it under


a broadish strip of the skin (only) from i^ inches to 2\ inches 

broad, according to the size of the bait, bringing 

it out in the 

direction of the tail. Then draw the gimp gently and carefully 

through until the shank of the hook is hidden under the skin. 

The loop of the gimp is then re-attached to the hook-swivel on 

the trace and the tackle is complete. 

In performing this process the bait should be handled with 

the utmost gentleness, not only to prevent causing any unavoid- 

able pain, but also with the view to its longevity. The great 

point in which care would be required is to avoid passing the 

baiting-needle through the flesh as well as under the skin, and 

in order to effect this the bait should be held perfectly flat. 

The disadvantage of this tackle, as in the case of all other 

gorge-baits, is, of course, that the fish has an opportunity of 

changing his mind if he thinks proper, and rejecting the bait 

before swallowing. The hooks on the other hand are less con- 

spicuous than those used in the snap-tackle, and the fish are 

consequently less likely to be scared by them.

174 


TROLLING WITH DEAD GORGE-BAIT. 

The pike, my joy of all the scaly shoal. 

And of all fibhing instruments the troll. SCOTT. 

The word ' 

trolling,' or as it was formerly spelled ' 

from the old English 

word ' 

trowlin^,' 

troll,' to move circularly, or in a 

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

1 

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 restricted 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 published in 1662, and it contains engravings of 

and double hooks not at all un- 

gorge-tackle with both single 

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

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

TROLLING WITH DEAD GORGE-BAIT. 175 

the similitude of their barbs to the tail of the dragon which 

St. George has been represented in the act of transfixing for so 

many years that one almost wishes the dragon might have a turn 

now and then for variety. 

Although, however, according to Nobbes the merit of being 

the first authoritative exponent of the art of trolling, it is by no 

means probable that his claim to be the actual inventor could 

be sustained upon 

' 

critical examination. 

This is also the opinion of Mr. Westwood, whose elegant 

Angling 

Bibliomania ' 

is so well known and appreciated by all 

lovers of the gentle art and literature. In a letter addressed to 

me some years ago he says : 

Nobbes was undoubtedly the first English writer that discoursed 

at large, and in a substantive shape on the art of trolling, but that 

his sobriquet of ' The Father of Trailers,' asserts in any respect his 

invention of the modus opcrandi of the craft in England, is scarcely 

borne out by evidence. The title means, I take it, what that of 

'The Father of Anglers' means in Walton's case what that of 

' The Father of Pike-fishers ' 

will mean in your own, sir, when 

posterity agree, nem. con., thus to designate you namely, that he 

was the first authoritative professor of the sport. 

That Nobbes himself puts in no claim to inventor's honours, is 

shown by his dedication, in which he ascribes all his skill as a 

troller to the tuition of ' The Right Worshipful James Tryon, Esq., 

of Bullvvick, in Northamptonshire,' and to his brother, while in his 

address 'To the Ingenious Reader,' he adds, ' 

I confess I have not 

had that experience in the Art which many have, that have made 

it their business for the space of several years, and /, but a late 

pretender! 

It is true that in a preceding passage, he adverts to the silence 

' 

' 

of former writers on I angling, never could see,' quoth he, 

other (than Walton and Cox) concerning trolling, though, 

any 

if there 

be, it may be of an old standing.' 

friend Nobbes overlooks one of his immediate 

Here, however, 

forerunners, Col. Robert Venables, whose 'Experienced Angler' 

(1662) contains the following passage : 

which is 

' The best way of angling is with a trowl for a pike, 

very delightful. . . . Let your line be silk, at least two yards nest 

the hook, and the rest of strong shoemaker's thread, your hook

1 76 


double, and strongly armed with wire for above a foot, then with a 

probe or needle, you must draw the wire in at the fishes mouth and 

out at the tail, that so the hook may lie in the mouth of the fish, and 

both the points on either side ; upon the shank of the hook fasten 

some lead very smooth, that it go into the fishes mouth and sink 

her with the lead downward, as though she had been playing on the 

top of the water, and were returning to the bottom ; your hook 

once baited, you must tie the tail of the fish close and fast to the 

wire. , . . All being thus fitted, cast your fish up and down in such 

places as you know pikes frequent, observing still that he sink 

some depth before you pull him up again. When the pike cometh 

you may see the water move, at least, you may feel him, then slack 

your line, and give him length enough to run away to his hold, 

whither he will go directly, and there it. . . pouch Let him lie 

until you see the line move in the water, then with your trowl wind 

then with a 

up the line till you think you have it almost straight, 

smart jerk hook him, and make your pleasure your content.' 

An allusion to trolling, without a description of the process, is 

met with in Barkei's 'Art of Angling' (1651), as thus : 

' One of my name was the best Trouler for a Pike in the realm ; 

he laid a wager that he would take a Pike of 4 feet long, of fish, 

within the space of one month, with his Trouling Rod ; so he 

Trquled three and od dayes, and took many great Pikes, nigh the 

then he 

length, till within the space of three dayes of the time ; 

took one, and won the wager.' 

' And Shrewsbury Barker 'depicts the trolling-rod of this Paladin 

but goes no further. 

Receding again a period of more than sixty years, we call into 

court Master Leonard Mascall, who, in 1590, presented the world 

with ' A Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line, and of all other 

instruments thereunto belonging,' and his evidence, with pen and 

pencil, 

is to this effect : 

' The Pyke is a common devourcr of most fish, where he cometh ; 

for to take him, ye shall doe thus : Take a codling hooke, well 

armed wyth wyrc, then take a small Roch or Gogin, or else a 

Frogge alive, or a fresh Hearing, and put through your armed wyre 

with your hooke on the end, and let your hooke rest in the mouth 

of your bayte, and out at the tayle thereof; and then put your line 

thereto, and drawe it up and downe the water or poole, and if lie 

sec it, hcc will take it in haste, let him go with it awhile, and then 

strike and holde, and soe tyre him in the water.'


I have searched no further, for Leonard Mascall's ' Booke of 

Fishing' is a reproduction of the ' Booke of St. Albans,' and beyond 

the ' Booke of St. Albans ' 

falls the night. The rest, if rest there 

be, is a matter of 'lost Pleiads,' and into that limbo of vanished 

things that holds the 'AXtfurtra of Pancrates, the Arcadian, the 

' 

Ao-n-aXifVTiKa of Seleucus of Emesa, and many other famous scroll of 

the ancients, may lurk also more than one early English treatise 

on our sports 

' 

(the old fish-book,' amongst them, whence Walton 

borrows his ' old rime' the ), recoveiy of which would brighten the 

eyes and rejoice the heart of every angling bibliomaniac. 

And this recovery may, after all, become a fait accompli that 

passion of the book collector has conjured out of darkness and 

oblivion so many rare and forgotten treasures, that we need not 

despair of adding, some day, to our Bibliotheca Piscatoria a ' 

father of trollers ' 

to take precedence of Nobbes. 

grand- 

Let, however, the honour of the invention in this country 

be given to who may be best entitled to it, whether Nobbes 

or some other ' 

mightie fysher ' 

of old, it would appear that 

trolling, in some form or the other, was not only understood, 

but very frequently practised by the ancient Greeks. It is 

frequently referred to by Oppian who recommended as bait a 

live labrax if obtainable, or, if not, a dead fish sunk and raised 

alternately with a weight attached. The following is the trans- 

lation of Oppian's description of baiting and working this 

tackle : 

.... He holds the Labrax, and beneath his head 

Adjusts with care the oblong shape of lead, 

Named, from its form, a Dolphin ; plumbed 

The bait shoots headlong through the blue abyss, 

The bright decoy a living creature seems, 

As now on this side, now on that it gleams, 

Till some dark form across its passage flit, 

Pouches the wire, and finds the biter's bit. 

with this 

Nothing can be more graphic and at the same time accurate 

than this description of the gyrations of a gorge-bait as worked 

fi-om the banks of the Thames in the nineteenth century. 

' Now on this side, now on that it gleams,' would seem to 

indicate that the writer was well up in the more recondite 

II. 

N

i ;3 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISIL 

mysteries of dressing the gorge-bait, such, for instance, as 

cutting off one of the pectoral fins to increase the glancing 

effect referred to. 

Oppian's description of ancient gorge-fishing 

by Dr. Badham's examination of the collection of Pompeian 

fish-hooks now in the museum at Naples. Some were weighted 

with lead, shaped into cylindrical lumps, which from a rude 

is borne out 

resemblance to dolphins, were called delphini. ... In order 

to prevent the fish biting off the hook a tubular piece of horn 

sometimes covered the line for the space of a few inches from 

its junction with the hook. As gimp was unknown to the early 

followers of the gentle art this was a wise and effectual pre- 

caution. Homer clearly alluded to it when speaking of plunging 

into the sea, he says, 

' 

She sank to the bottom like a leaden 

weight which placed down upon the wild bull's horn sinks 

quickly, bearing destruction to the raw l 

devouring fishes.' 

I have in the preceding pages indicated what is in my 

judgment the legitimate scope and province of gorge-bait, that 

is, its use in waters which are so overgrown 

with weeds or en- 

cumbered with bushes and stumps, as to be impracticable to 

any other style of fishing. Under these circumstances the 

gorge-bait fulfils a useful ro/e, and one to which personally I 

should be disposed to confine it. It has, moreover, the dis- 

advantage that whatever is hooked by it is bound to be killed 

killed, I mean, in the literal not in the piscatorial sense and 

whether small or large, in condition or out of condition, nothing 

can ever be returned to the water. I am pleased to think that 

so potential an authority as the editor of the Fishing Gazette 

holds the same views. Mr. Marston says: 'We are glad to 

know the " gorge " 

out of fashion. A fish 

system is going 

hooked in the mouth (as is usual in snap-fishing) fights 

far 

better than one whose entrails are being pulled out. You can 

let a pike under size go without hurting him if he is hooked by 

' MI &( /xe>Au6atrT7 ixc'At), 

' 

fivoabv opoviTfV, 

'llrt, xar' aypavAoio oo *>pa^, f'jxj&t/bavui 

*Ep\


snap, but the " gorge " kills all. We prefer spinning for pike 

from the reel far and away better than any other plan ; but in 

many waters spinning is out of the question.' 

Trolling cannot be considered either so exciting or so artistic 

a method of fishing as spinning, for example, although it has 

not been without its enthusiastic admirers and its poets also. 

I stood by a river in the wet, 

Where the trout and the pickerel met 

And waters were rushing and rolling ; 

And I said : 

' O Fish, a dainty dish, 

Is there aught that is worth the trolling ?' 

Scott, writing in 1758, says : 

The pike, my joy of all the scaly shoal, 

And of all fishing instruments the trovvl. 

My bounding heart against my bosom beats 

Now while my tongue the glorious strife repeats. 

Oh ! 

when he feels my jerking hook, with power 

And rage he bounces from his weedy bower. 

He traverses the stream with strong career, 

With straightened string his maddened course to steer. 

He springs above the wave at length, o'ercome ; 

This evening shall he feast my cheerful home. 

Though, however, no doubt quite as good a ' 

feast ' 

in the 

'angler's cheerful home' (when he has got him there), the 

pike taken by trolling does not give one the same satisfaction as 

one taken by spinning. One feels somehow as if he had not 

had a fair chance. It is like hunting a three-legged fox. More- 

over, the pain or inconvenience inflicted upon the pike, what- 

ever they may be, and, speaking ichthyologically, I am not 

inclined to overrate them, are an additional argument, to say 

nothing of the subsequent disagreeable operation of disengaging 

the hooks from the entrails or gullet of the pike. 

The best method of extracting the hooks, which may be 

mentioned in this connection, is, having first killed the pike, to 

make a small slit in the belly at the point where the gorge-hook 

N 2

i So PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH, 

is felt, and after disengaging the hook from the swivel to draw 

the hooks and baits out head foremost through the orifice. 

Another plan recommended by Mr. Stoddart is, first, to 

open the gill cover and cutting through the gills themselves 

allow them to bleed freely. This done draw the gorge-hook 

upwards tightly and when it is seen cut it out with a knife. 

This is a beastly business however. It makes the troller have 

rather the appearance, and, indeed, some of the feelings (or 

what should be feelings) of a butcher ; besides, the appearance 

of the fish is spoilt. 

In qualifying my opinion, as I have done above, as to the 

amount of pain or suffering actually endured by a pike, and 

probably by any other fish from the presence of a pair of 

gorge-hooks embedded, say, in his gullet or entrails, I had before 

my mind numerous circumstances which have occurred within 

my own knowledge, 

and that of others who have left their ex- 

periences on record, which seem to indicate that there is some- 

' 

' 

nature of fish pain as com- 

thing radically different in the very 

pared with that which it might be imagined would be suffered 

by a warm-blooded animal under similar circumstances. With 

this subject, however, I have dealt at large in a separate essay 

already referred to. 

When considering the best plan of extracting a gorge-hook 

from the entrails of a pike I have often wondered whether, if 

the fish were allowed to retain the bait for, say, half an hour, 

any portion of it would be found still attaching to the gorgehook 

? His digestion has been aptly compared to the combined 

effects of water and fire, 1 and after a few hours, according to 

Mr. Jesse, not even a bone of the swallowed prey can be dis- 

covered in his stomach. The same thing has been stated of the 

salmon. 

Dr. Fleming even gives the salmon the/tf.r in the matter of 

but he thinks that the former ' 

eating over the pike, feeds with 

a pa-ttier mouth, silently and unobserved, and does not gobble 

wit!) arid eyes and crunching jaws like the pike, so that nobody 

J F razor's II i.^tory of the Salnun.


notices the quantity of food he puts away in a gentlemanlike 

manner. . . . The one would be a Beau Brummel at table 

the other a Dr. Samuel Johnson.' Elsewhere he observes, ' 

requires a large fish to be pouched to render torpid his (the 

pike's) muscular action, or arrest the action of his most strongly 

and rapidly dissolving gastric juices.' 

From instances on record it would appear, however, that 

the taking by the pike of a fish large enough to produce tor- 

pidity is by no means so rare as the doctor would seem to sup- 

pose : 'On Tuesday, OcL 21, 1823,' says Bowlker, 'a pike 

weighing 50 Ibs. was taken out of a lake belonging to the Duke 

of Newcastle its ; death was supposed to have been occasioned 

by its endeavouring to swallow a carp, as one was taken out of 

its throat weighing 14 Ibs. ! 

' 

It is mentioned by Mr. Wright, 

in his 'Fishes and Fishing,' that in 1796 a somewhat similar 

circumstance occurred in the Serpentine, where a 3o-lb. pike 

was captured alive, but in an exhausted condition, nearly 

opposite the receiving-house, and having stuck fast in his 

throat a carp of the weight of nearly 7 Ibs. 

O'Gorman, in his 

' 

Practice of Angling,' relates several 

curious anecdotes of the ravenous appetite of the pike. One 

which he caught had in his maw a trout of 4 Ibs., whilst another 

seized and attempted to swallow a 6-lb. fish of the same species, 

as it was about to be landed. More remarkable still, however, 

is the following, which he witnessed on Dromore : A large 

pike which had been hooked and was nearly exhausted, was suddenly 

seized and carried to the bottom. Every effort was made 

for nearly half-an-hour to bring this second fish to shore, but 

to no purpose ; 

at length, however, by making a noise with the 

oars and pulling hard at the line, the anglers succeeded in dis- 

engaging the fish first hooked, but on getting it to the surface 

it was ' 

torn as if by a large dog,' though really doubtless by 

another pike ; and as the weight of the fish thus illtreated was 

17 Ibs., the size of its retainer may be imagined. 

Mr. Frederick Lupton, of the Cloister, Westminster, sends 

me the following anecdote : 

It

iS2 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

My friend Mr. White, of North Walsham, Norfolk, one of the 

finest spinners I ever met with, informed me, that some years 

ago, he was trolling in a lake belonging to Lord Sttffield, where 

he hooked a pike which weighed, as he afterwards ascertained, 

12\ Ibs. He had nearly succeeded in landing this fish when he felt 

a violent check, and immediately understood that it had been 

seized by another of the same species. Mr. White told a friend, 

who was fishing near him, of what had occurred, and promised to 

show the new comer, although he should be unable to capture him. 

Mr. White contrived to draw both fish within a short distance of 

the bank, and raised the head of the larger one to the top of the 

water, when he opened his capacious jaws, released his prey, and 

sunk down again into the depths of the pool. Of course, Mr. White 

had no opportunity of discovering the weight of this monster, but 

he unhesitatingly asserts that it exceeded 30 Ibs. 

A remnrkable instance of the pike's rapidity of digestion 

was communicated to me by Mr. Henry R. Francis, as having 

occurred some years ago, whilst he was fishing in the neighbourhood 

of Great Marlow. He observed a pike lying in the 

weeds in an apparently semi-torpid condition, and succeeded, 

Avith the aid of a landing-net, in securing it, when a large eel 

was found to be sticking in its throat, the tail portion of which 

was half-chewed up, swallowed, and partially digested, whilst 

the head, still alive and twisting, protruded from the jaws. 

The same gentleman caught in the Thames a pike weighing 

9 Ibs. with a moorhen in its gullet, by which it was being 

suffocated ; and on another occasion Mr. Chalmer caught 

a fish of 5 Ibs. that had a smaller one half-swallowed, but 

made notwithstanding an effort to take his spinning-bait, and 

was hooked foul in the attempt ! Very recently a 26-lb. pike 

was taken at Worksop which had two moorhens in its stomach 

when opened. 

Since the above was written I have been favoured by Captain 

S. H. Salvin with a curious pendant to one of the anecdotes. 

Captain Salvin had formerly in his possession 

a tame cor- 

morant, which had been for many years trained to catch fish 

for his master by diving amongst other odd captures made by


it being that of a waterhen, which it secured and brought to 

the bank after an exciting chase. Eventually, however, the 

career of the feathered angler was tragically cut short ; whilst 

diving one day as usual, he was seized and crushed to death 

by a jack (weighing only z\ Ibs.) which was itself choked in its 

endeavours to swallow him. 

But this is rather putting the cart before the horse ; first 

catch your hare, or rather, your pike, and that involves first 

GORGE-BAIT TACKLE. 

In the matter of gorge tackle, almost alone amongst fish- 

ing appliances, it would seem that we have retrograded instead 

of advancing. Nobbes' gorge hook, omitting the dragon tails 

before alluded to, was distinctly better than the hooks with which 

until lately trailers were satisfied to dress their tackle. In order 

to understand the difference and its bearing upon the trailer's 

requirements it should, of course, be understood that the gorge- 

which from 

bait is a dead fish, say gudgeon or dace, through 

head to tail a double hook with a leaded shank is drawn by 

means of a baiting needle, the two hooks standing out well on 

each side of the bait's mouth. The upper end of the hook- 

shank is attached to the trace, and the bait being dropped head 

first into the stream wherever there is a hole or opening in the 

weeds, or even where there is none, goes plump to the bottom 

performing, if properly baited, sundry gyrations and twistings 

which are likely to attract the notice of any pike on the feed. 

The pike having seized it, is allowed by the troller to carry 

it away freely with him wherever he likes, and when and if he 

swallows it, which he does invariably head first, his capture is 

certain, because even if they did not stick somewhere in the belly 

or entrails, the two hooks opening backwards from the bait's 

mouth cannot possibly be squeezed through the pike's gullet 

without laying hold somewhere or other. The point of danger 

in the process is that the pike, when gripping the bait may 

become conscious of an unusual rigidity or unbendingness

1 84 


which may excite his suspicions and tempt him to eject it befo;c 

the desired consummation is arrived at 

Here it is that Nobbes' hooks were preferable, at least in 

principle, to the gorge- hooks of the modern tackle shops. The 

former were short ; 

about i^ inch long, and finishing off in a loop 

at the end of the lead itself at which point they were attached 

to the trace. The modern hooks, on the contrary, prolonged, 

so to speak, the lead by a thick twist of brass wire, making 

the entire ' 

' 

hook part of the business from three to four inches 

in length which runs right through the fish from one end to the 

other, keeping it, of course, perfectly rigid. This rigidity not only 

impairs the elasticity and play of the bait, but as I have said, 

frequently acts as a warning to the pike to reject rather than to 

swallow his supposed prey. 

With a gorge-hook constructed like that of Nobbes, on the 

contrary, the whole of the tail part of the bait has nothing run- 

ning through it except a piece of soft gimp by 

indicated objections are overcome. 

Amongst other opinions 

which both the 

which serve to confirm this view 

might be quoted those of ' 

Ephemera ' 

and ' 

Piscator ' 

of the ' 

Practical Angler '). Salter says, 

' 

(author 

I usually take about 

half the lead from the shank, as I have found when a jack has 

struck my bait, he has sometimes left it immediately, in conse- 

qiience of his feeling tlie lead in the baifs body. 1 He adds : 'This 

may be prevented by leaving that part of the lead only which 

lies in the throat of the bait ' 

; from this latter opinion for 

the reasons given already, I entirely dissent. Such a remedy 

would be twice as bad as the disease ; and, indeed, to judge by 

the effect produced by such an unnatural arrangement, I am 

forced to the conclusion that Mr. Salter could never have 

practically tried the plan he recommends which I have. 

It is a notion not unfrequently entertained that pike swallow 

their prey literally whole. This is Blumenbach's view which 

is thus refuted by Mr. Wright : 

With every respect to Mr. Blumenbach, 

I must take leave to 

state that he is incorrect ; when fish of prey take a small bait, such


as a minnow, they seize it by the middle of its body ; in turning 

it to take it down head foremost they in a measure masticate it ; 

but if the prey be a large gudgeon, or a large roach or dace, it is 

much mutilated and only partially swallowed, that is, the head and 

shoulders ; and the pike, perch, or trout's jaws are constantly 

triturating and masticating the head and shoulders of the fish so 

preyed upon to a pulp, and following up the same process with the 

remainder until it passes into the stomach. 

If this opinion is correct, even in a modified sense, which 

I have reason to know that it is in the case of the pike, it 

proves the importance of getting rid to the utmost, if possible 

of all unnatural stuffing, and internal stiffenings of brass wire. 

The object of the modern innovation is obvious. It is by 

assimilating the length of the hook shank, &c., to that of the 

bait to have a solid piece to which to attach the bait's tail a 

very necessary process with this tackle in order to prevent its 

slipping down, and, so to speak, doubling up when brought into 

contact with weeds and other obstacles. The point of the wire 

arming being brought out at the bait's tail, the latter is care- 

fully whipped on to the trace, or perhaps sewn through with a 

needle and thread. The process is tedious, however, and to be 

effectual requires to be done very carefully, whilst I know few 

things more trying than pottering in an east wind with halffrozen 

fingers over the complicated miseries of needle and 

thread, or when perhaps the only precious hour of a short 

winter's afternoon is gliding away. 

Moreover, if the hock shank should not be exactly the 

same length as the bait it results in there either being nothing 

to lap it to or of leaving a stump of twisted brass wire pro- 

of all others where it is most certain to be 

truding in the spot 

seen. When some years ago I had occasion to practise gorgebait 

fishing rather energetically for a time these facts were 

brought so constantly and inconveniently under my notice 

that I devoted some attention to considering how the tackle 

could be improved ; the object being, of course, to get 

rid of 

the superfluous wire hook shank, and, starting with hooks

1 86 PIKE AND OTHER COAKSE FISH. 

leaded a la Nobbcs, to find a simple 

and effectual method cf 

fastening the bait's tail. 

The plan I hit upon fulfils both these conditions and gets 

rid entirely of needle and thread and its conse- 

quent irritating delays 

I reduce the length of the wire shank to a 

loop at the end of the lead (ride cut), to this 

attach the link or trace of stained gimp by a 

^j- hook swivel. I attach the loop of the gimp to 

53 the baiting needle and, having first cut the bait's 

(lOKIjK-IIOOKS 

AM) 'IK.ACE. 

tail off smoothly and neatly close to the flesh, 

pass the baiting needle through 

it in the usual 

way, bringing the end of the trace out as nearly 

in the centre of the tail as possible. Now pass 

the baiting needle laterally through the bait's 

tail, at about a quarter 

of an inch from the ex- 

tremity, drawing the gimp through after it ; and, 

finally, pass the end of the gimp through the 

loop thus made at the extremity of the bait and 

draw tight. A sort of half knot is thus formed 

which never slips and which can be untied in a 

moment when a fresh bait is required. To ex- 

plain a mechanical process verbally is always 

rather difficult and lengthy, but I can assure my 

readers that the arrangement itself, when under- 

stood, is the very simplest possible such as 

any tyro would manage without difficulty at the 

first trial and that simple as it is (and, for that 

reason only, valuable) it will be found practically 

to make the whole difference in the comfort and 

efficiency of a trolling bait. 

The woodcut represents the gorge hook 

lead and tackle as described, of about the si/e 

suitable for a largish gudgeon or a small (lace 

for a larger or a smaller bait the hooks and lead must be 

proportionately smaller or larger.


In the diagram of the hooks and shank it will be seen that 

a small part about half an inch of the latter is left bare for 

some little space above the bend. This is the portion of the 

hook which lies in the throat of the bait when adjusted, and 

the object in cutting away the lead is to prevent the unnatural 

and unsightly looking enlargement of the throat and gills occur- 

ring with the ordinary hook, and which renders it necessary 

to tie the gill covers down to prevent their catching or tearing 

in the weeds. It also avoids the necessity of sewing up the 

lips of the bait to prevent the hooks slipping or shifting. 

This is another decided saving of time and trouble, and, 

moreover, makes the bait last longer by being less strained. 

The darting and glancing motion which it should have is also 

increased by the placing of the lead in the proper place the 

belly ; and the removal of the unnatural stiffness and rigidity 

before adverted to, by getting rid of the wire shank, makes a 

pike much more inclined to pouch it when taken. 

The precise bend of the hooks themselves, whether single 

or double, used for gorge fishing is of comparatively little con- 

sequence, although the neatest is that shown in the engraving. 

The one essential is that their points should stand sufficiently 

out from the sides of the bait's head to ensure hooking and yet 

not so far as to be unsightly or catch in the weeds, the barbs 

pointing towards the eyes of the bait. 

The following quotation from an article by Mr. J. Harrington 

Keene, in the Sporting Mirror, on the subject of gorge baiting 

may be taken, perhaps, to indicate that my improvements have 

been generally accepted. Mr. Keene himself, it will be ob- 

served, has apparently again refined upon my refinements, but 

I have not been so fortunate as to have an opportunity of seeing 

or testing his jointed lead, though it would seem to be a self- 

evident improvement : 

Whereas till even within the last thirty years the gorge hook 

has been ' 

armyd wyth wyre,' the latest and most perfect forms are 

without this aid to rigidity and unnaturalness. Mr. Pennell, in his 

' Book of the Pike,' effectually ridiculed the idea and reformed it.


As an experimentalist myself I have found that a further improvement 

of the hook was possible, and by making the lead in jaints I 

think I have succeeded in perfecting the gorge hook par excellence. 

I found that the rigid inflexible lead often deterred the pike from 

swallowing, owing to its teeth meeting the unyielding centre lead ; 

and so after many trials I found my device so superior as to warrant 

me in introducing it to the public. 

The best trace for gorge-bait fishing is about four feet of 

fine stained gimp with a hook swivel at the bottom so that the 

hooks can be readily attached and detached upon a change of 

size in the baits used. 

No other swivel is absolutely necessary, but if the bottom 

of the trolling line is attached to a hook swivel, as recommended 

for all trolling lines, some little additional play may 

be thereby imparted to the bait. The rod, reel, and line recommended 

for spinning are also those most suitable to trolling 

with the gorge-bait. 

.WORKING THE GORGE-BAIT. 

I have dealt with this part of the subject so fully in the 

'Book of the Pike' that I here quote it in extenso. Subsequent 

impressions have not indicated any modification in the modus 

oberandi therein laid down. As a further excuse for this and 

several other extracts from my own previous writings, it may 

be remarked that the same mechanical facts can hardly be 

described by the same person without employing, to a consider- 

able extent, the same words and phrases, and it may be added, 

without the second edition 

ment upon number one. 

being the reverse of an improve- 

The word 'troll,' meaning to rove about in a circular, 

rollicking fashion, expresses the sort of movement which 

should be given to the gorge-bait, and for the purpose of 

producing this it is a common and very good plan to cut off a 

pectoral fin on one side, and a ventral fin on the other. A 

good many trollers also cut off the back and anal fins to 

prevent their catching in the weeds, but I believe that this is a


mistake, as the stripping off of all its fins reduces the bait too 

much to the condition of ' 

King Log,' and considerably curtails 

the variety of its gyrations in the water. Moreover, the in- 

convenience which it is intended to obviate is usually more 

imaginary than real. 

The major part of the movements of the bait being produced 

by itself when sinking head foremost, the principal part of the 

troller is to keep on raising it, every second or two, to the 

surface, and generally to take care that its conduct approaches 

as nearly as circumstances will permit the laws of perpetual 

motion. 

Short casts rather than long ones are to be recommended 

as the bait can thus be made to enter the water in a downward- 

darting direction, instead of flat on its side, or, perhaps, tail 

foremost. The rule of fishing 'fine and far off' a most salu- 

tary one under most circumstances has not much significance 

in this particular kind of fishing, as the gorge bait is usually 

employed in deep holes, or amongst weeds, from under which 

the fisherman cannot be seen. 

I am not usually an advocate for any Medo-Persic laws with 

but in the branch 

regard to fishing up stream or down stream ; 

of the art now under consideration, it is essentially necessary 

to adopt the former method that is, to cast somewhat in front 

of and above you, and work the bait downwards towards you 

and for a very simple reason namely, that the slope of the 

weeds with the current makes it impossible to work it properly 

in any other way. 

This plan has also the merit of bringing the bait into contact 

with the pike's jaws first instead of his tail. I am aware that 

in this I am laying down a diametrically opposite principle to 

that recommended by ' 

Ephemera,' and a good many other 

authors. The question, however, is one, not of opinion, but 

of a physical fact, and as such can be easily tested. I should 

say, therefore, cast rather up and across stream, keeping the 

bait as much as possible in the runs and gullies between weed 

clumps, or at the margin of weed beds in pools, and bringing

igo 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH, 

it well home to your boat or your feet before lifting it out of 

water for a fresh throw. Each time that the bait is left to sink 

after a 'lift,' a proportionate quantity of the line should be 

pulled 

in with the left hand and allowed to coil at the troller's 

feet ; the action being slower than, but of the same nature as, 

that required in spinning. 

Upon a fish seizing the bait, the first notice which the 

trailer receives of the fact is the stoppage or check of the line, 

very often hardly to be distinguished from that occasioned by 

a weed, and followed generally by a few savage little tugs or 

wrenches, which are produced by the jaws of the pike in his 

efforts to kill his supposed victim. Sometimes, however, the 

bait is taken by a heavy fish with a rush and jerk that well-nigh 

twists the rod out of the troller's hand. 

A capital description of the taking of the gorge-bait is given 

by 

Mr. Stoddart in his ' 

Angler's Companion ' 

: 

No one that ever felt the first attack of a pike at the gorge-bait 

can easily forget it. It is not, as might be supposed from the cha- 

racter of the fish, a bold, eager, voracious grasp ; quite the contrary, 

it is a slow calculating grip. There is usually nothing about it 

dashing or at all violent no ; stirring of the fins, no lashing of the 

tail, no expressed fury or revenge. The whole is mouthwork 

calm, deliberate, bone-crushing, deadly mouthwork. You think at 

the moment you hear the action the clanging action, of the 

fish's jaw-bones ; and such jaw-bones, so powerful, so terrific ; 

you think you hear the compressing, the racking of the" victim betwixt 

them. The sensation is pleasurable to the angler as an 

avenger. Who among our gentle craft ever pitied a pike ? I can 

fancy one lamenting over a salmon, or the star-stoled trout, or the 

playful minnow ; nay, I have heard of those who, on being bereft 

of a gold fish, actually wept ; but a pike ! itself unpitying, unspar- 

ing, who would pity ? who spare ? . . . 

I no sooner felt the well-known intimation, than drawing out 

line from my reel and slightly slackening what had already passed 

for further movements on 

the top ring of my rod, I stood prepared 

the part of the fish. After a short time he sailed slowly about, 

confining his excursions to within a yard or two of the spot where 

he had originally seized the bait. It was evident, as I knew from


experience, that he still held the bait crosswise betwixt his jaws, 

and had not yet pouched or bolted it. To induce him, however, to 

do so without delay, I very slightly, as is my wont, tightened, or 

rather jerked, the line towards myself, in order to create the notion 

that his prey was making resistance and might escape from his 

grasp. A moment's halt indicated that he had taken the bait, and 

immediately afterwards, all being disposed of at one gulp, out he 

rushed, vigorous as any salmon, exhausting in one splendid run 

nearly the whole contents of my reel, and ending his exertions with 

a desperate somersault, which revealed him to my view in all hio 

size, vigour, and ferocity the ; jaws grimly expanded, the fins erect, 

and the whole body in a state of uncontrollable excitement. 

The first step to be taken on perceiving a fish, or a sus- 

picious 'check,' is to slacken the line, letting out a few yards 

from the reel if there is none already unwound, and seeing that 

all is clear for a run. The next point is to ascertain indubitably 

that it is a fish ; because, although it is perhaps comparatively 

seldom that a fish is mistaken for a weed for more than a few 

seconds, it by no means unfrequently happens that a weed or 

stump is so mistaken for a fish ; and nothing less than a wasted 

five minutes will convince the agitated troller that such is the 

case. 

Most of my readers will probably remember Leech's charm- 

ing sketch of the old gentleman who has got a ' 

run ' 

of this 

sort, standing, watch in hand, instructing his young companion 

'never to hurry a pike, Tom. He has had ten minutes 

already ; I shall give 

him another five to make sure ' 

whilst 

his hooks are to be seen palpably stuck fast in a submerged 

post. 

This reminds me of another story which is, I daresay, quite 

as much public property as the above, although I cannot at 

this moment recollect where I met with it. 

A pike fisher of the Briggs school is staying at a country 

house, where the guests, to amuse themselves, cause a huge 

wooden pike to be manufactured and fixed about mid-water in 

a likely looking pool. The bait takes, but, naturally, the pike 

does not. Esox homo soon discovers Esox fiscis, and goes

192 


through every manoeuvre natural under such circumstances to 

induce him to bite, to the great delight of the watching jokers, 

who, on his return, cross-question him sharply as to his sport. 

This goes on for several days minnows, dace, gudgeon have 

all been tried and in vain. One of the party suggests that 

Esox homo has taken the 

possibly 'a . . . frog might.' Ha ! 

idea, and is off like a flash ! An hour two he returns : 

'You have him ! No? ! impossible Well, certainly, I thought 

a frog 

' ' 

Not a bit, my dear sir, no use, no use whatever, 

I assure you ; tried him with it for two hours, wouldn't touch 

it, wouldn't touch it, my dear sir ; but he ran at me several 

times ! ' 

A second version of the story states that (driven to despair), 

the trailer, as a last resource, hoisted the contumacious pike 

out with a wire snare ; and a third that when he visited the 

scene of his failure a few weeks after, he found a large painted 

pike stuck upon a pole, and that he thought he had seen it 

before. 

To return : when the nature of the retainer which your bait 

has received is doubtful, a little judicious tightening or a few 

slight pulls of the line will generally elicit signs of vitality 

should a pike be at the other end of it. If ' 

' 

no sign is made, 

the demonstrations may be gradually increased until the point 

is satisfactorily settled one way 

or other. Should the seizer 

being unmistakeably a fish remain passive or moving quietly 

about within a small compass for more than three or four 

minutes after taking, a slight jerk (or 'stirring,' as Nobbes has 

it) may be given at his mouth, which, if dexterously adminis- 

tered, will probably have an effect the reverse of that produced 

upon a horse who has taken 'a bit in his teeth,' and is hesitating 

whether to bolt or not. 

Sufficient time should always be allowed to a pike to gorge 

the bait five or even ten minutes if necessary the fact of his 

having ' 

pouched ' 

will most commonly be indicated by his moving 

(f towards his favourite haunt immediately afterward*. If 

he then remains quiet without moving away again, the line


should be gradually tightened (not struck, although Nobbes 

says a 'gentle stroak will do him no harm'), and the fish 

landed. 

It will, of course, not very unfrequently happen that a pike 

takes a bait in or close to his favourite gite when no moving off 

(or ' 

on,' as the police have it) can be expected. In this case 

the troller must be guided by circumstances and his own 

judgment. 

Should a number of small bubbles rise from the spot where, 

from the direction of the line, it is evident that the pike is 

lying, it is, according to Captain Williamson, a certain sign that 

he has not yet pouched. As a rule, however, it is a mistake to 

suppose that bubbles are occasioned by fish ; and when they 

are so caused, Captain Williamson considers that they may be 

regarded as a symptom that the fish will not bite, being already 

satiated, and the bubbles arising from the digestive process. 

'The bubblers,' he says, 'will always refuse the bait. Wounded 

fishes, especially jacks, evince their pain in this manner, as they 

do also their disquietude when unable to swallow their prey.' 

I must confess it appears to me more probable, and it is more 

in accordance with my experience, that the bubbles in this case 

arise either from the uneasiness of the fish at being unable to 

get rid of the bait already pouched and the hooks of which 

have begun perhaps to be felt or from the tickling of the line 

in the throat and jaws. 

The Trent has always had the credit of producing good 

Practical Observations on 

trollers. One of them, author of ' 

Angling on the River Trent,' propounds a theory on the subject 

of trolling, which, as I do not remember to have met with it 

elsewhere, I shall quote for the benefit of those who may be 

inclined to verify the fact. 

After the pike, he says, has had your bait five minutes, take up 

your rod, and draw your line in gently till you see him (which he 

will permit though he has not gorged). If you find the bait across 

his mouth give him more line, but if he has gorged govern him 

with a gentle hand. 

II. O

194 


Nobbes considers that when a pike moves up 

stream after 

being struck it is a sign of a large fish, and vice versa. 

Should the troller find that a considerable proportion of fish 

refuse to pouch after taking, it is a clear sign that they are not 

on the feed in earnest in fact, are only dilly-dallying with the 

bait for amusement. 

For when they are in earnest, there is no mistake about the 

matter. Your pike is the true cosmopolitan in his feeding 

fish, flesh, and fowl are alike acceptable to him ; animal, vege- 

table, and mineral his charity embraces them all. Watches, 

rings, spoons, plummets, and other articles have been frequently 

taken from the pike's maw and several authors have asserted 

; 

that it also feeds upon the pickerel-weed, a common species of 

water plant. I have often known pike to run at and seize the 

and on one occasion, at Newlock-on- 

lead of a spinning trace ; 

Thames, Mr. Francis caught a fish which had thus attempted 

to swallow his lead, and which was entangled and held fast by 

the gimp lapping round behind the gill. 

The opinion entertained by our ancestors of the pike's dis- 

crimination of taste, may be gathered from the following receipt 

for a savoury mess for him, given in an old and, I believe, rare 

book, ' The Jewel House of Art and Nature, &c.,' by Sir Hugh 

Plat, of Lincoln's Inn, Knight, temp. 1653 : 

Fill a sheep's gut with small unslaked limestones, and tie the 

same well at both ends that no water get therein, and if any pike 

devour it (as they are ravening fish, and very likely to do) she dieth 

in a short time ; you may fasten it to a string if you please, and so 

let it float upon the water. Also the liver of every fish is a good 

bait to catch any fish of the same kind. 

Nothing, in short, that he can by any means get into his 

stomach, which lias been described as being between that of 

an ostrich and a shark, comes amiss to the pike, and even 

imperial man has on more than on one occasion narrowly 

escaped being laid under contribution to his larder. 

The best authenticated instance of attempted manslaughter 

on the part of the pike is one which occurred, within a


comparatively recent date. The particulars are given by Mr. 

Wright: 

In the Reading Mercury a statement appeared that a lad 

aged fifteen, named Longhurst, had gone into Inglemere Pond, 

near Ascot Heath, to bathe, and that when he had walked in to the 

depth of about 4 feet, a large fish, supposed to be a pike, suddenly 

rose to the surface and seized his hand and wrist. Finding himself 

resisted however, he abandoned it, but still followed, and caught 

hold of the other hand, which he bit severely. The lad, clenching 

the hand which had been first bitten, struck his assailant a heavy 

blow on the head, when the fish swam away. W. Barr Brown, 

Esq., surgeon, dressed seven wounds, two of which were very deep 

and which bled profusely. 

I wrote to this gentleman, who very politely obtained, and 

sent this day, September 18, 1857, the whole account, in writing, 

from the young man's father (Mr. George Longhurst, of Sunning 

Hill), which I give 

as I received it : 

PARTICULARS OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH A FISH IN THE 

MONTH OF JUNE, 1856. 

One of my sons, aged fifteen, went with three other boys to 

bathe in Inglemere Pond, near Ascot racecourse. He walked gently 

into the water to about the depth of 4 feet, when he spread out his 

hands to attempt to swim ; instantly a large fish came up and took 

his hand into his mouth as far up as the wrist, but, finding he could 

not swallow it, relinquished his hold, and the boy, turning round, 

prepared for a hasty retreat out of the pond ; his companions who 

saw it, also scrambled out of the pond as fast as possible. 

My son had scarcely turned himself round when the fish came 

up behind and immediately seized his other hand crosswise, inflict- 

ing some very deep wounds on the back of it ; the boy raised his 

first-bitten and still bleeding arm, and struck the monster a hard 

blow on the head, when the fish disappeared. The other boys 

assisted him to dress, bound up his hand with their handkerchiefs 

and brought him home. We took him down to Mr. Brown, surgeon, 

who dressed seven wounds in one hand ; and so great was the pain 

the next day, that the lad fainted twice ; the little finger was bitten 

through the nail, and it was more than six weeks before it was well. 

The nail came off, and the scar remains to this day. 

O 2

196 


A few days after this occurrence, one of the woodmen was 

walking by the side of the pond, when he saw something white 

floating. A man who was passing on horseback rode in, and found 

it to be a large pike in a dying state ; he twisted his whip round it 

and it brought to shore. Myself and my son were immediately 

sent for to look at it, when the boy at once recognised his antago- 

nist. The fish appeared to have been a long time in the agonies 

of death, and the body was very lean, and curved like a bow. It 

measured 41 inches, and died the next day, and, I believe, was 

taken to the Castle at Windsor. 

'There can be no doubt,' Mr. Wright adds, 'that this fish 

was in a state of complete starvation. ... If well fed, 

it is 

probable it might have weighed from 30 to 40 Ibs.' 

The same gentleman also mentions that he was himself on 

one occasion a witness, with Lord Milsington and many other 

persons, to a somewhat similar occurrence, when, during the 

netting of the Bourne Brook, Chertsey, one of the waders was 

bitten in the leg by a pike which he had attempted to kick to 

shore. This fish, which was afterwards killed, weighed 17 Ibs. 

I am indebted for the following to Dr. Gcnzik : 

In 1829 I was bathing in the swimming school at Vienna with 

some fellow students, when one of them afterwards Dr. Gouge, 

who died a celebrated physician some years ago suddenly 

screamed out and sank. We all plunged in immediately to his 

rescue, and succeeded in bringing him to the surface, and finally 

in getting him up on to the boarding of the bath, when a pike was 

found sticking fast to his right heel, which would not loose its hold, 

but was killed and eaten by us all in company the same evening. 

It weighed 32 Ibs. Gouge suffered for months from the bite. 

This recalls the story of the pike which was said to have 

attacked the foot of a Polish damsel a performance the more 

ungallant, as the ladies of Poland are celebrated for their pretty 

ankles. 

Bentley's Miscellany for July 1851, gives 

an account of 

the assaults of pike upon the legs of men wading ; and I 

had myself the privilege of being severely bitten above the 

knee by a fine Thames fish, which sprang off the ground after it


was supposed to be dead, and seized me by the thigh, where it 

hung, sinking its teeth deeply into a stick which was used to 

force open its jaws. 

More examples might easily be adduced ; but the above 

are sufficient to prove that in rare instances, and when under 

the influence of either extreme anger or hunger, a large pike 

will not hesitate to attack the lords of creation. 

Such being the case, it is hardly necessary to say that it is 

by no means uncommon for animals, often of large size, to be 

similarly assaulted, and, in the case of the smaller species, 

devoured by this fish. Accounts are on record of otters, dogs, 

mules, oxen, and even horses, being attacked. Poultry are 

constantly destroyed by the pike 'the dwellers in the "eely- 

place," ' 

' 

' 

as Hood punningly says, having come to : 

pick-a-

1 98 


bably, indeed, as in other matters of eating and drinking, there 

is a good deal of fashion mixed up 

with the likes and dislikes 

of 'pike-meat,' which appear to have prevailed at different 

periods. 

We have already quoted the couplet of Ausonius, in which 

the ancient gourmand condemns him to ' smoke mic'st the 

smoky tavern's coarsest food,' and brands him as a fish which 

no gentleman would offer to his friend an opinion shared 

apparently by a more modern poet, who, in his 'Bell of the 

Shannon,' after stating that 

adds 

There is not her like, 

All other lasses 

She just surpasses 

As wine molasses, 

Or salmon pike. 

Vaniere, however, in his 'Proedium Rusticum,' exactly re- 

verses the dictum : 

Lo ! the rich pike, to entertain your i;ucst, 

Smokes on the board, and decks a royal feast. . . . 

An assertion which is perfectly in consonance with the farts of 

the case as it pointedly figures in the Cartes de diner of most 

of the grand and royal banquets of former times as, for in- 

stance, the feast at the enthronisation of George Nevil, Arch- 

bishop of York, in 1466 ; the feast given to Richard II. by the 

celebrated William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester in 1394. 

' 

As for the Teviot pike,' says Stoddart, 'I consider them 

at all times preferable to the general run of salmon captured 

in that stream.' 

Even with the worst of pike, however, something may be 

done by good cookery, and, per contra, bad cookery will spoil 

even the celebrated Staffordshire jack, 'golden-bellied and 

black-spotted,' and, according to authorities, the very ' 

king of 

pikes.' I can honestly recommend the following receipt for 

filleting pike, given me by Mrs. Robertson, the landlady of the


Bat and Ball inn, Braemore. The sauce, it will be seen, plays 

the part of Hamlet : 

Cut the fillets, and after covering them with plenty of eggs and 

bread-crumbs, fry them over a brisk fire till thoroughly browned. 

Then pour over them a gravy made thus : 

After removing the fillets, lay the bone and trimmings in a 

stewpan with two shalots and a small bunch of parsley, stew them 

for one hour, and strain the liquor, which add to the following 

sauce. Put two ounces of butter over the fire ; when melted, add 

the above liquor, and also one tablespoonful of flour, one teaspoonful 

of soy, one dessertspoonful of anchovy, one of Worcestershire 

sauce, and a little salt. 

This is the best way that I know of for cooking pike up to 

4 Ibs. weight or so ; above that I am inclined to think that 

stuffing and baking with a rich sauce is better. The beauty of 

filleting is that if well and carefully done, the whole or nearly 

the whole of the bones are got out by the cook, avoiding a loss 

of time and the chance of being choked. Pike plainly filleted 

and cooked, according to the first part of Mrs. Robertson's 

receipt, even without the sauce, forms an excellent dish, but 

as, indeed, in all fish cookery it must be served ' 

straight off 

the fire,' as the experienced chej'of the Cafe de Paris at Monaco 

once expressed it to me. 

Another good way of treating large pike is to boil them and 

let them get cold, when the flesh, or rather fish, will break easily 

up into flakes which, when fried with a little fresh butter, plenty 

of pepper and salt (added continually whilst frying, N.B.) and 

dredged over with flour or oatmeal, 

will be found to make a 

capital dish. 

The French pike, according to Bellonius, are long and thin 

in the belly, and those of Italy particularly given to corpulence 

in the same region. In fact, the whole question of goodness 

' The food 

or badness of the pike is contained in these words : 

makes the fish.' Where there is good and cleanly feed, and 

plenty of it, there will be well-grown and edible : pike where 

there is none, they will be of the frog ' 

froggy.'

2co PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

The best way to cut up, 

' 

or as it used to be called splate ' ' 

a pike, is to make a longitudinal cut down the back from head 

to tail, when the meat can be readily turned back on each side 

from the ribs (by far the best cut), without carrying with it 

more than a small proportion of bones. These, especially the 

small forked ones near the tail end of the fish, are exceedingly 

troublesome, and, if any one of them happens to stick in the 

throat, dangerous. Evidently our ancestors 

' made no bones ' 

of these little trifles ; as, according to Mr. Dickens, the follow- 

ing was the first course of a Saturday's 

dinner in the time of 

Henry VIII. : 'First, leich brayne. Item, frommity pottage. 

Item, whole ling. Item, great jowls of salt sammon. Item, 

great ruds. Item, great salt eels. Item, great salt sturgeon 

jowls. Item, great pike. Item, great jowls of fresh samrnon. 

Item, great turbots.' This was the first course of a fish dinner 

enjoined by law as a fast for the 'good of their souls and 

bodies.' 2 That they could manage a second course after it, was 

a gastronomic feat not to be equalled in these degenerate days. 

Some of our monarchs, indeed, seem to have had an especial 

affection for pike, as we find from Beckwith's enlarged edition 

of ' 

Blount's Tenures,' ' 

that in one instance a certain stew or 

fish-pond without the eastern gate of Stafford, was held by 

Ralph de Warmer of our Sovereign Lord the King, on condition 

that when he pleased to fish therein "he should have ail 

the pikes and the breams," the other fish coining to the hooks, 

including eels, belonging to Ralph and his heirs for ever.' 

is 

Many fishermen, including Stoddart, consider that a pike 

much better eating, especially for boiling, after it has been 

'crimped 5 

a process which, however, cannot be conveniently 

applied to specimens of less than 4 or 5 Ibs. weight. 

ing,' says Sir Humphrey Uavy, ' 

' 

Crimp- 

by preserving the irritability of 

the fibre from being gradually exhausted, seems to preserve it 

so hard and crisp that it breaks under the teeth, and a fresh fish 

not crimped is generally tough.' 

Immediately ajter having killed thefish by a sufficient number 

1 Best's Art of Angling. 

* Household Words, vol. iii.


of blows on the back of the head, make a series of deep trans- 

ver?e cuts across the sides, penetrating nearly to the backbone, 

and at about an inch or two apart. Then cut the gills under- 

neath the throat, and taking the fish by the tail, hold it in the 

stream or in a cool spring for three or four minutes to let it 

bleed, which completes the process of crimping. If the fish is 

very large, as much as twenty minutes' immersion may be 

necessary. 

Crimping, as described above, greatly improves the quality 

of the fish for the table when boiled ; but it requires to be done 

the moment the fish becomes insensible, and before the stiffen- 

ing of the muscles takes place. 

The usual method employed in crimping sea-fish is to strike 

them on the head as soon as caught, which, it is said, protracts 

the term of their contractibility, and the muscles which retain 

the property longest are those about the head. The transverse 

divisions of the muscular fibre must take place, to be of any 

utility, whilst they have the contractile power of remaining life. 

See A. Carlisle's observations on the ' 

Crimping of Fish,' and 

' 

Mr. Wright's of Fish.' 

Anatomy 

Fishmongers often tell their customers that fish improve by 

keeping for longer or shorter periods. This is the reverse of 

the fact. Almost all authorities, who have no interest in 

proving one side or the other, agree that fish cannot be eaten 

too fresh. By carefully packing in ice, fish may be presented 

at table in passable condition some days after killing, but those 

who have tasted the pike or the salmon fresh caught, on the 

banks of the Severn or Medway, will not easily be reconciled 

to the difference. Mr. Wright has a remark on this subject 

a propos of salmon, but which applies equally to the pike : 

The fat of salmon between the flakes, he says, is mixed with 

much albumen and gelatine which very speedily decomposes, and 

no mode of cooking will prevent its injurious effects on a delicate 

human constitution. I am confirmed in this opinion by every 

scientific man with whom I have conversed, or who has ever 

written on the subject.


Again, pike should be gutted as soon as killed ; some of the 

most wholesome fish feed on the most noisome garbage, weeds, 

insects, &c., many of which are absolutely poisonous 

to man. 

If the fish is kept long with such undigested food in its 

stomach, the whole body becomes shortly impregnated and 

more or less unfit for food. This has been long well known in 

the East and West Indies, where such poisonous fish as the 

tetradon, yellow-bill sprat, 

c. abound, but yet are eaten with 

safety by adopting this precaution (vide Linnaeus, &c.). Accord- 

ing to Sir Emerson Tennent, the sardine, a native of Ceylon, 

has also the reputation of being poisonous at certain periods of 

the year, during which it is forbidden by law to be eaten. 

Probably rapid gutting would prove an antidote in this case, as 

in other instances of fish poisons alluded to. 

It is a curious circumstance that, although the roe of the 

pike is so peculiarly unwholesome, according to the authority 

of several respectable authors, the fish itself is, in the opinion 

of other writers, best for the table just before the spawning 

season, and when the milt and eggs are in the greatest state of 

development. 

' The pike,' says 'Piscator' ('Practical Angler'), 'like grayling, 

is a strictly winter fish, being in best condition from October to 

February, and, unlike the trout, is always in best order when 

full of roe.' Yarrell also says that the Laplanders consider the 

fish in best condition in spawning time ; 

and Stoddart mentions 

that by many English epicures they are considered 'in the finest 

edible condition when full of roe.' I cannot say for my own part 

that I ever remember testing the theory, which, for obvious 

reasons, would be a most unfortunate one if it were to he 

generally received. The only time when the experiment could 

be properly tried would be when it was determined to exterminate 

the breed of pike in some particular water. Xobbcs says that 

a ' 

pike and a buck are in season together,' that is, in July and 

August, but the two following months are, in the estimation of 

most ichthyologists, almost equally good, and in my opinion the 

best month of all for a river pike is November. Of the green-


fleshed pikes referred to by Yarrell and some other authors, T 

cannot say that I have ever met with a specimen ; if such exist, 

they probably owe their reputation as a dainty rather to the fact 

of their rarity than to any intrinsic superiority over pike with 

flesh of the ordinary colour. 

The best pike for the table are almost always found cheek by 

jowl with trout. Wansford Broadwater (in the famous Driffield 

stream), the Teviot, Bala Lake, Loch Tummel, Marlow Pool, 

the Dorsetshire Frome, &c., bear witness notably to this fact. 

To show the condition into which pike may be brought by 

high feeding it is asserted that a quart of fat has been known 

and 

to be taken out of the stomach of one about a yard long ; 

in the days when fat pike were a favourite dish with fat monks, 

it was jocosely proverbial that the former was as ' 

costly and 

long a feeding ' 

as an ox ! Of all pike-food eels are the most 

nutritious and rapidly fattening. 

When in high season the general colour of the fish is green 

spotted with bright yellow, whilst the gills are of a vivid red ; 

when out of season, the green changes to a greyer tint, and the 

The ' 

points ' 

of a well-conditioned 

yellow spots become pale. 

pike should be small head, broad shoulders, and deep flanks. 

The pike spawns about March and April, according to the 

climate, forwardness of the Spring, and other local circum- 

stances, the young females of three or four years old taking 

the lead, and the dowagers following. For this purpose they 

quit the open waters in pairs, and retire into the fens, ditches 

or shallows, where they deposit their spawn amongst the leaves 

of aquatic plants ; and during this period the male may often 

be observed following the female about from place to place, and 

attending upon her with much apparent solicitude. As many 

as 80,000 eggs have been counted in one fish. 

When the spawning process is complete the fish return 

again into the rivers, and are then for some weeks in a state of 

partial stupefaction, and unfit for food. In rivers they begin to 

be in condition again about June, and are in their best season 

in November, but in still waters the recuperative process is

204 


much slower. On the Thames, within the City jurisdiction, 

which extends up to Staines, pike-fishing is illegal between 

March i and May 31. 

Principal Characteristics of the Common Pike. Body elon- 

gated, nearly uniform in depth 

from head to commence- 

ment of back fin, then becoming narrower ; body covered with 

small scales, lateral line indistinct. Length of head compared 

to total length of head, body and tail as i to 4. Back and anal 

fins placed very far back, nearly opposite each other. From 

point of nose to origin of pectoral fin, and thence to origin 

of ventral fin, and thence to commencement of anal fins are 

three nearly equal distances. Pectoral and ventral fins small, 

rays of anal fins elongated. Tail somewhat forked. Shape 

of head, Ion?, flattened and wide ; gape extensive. Lower 

jaws longest, with numerous small teeth round the front. The 

sides with five or six very large and sharp teeth on each side. 

Upper jaw somewhat duck-billed. Teeth on vomcr small ; 

on the palatine bones larger and longer, particularly on the 

inner edges : none on superior maxillary bones. Head covered 

with mucous orifices placed in pairs. 

Checks and upper parts 

of gill-covers covered with scales. Colour of head and upper 

part of back dusky olive-brown, growing lighter and mottled 

with green and yellow on sides, passing into silvery white on 

belly, pectoral and ventral fins pale brown ; 

bark, anal, and tail 

fins darker brown, mottled with white, yellow, and dark green.

COARSE FISH AND FLOAT FISHING 

GENERALL Y. 

TACKLE. 

HOOKS. 

IN every description of float-fishing, as in trolling and fly- 

fishing, though in a somewhat lesser degree, the hook plays the 

part of Hamlet, and although having already dealt with this 

subject in extenso in Vol. I. pp. 4-33, and in the present Vol. 

pp. 74-7 in reference to trolling hooks, I do not purpose now to 

go into what may be called the rationale of hook making as 

applicable to float-fishing especially, the arguments in one case 

practically hold good in another. 

What is the best hook ? The hook that kills best with the 

artificial fly will evidently, so far as killing powers go, catch the 

most fish with the worm or gentle. The only points in which 

some slight modification of the practical application of the 

principles alluded to may be necessary in the case of floatfishing 

are the length of the shanks and turned and needleeyed 

hooks. The latter present few of the advantages which 

the fly-fisher, having regard to his special art, may recognise in 

them, and the former that is the length of the shank is one 

entirely of convenience, depending upon the nature of the 

bait used, and the necessity of concealing the whole of the 

shank, as compared with the importance of missing the smallest 

number of bites. It is almost a self-evident proposition that a 

long-shanked hook of the same size and shaped bend will have 

greater penetrating power than a hook with a shorter shank.


In order to arrive at this conclusion without any complicated 

process of reasoning out the mechanical argument it is only 

necessary to apply a sort of reductio ad absurditm, and consider 

what would be the actual power of a hook if the shank were 

reduced to the same length as the point. Evidently it would 

possess no penetrating power 

u LJ 

whatever. Extend the same 

principle to a hook with a shank slightly longer than the point, 

and you have a proportionate increase of hooking power, 

double it again, you get another increase and so on. 

For reasons already stated I believe that my bend of hook, 

shown in the annexed plate, fig. i, will be found far the most 

Wl) 00 0123 

436. 

killing for all sorts of bottom 

fishing. The length of 

shank has been especially 

calculated for tying artifi- 

cial flies and so far as hook- 

FIG. r.-'PENNELLSNECK-HEND.' HOOKS. ^ P WOrS ? , perhaps, 

about the perfect length. 

In roach fishing, however, especially when paste is the bait 

used, a somewhat shorter shank is probably advisable. 1'ut let 

there be no mistake, the convenience in more readily covering 

the shank with the bait is only obtained at the expense of an 

equivalent amount of hooking, that is killing, power. For all 

sorts of worm-fishing where the shank of the hook can be 

readily concealed the use of the full length of shank is strongly 

recommended. The simplest way to shorten the shanks of any 

of these hooks is with a small pair of pliers or in an impromptu 

vice formed at the joint of a pair of scissors. 

In heavy fishing, where hooks larger than those shown in 

the engraving are used, my old bend of hooks diagrams of 

which, as also of the ordinary round bend hooks, are appended 

maybe employed. It will be seen from the plate, fig. 2, that the 

two bends of hooks are numbered in different ways. My own 

arc numbered from i, which is probably the smallest sixe that 

will often be required in 

float-fishing, up to 10, the largest, 

suitable for barbelling and other exceptionally heavy work.

FL OA T FISHING TA CKLE. 207 

Whenever sizes of hooks are given in the following pages it is 

these numbers that are referred to. 

FIG. 2. 

The ' 

sliced-hook ' 

' 

PENNELL OLD BEND,' AND 'ROUND BEND.' 

(ride cut) might be found advantageous 

for some sorts of fishing, such as barbelling with the lob-worm 

tail or fishing with the natural grasshopper, or shrimp bait, where 

it is desirable to prevent the bait slipping down 

the hook shank. I think it might be used with 

advantage also in almost all sorts of sea fishing ^ 

with bait. 

^ 

GUT. 

Such observations as I am able to offer on 

the subject of gut and hair, having reference to FIG. 3. 'SLICED' 

the choice of methods of staining, knotting, &c., 

will be found at pp. 33-47 Vol. I. I do not, therefore, attempt 

to recapitulate them here. As regards the 

REEL AXD RUXXIXG-LINE, 

the same remark applies, and I would merely say here that, 

setting aside such special departments as ledgering for barbel,

2o3 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

where an extra strong heavy line is required, and Nottingham 

fishing, the disciples of which pride themselves on a wonder- 

fully light line of undressed silk, the best sort of running-line 

that I am acquainted with for every purpose is one of the 

finest possible dressed silk of the thickness of ordinary stout 

sewing thread, which is both perfect in manipulation and of 

great strength. I have one of these lines before me now that 

has gone through a fair amount of work during the past season, 

both with float, fly, and worm-fishing for trout, for which latter 

purpose it is especially suitable, and I find that one yard of the 

end which has had all the wear is still capable of lifting a dead 

weight of 6 Ibs. The price is 25. 6d. for 20 yards, or i2S. 6*/. 

for 100 yards, it is manufactured and sold by Watson and Sons, 

308 High Holborn, London, under the designation of ' 

Braided 

Waterproof Lines, No. H.' G, the next size larger, is 3*. per 

score yards, and so on down to A, which is a strong salmon 

line. Either E or D would be suited to ledgering for barbel or 

other heavy work. With this line also, and a rod with stiff rings 

I can easily throw a light tackle and float 15 or 20 yards, and 

so well as 

very likely more, but it will 

' 

not, of course, float ' 

undressed line. I have never yet tried how far I could throw it, 

but I have repeatedly thrown it the distance in question. This 

facility of casting is a very important part 

of a float-fisher's 

of a 

equipment, as it enables him to command any part 

pond or river which it is practically likely he may require to 

reach. 

The Nottingham line used with, and especially suitable to 

the Nottingham tackle, is equally suitable to almost every kind 

of float fishing (except jack fishing). It is made of pure un- 

dressed silk and combines great strength with the utmost lightness 

and fineness, being about, in fact, the thickness of the 

dressed line above described. Extreme lightness is desirable 

to give it flotation, where, as in the Nottingham style, long 

casts are made or the float travels a long way down stream, and 

there is sometimes as much as thirty or forty yards of line in 

the water at the same time. It must also be free from kinking

FLOAT FISHING TACKLE. 209 

proclivities and run very easily or it will not pass through the 

rod rings with sufficient freedom. 

A line of this kind was supplied to me by Mr. Baily, the 

well-known Nottingham troller, and it fulfils admirably all these 

conditions. It is composed of six or eight of -the finest possible 

strands of silk plaited somewhat in a square shape. A hundred 

yards of it weigh exactly three-eighths of an ounce, and yet, 

notwithstanding this extreme fineness, I find it will lift a dead 

weight of between six and seven pounds, which is far beyond 

the strain it is ever likely to be subjected to. In fact, for all 

kinds of bottom-fishing this will be found a truly excellent 

line, but care must be taken to get the real thing. Still, for 

some sorts of fishing the advantage will probably be thought in 

practice to rest with the dressed silk line which I have already 

recommended, but there are many others, I am free to admit, in 

which the undressed silk from its greater lightness and floating 

qualities would have the votes in its favour, and in securing a 

float-fisher's outfit it would be well to have a running line of 

each sort. The price of the Nottingham line is $s. per 100 

yards of the plaited quality described ; the twisted description 

being 2s. 6d. per 100 yards. 

Whenever a reel is necessary, and I confess I seldom care 

about fishing of any kind without one, any ordinary check 

and not too 

reel, such as can be obtained at every tackle shop, 

large, will answer the purpose, observing that it is desirable the 

'check' should be as light as possible, as if it is too it heavy 

will not allow a small fish to carry out the line with sufficient 

ease. 

RODS. 

What observations on rods, in addition to those previously 

given, may be desirable in this division of my subject will be 

probably more conveniently distributed under the headings to 

which they more especially pertain. 'Combination rods' have 

been frequently invented which, by a transposition of tops, 

butts, and middle joints can be made to fulfil almost any role 

ii. 

P


both in fly, float-fishing, and trolling 

more or less satisfactorily. 

Of these combination rods, one of the most ingenious that I 

have met with is the so-called Miiltum in pan

FLOAT FISHING- -TACKLE. 211 

proof bag of the trout-fisher, which, however, when empty 

weighs next to nothing. 

It is bad enough to have to carry an empty panier when it 

is a light one, but when it is a heavy one it is more than human 

nature can stand. Some of the best and most recent improve- 

ments in the matter of fish-carriers, whether bag or basket, will 

be found figured in Vol. I. pp. 93-7. 

LANDING NETS. 

A gaff is rarely of any use in float-fishing, as the fish caught 

seldom run of sufficient size to make its application necessary 

or, indeed, possible. 

A landing net with a fairly long handle will, however, be 

found an indispensable adjunct where the fish run anything 

over half-a-pound, and even under that weight, especially in 

the case of fish that are not ' 

leather-mouthed, 5 

the presence of 

a landing net will frequently prevent loss. The handiest net 

for all sorts of fishing that I know of is that already described 

and here repeated to save the trouble of reference. The mode 

of fixing the arms of the net combines the utmost simplicity 

with efficiency and strength ; 

the two arms can be separated in 

a moment, when they lie flat together and roll up in the net like 

a walking-stick. The net itself should always be made of oiled 

silk, both for durability and also to prevent the hooks catching, 

as they are apt to do, in the fibres of ordinary string or twine 

nets. A net of the measurements given is the most suitable for 

trout fishing with the fly, where the fish do not run very large. 

It would be found large enough for landing any fish up to ii Ibs. 

or probably 2 Ibs. with a little management. For barbelling 

and chub or bream fishing it would be advisable to have one 

at least fifteen or sixteen inches between the points. 

In order 

to make a net of this size carry well, however, the supporting 

shoulder cord will have to be proportionately lengthened and the 

butt of the handle leaded, to prevent, in the first place, the net 

touching under the arm of the fisherman, and, secondly, over-


balancing itself and falling out of the carrier altogether. The 

necessity of this would doubtless be diminished, if not nearly- 

obviated, by the suggested alteration in the net handle that I 

FIG. I. LANDING-NET EXTKSDF.D. 

fcJ 

FIG. 2. LANDING-NET CLOSED.


have already made, namely, that the catch-rim against which 

the suspender is supported should be put right up at the top of 

the ferrule, at C, in fact, instead of at D (vide diagram 2), thus 

adding materially to the balance as well as to the general convenience 

of the whole thing. 

It would then, I believe, be an absolutely perfect net. The 

net is the production of Messrs. Hardy Bros., Alnwick, and the 

handle and carrier that of Mrs. Williams, of Great Queen 

Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. I have merely performed the part 

of mortar in uniting the two bricks of the edifice. But, no 

doubt, after this book is published, at least these two tacklemakers 

will make the whole net complete as shown. 

In landing a fish, the net should be kept as much out of 

sight as possible until the moment of using it, when it should 

be rapidly, but steadily, passed under the fish from below and 

behind; the movement of getting the fish into the net being, 

therefore, a lifting 

' 

and sweeping ' 

movement, so to speak. 

FLOATS, SHOT, AND SUNDRIES. 

FLOATS. 

Floats are amongst the items in fishermen's equipment which 

have also, I think, been carried as near the point of perfection 

as possible. 

Floats of the most fascinating shapes, of every size, 

colour, and combination of cork and quill, can be obtained in 

the tackle shops. For the sake of convenience, I have had 

half-a-dozen of the most useful shapes engraved. 

No. i is made of cork with a porcupine quill running 

one of the 

through the middle. It has the merit of being 

strongest possible forms of float, sightly, and at the same time 

a ' 

good steady carrier,' in fact, the float fisher will find that 

made of different shapes and sizes, there is no float which can 

be more satisfactorily used in the greatest number of circum- 

stances. And this observation applies as well to pond as to 

river fishing.

214 

PIKE AXD OTHER COARSE FISH. 

NO. 4. 

No. 2 is made entirely 

of tapered quill. It is 

beautiful as a work of art, 

and with ivory tips exer- 

cises a derided fascination 

upon the minds of many 

roach fishers, by whom, 

indeed, it is most fre- 

quently patronised. 

No. 3 is a variation of 

No. i, the central shaft of 

it being again of porcupine 

quill, and the enlarged 

portion of cork. This is 

a float especially suited 

to perch-fishing in lakes 

and ponds, and 

' 

Should you rove for a perch 

with a pink or minnow,' 

will carry the latter very 

satisfactorily. 

No. 4 is a very small- 

sized plain porcupine quill, 

and can be used of the 

size shown in the drawing 

with advantage where the 

very finest fishing is neces- 

sary, as the line requires to 

be only very lightly shotted 

to cock the float, and at the 

slightest bite it is taken 

under water, being also so 

small and unattractive in 

colour as to disturb the 

water very little. J-'or river


fishing, however, where there is any current to speak of, No. 4 

will be found practically useless, as the slightest touch, whether 

from weed or gravel, or even the sweep of the ^ 

current itself will suffice to carry it under. 

For ordinary float fishing the four descriptions 

indicated will be found all that the most fastidious 

can require. Of float No. i it would be desirable 

to keep three sizes, one larger and one smaller than 

the pattern. Where it is necessary to fish deep in a 

strong stream, it is also necessary to have a good 

many shot on the line to carry the bait with sufficient 

rapidity to the bottom, and to prevent the 

' 

stream unduly bagging ' 

the line. For this purpose 

it is, of course, also necessary to have a float of 

corresponding carrying powers, 

and I think that 

even a fourth size of No. i, a still larger size than 

those already mentioned making altogether four 

sizes of No. i ought to be kept by the float fisher 

in case of emergency. Nos. 2 and 3 are also made 

both smaller and larger, but on the whole, I think 

the two sizes represented will be found most con- 

venient. 

So much for ordinary floats ; I now come to 

the extraordinary floats. 

No. 5 is a smaller size of the Nottingham or 

travelling float that is, the float used in what is 

known as the ' 

' 

Nottingham style of float fishing. 

Its peculiarities, it will be noticed, consist first in 

the fact that it is bow-shaped instead of straight, 

and that the bottom loop is at right angles with, 

instead of perpendicular to, the shaft, and that, in 

lieu of the ordinary quill or gutta-percha cap, there 

is a small projecting brass loop through which the line can 

run with perfect freedom. The float, therefore, travels up 

and down the line, and at the point where it is intended it 

' 

should rest, that is, as the expression is, at the right depth, 3


a small piece of gut or line is knotted in the running line 

above the float, with the result that, of course, when the line 

is running downwards through the rings to this point, the float 

remains stationary. It is thus that the Nottingham fisher is 

enabled to make such long casts. As the line is drawn back 

out of the water, the float naturally slips down the 

line until it is stopped by the shot, and in this position 

forms an additional weight at the point where weight 

is most essential to enable a long cast to be made 

with ease. Having drawn in his line up to the 'stick- 

ing ' 

point, i.e. the transverse piece of gut or quill 

which may be the length 

of his rod or even more 

above the float he makes his cast to ten or twenty, 

or, perhaps, even twenty-five yards, as the case may 

be, and giving line freely, the shot carry the bait 

down to the bottom of the river or pond to the depth 

which has been already carefully plummed, leaving 

the float as usual on the surface. This is, however 

only one of the two great advantages of this kind of 

float. The second is the fact that in striking the 

fish from whatever distances, especially long ones, the 

stroke has not to overcome the vis inertia of the float 

before it can reach the mouth of the fish. This is a 

point of great importance, 

and one without which 

fishing in the Nottingham style, that is, covering long' 

reaches of water at great distances from the fisher- 

man, could not be successfully carried out. 

No. 6, the last float in the list, is probably still 

more entitled to be called extraordinary. It is called 

the 'electric-float,' and is supposed to be luminous 

NO. 6. a t the top, so that in night fishing it is always readily 

perceptible. 

N.B. I don't assert that the float actually fulfils these con- 

ditions, but they are the specialties claimed for it. What the 

object of the circular notch round the upper part of the cork 

may be, except to hold the little indiarubber ring now shown

FLOA T FISHING TA CKLE. 2 1 7 

about half-an-inch above it, I am unable to explain, and if it 

is intended to hold it, I can furnish no explanation of why the 

ring should be placed at such an unusual part of the float, 

unless it be to make, so to speak, a higher stand for the lamp. 

Given, however, the fact that one can see the float in the 

dark, the next point that arises is whether the fish can see the 

bait, or if they can, are likely to bite at it at that part of the 

twenty-four hours. I must confess again to not having tried 

the experiment practically, and, therefore, in summing-up these 

few remarks on the ' 

not ' 

true ' 

it is at any rate ' 

electric-float,' all I can say is that if it is 

new.' 

Besides the floats shown in the engravings, there is still 

another very useful kind of float which I had overlooked. It is 

made the lower part of porcupine and the upper of goose or 

swan quill. In consequence of the amount of air contained in 

the upper portion it is an excellent carrier of its si '.e, and, 

therefore, worthy of an honourable place 

in the float-fisher's 

table of precedence. 

Another float, which, if not extraordinary, can certainly 

hardly be called ordinary, has recently been invented by Mr. 

Gillet, the well-known tackle-maker of Fetter Lane. It is a 

float which cocks itself, and is called { 

Gillet's self-cocking float.' 

It is strongly recommended by Mr. Greville Fennell in his 

' Book of the Roach.' After stating his fruitless efforts to cir- 

cumvent the roach of certain ponds, he says : 

We then bethought us to imitate as nearly as possible the 

action of the slow descending particles of loose ground-bait thrown 

in to allure the fish and instead of using a shotted line, which sank 

rapidly, and consequently unnaturally reaches the bottom long 

before the ground-bait, we removed all the shot, and placing suf- 

ficient in the quill, we found we had achieved a success, as it 

permitted the bait to sink by its own gravity. The effect was 

immediate and decided. . . . This method is wonderfully destruc- 

tive to dace when the house-fly is used. 

This float is weighted so as to swim the proper depth as 

weighted by the line, hook, and bait, ' when ' 

says the gentle-


' man who describes it, it may be regulated 

to detect the finest 

bite.' This writer also says that he has been very successful 

with it in mill tails amongst the dace, baited with a single 

gentle or red-worm, when with the ordinary shotted float he 

could not succeed in catching them. The self-cocking ap- 

enclosed in the 

paratus consists of a drop or two of quicksilver 

end of the transparent tapered quill. 

The object of this is to dispense with the 

SHOT OR LEAD WIRE, 

which latter, intended not only to cock the float, but also 

to carry the bait to the bottom, are best used large 

rather than 

numerous and, with the exception of the lowest one, distributed, 

in pond fishing, as far away from the bait as possible. In river 

to the bottom and 

fishing it is necessary to get the bait quickly 

to keep the current from lifting it off again. Consequently it 

becomes necessary to get the shot somewhat closer together on 

the lower part of the line. The shot should be heavy enough 

to submerge the float up to the, as I may call it, high water 

mark, generally about three-quarters of the way up, but in many 

cases the float swims better and bites can be more readily per- 

ceived when the float is sunk rather over the mark in question. 

Some float-fishers instead of using split shot, with the annoyance 

of having to bite them on with your teeth when they have 

to be attached, and cut them out with your penknife at the risk 

of the line when they have to be detached, use a soft leaden 

wire, the invention, I believe, and, at any rate, manufacture of 

the Manchester Cotton Spinning Co., 51 Corporation Street, 

Manchester, which can be coiled with great facility round the 

line with the fingers and uncoiled again as soon as it is wished 

to alter the 'swim of the float/ or the float itself. An illustra- 

tion of the wire coiled on gut line is annexed. 1 

1 The actual leaden wire, of which samples have been furnished to me by 

the Company, is about as thick as the finest twine. It is sold by them in h:inks 

or knots of 15 yards, price one bhilling the hank. The Manchester Company has

FLOA T FISHING TA CKLE. 219 

This fine wire is, however, more suitable for fine tackle and 

very light fishing than for floats requiring to be heavily leaded. 

The piece of lead coil represented is about equal to two No. 4 

shot, and would cock a porcupine quill float about half as 

long again as No. 4. For very light tackle it has 

however, I think, several advantages, 

one of which 

is that there is no danger of nipping the line, as 

is the case with shot which have been squeezed 

tightly on. All that is necessary to coil the wire 

is to lay a pin parallel with the gut, twisting the 

wire round both ; and then, after withdrawing the 

pin tightening the coils as much as requisite by 

twisting them with the finger and thumb. 

To return : after the float naturally comes 

THE PLUMMET, 

LEAD-WIRE 

FOR WEIGHT- 

which is essential to ascertain the depth of the ING FLOAT- 

water and the distance from the bottom (or on the 

bottom, as the case may be) 

LINES - 

at which it is desired that the bait 

should travel. The best of the old-fashioned plummets is 

simply 

a sheet of soft lead wound round the line above the 

hook in the position shown in the engraving (fig. i). An im- 

provement upon it was, however, exhibited last year by Mr. 

Thomas Hines, of Norwich. The action of it will be under- 

also sent me samples of a very fine soft copper wire for lapping over pike tackle, 

finishing off top ring fastenings, c., and other analogous purposes. They have 

been for many years manufacturing a superfine ' 

thrown silk,' as contrasted with 

' 

floss' silk, on the one hand and sewing silk on the other, for whipping hooks, 

flies, &c. An immense comfort will be found in tackle-making, from the use of 

this silk, which, though exceedingly fine is strong enough to admit of considerable 

strain without breaking. The finest and purest silk of all, however, is that 

used by the gold twist makers of Little Britain, London, in their manufacture 

of gold lace for buttons, uniforms, &c. For 'waxing' this and other kinds of 

silk, a very small piece of cobblers' wax about as big as a No. i shot and rolled 

between the finger and thumb will be found a great convenience. \Yhen used in 

larger lumps it is difficult, especially in cold weather, to ke.-p it at the necessary 

temperature.


stood by a glance at the illustrative diagram (fig. 2). The 

thumb being pressed upon the point />, the loop, tf, is pushed 

upwards by a spring, the hook passed through in the position 

shown, and kept afterwards in its place by the downward action 

of the liberated spring. 

A ROD REST. 

A desideratum which will add greatly to the comfort both of 

the bank and punt fisher, has been lately patented by Messrs. C. L. 

Matthews & Co., No. IA Wynyatt Street, St. John Street Road, 

London, E.G., under the name of the 'Adjustable Fishing 

Rod Holder.' This invention, of which diagrams are appended, 

is obtainable from Messrs. Matthews, wholesale and retail. The 

rod holder in black iron costs is. 6d. ; the boat dip, the same ; 

or better finished and nickel plated twice as much. Fig. i 

shows the rod holder as it would appear when stuck upright in 

the bank. Fig. 2, the same stuck in a perpendicular bank. 

Fig. 3, the boat dip, by 

which it can be fixed to the side of the 

punt. Fig. 4 shows the adjustment of the boat clip with the 

rod holders in position. The inventor claims the following 

advantages amongst others for his rod holder :

FL OA T FISHING TA CKLE. 221 

1. The rod can be fixed so that the butt end comes to the edge 

of the water, thus bringing the full length of the rod into use. 

2. The rod holder can be adjusted so as to fish when the water 

is bank high or some feet below. 

3. The rod holder can be stuck into the sheer face of a high 

bank (fig. 2), and the point of the rod depressed as near the water 

as desired. 

FIG. 3. FIG. i. 

AN ADJUSTABLE ROD-REST. 

rf 

4. The rod is so held that instantly a bite is seen one can 

strike as freely as though 

time. 

it had been held in the hand all the 

5. The rod holder can be adjusted to any angle without taking 

it out of the ground. 

6. In boat fishing, the same advantages attend the use of the 

rod holder as when fishing from the bank. All anglers know how 

awkward it is to have the rod lying across the boat.


7. When using the rod holder, there is no danger of losing 

the rod ; it cannot roll or tip from the boat or bank, no fish can 

run off with it, and the pressure of. wind only makes it hold 

tighter. 

8. The rod holder holds equally well long or short, thick or 

thin, light or heavy rods ; in fact, it is so adapted that the the strain the greater the security. 

greater 

9. The rod holder when not in use will close up in such a small 

compass that it may easily be carried in the bag, basket, or pocket, 

its weight being but a few ounces. 

Float Caps. The best float caps are quill, as unless the 

outside silk lapping gives way they are practically indestructible. 

Not so gutta percha caps, which after 

I ISHING I-I.IKKS. 

keeping a certain time lose all the qualities 

of elasticity and almost of cohesion. 

I have before me a box of gutta percha 

caps which have been some years in 

stock and they break to pieces merely 

on being taken hold of by the fingers. 

Tackle Varnish. The appearance as 

well as the durability of all fishing tackle 

is enhanced by the addition of a coat of 

varnish over the silk lapping. A receipt 

for the best varnish for this purpose 

with which I am acquainted is given at 

page 17. 

Tackle Vice. A vice which can be 

attached to the table and containing a 

hook for loop-tying and other incidental 

purposes will be found a luxury to those 

who make their own tackle. 

I-'ishing Pliers. Mr. R. 1!. Marston 

has invented a most excellent combi- 

nation of the above. It is so useful and complete that I 

append a diagram 

of it. It contains : 

i>t, a .strung pair of pliers.

2nd, shot splitter. 

FLOA T FISHING TA CKLE. 223 

3rd, wire or hook cutter. 

4th, by an ingenious contrivance in the centre of the joint 

between the two arms, a cutter for extra thick wire. 

5th, screw- driver. 

6th, a sort of gimlet for boring broken joints out of ferrules. 

The pliers can be obtained of Messrs. Barren and Wilson, 

King William Street, Strand. 

' THE FISHERMAN'S KNIFE.' 

For all sorts of float- as well as fly-fishing, a pocket-knife 

blade that can be carried anywhere, and 

with a ' 

disgorger ' 

opened readily from any position, is a great, I might almost say, 

indispensable convenience.

224 


The ' 

in 

Fisherman's Knife,' as it has been christened, figured 

the engraving, a descendant of my other knife rechristened 

the ' 

Trailer's Knife,' contains all the outdoor requisites in a 

thoroughly compact form. It is manufactured and sold by 

Messrs. Watson and Sons, 308 High Holborn, London, at the 

very modest price of 6.r. 6d. 

A very convenient general tackle-box is sold by Messrs. 

Chevalier, Bowness and Bowness, of 230 Strand. This box, 

which is made in japanned tin, is designed to carry a complete 

stock of tackle, as well for the fly-fisher as the troller, fcc. 1 

1 

Depth, ii inches; length, 14 inches; width, 10 inches. In the lid are com- 

partments, containing traces, casts, &c. Two trays for artificial baits ; one tray 

for salmon flies, and one tray with four partitions for trout flies. There is a large 

?pace underneath the bottom tray for reels, lines, and tackle generally. The 

price of the tackle box is three guineas.

225 

BAITS. 

WORMS AND HOW TO BAIT WITH THEM. 

I wish you all joy of the worm. Antony and Cleopatra. 

I HAVE usually found that the best worm for all sorts of 

fishing, excepting ledgering for barbel, or bream fishing where 

the fish run large, is the brandling or dunghill worm, found in 

manure heaps. The manure, however, that produces these 

worms in perfection should not be too old nor too new, but in 

a sort of half-and-half condition, which, although the process 

can never be an agreeable one, takes away part of the extreme 

nastiness of collecting them. Moreover, when the right spot is. 

discovered, they are generally found in great abundance. Pro- 

bably the pungent smell, derived, I suppose, from its unsavoury 

habitat, as well as its enticing red colour, are the causes of the 

superior attractiveness of the brandling. 

Before being used it 

should, however, for the double purpose of increasing its brightness 

and its toughness, be thoroughly well ' 

' 

and to 

scoured ; 

effect this, the simplest and best way that I am acquainted 

with is to it place in well damped moss for two or three days 

before use. At the riverside worms may be carried either in a 

box or small bag, the latter probably the most convenient, as it 

admits of more moss to keep the worms fresh and lively, and 

can be attached to the button-hole. A dead or disfigured 

worm should be at once discarded and the hook rebaited. 

Mr. Alfred Mackrill gives the following recipe for keeping 

worms after they have been caught. His establishment, it will 

be observed, is on such an extensive scale, that it might well 

II. Q


be dignified by the title of the ' 

' 

Wormery ; 

gives additional weight 

to his recommendations : 

this, of course, 

I have, he says, six tubs in the garden about 2 feet each in 

diameter and about 4 feet deep. These I sink into the ground 

15 inches, and then fill them up with garden mould about 20 inches, 

and as I collect the worms I place them on the top of the mould in 

tub No. I until I have 2,500, and then the other tubs until full. 

The worms will live in tubs so arranged for months ; no trouble 

need be taken. The worms will work down into the mould. A 

cover must be placed on the top of each tub to keep the birds and 

rain out, the cover to be slightly raised for ventilation. I look at 

the tubs once a week, and if I find any dead ones at the mediately remove them. 

top 

I im- 

The worms can only be taken on a warm, damp, moonless night, 

and on these favourable evenings I catch my supply. During the close 

season I manage to get nearly 20,000 lobs, and have plenty during 

the hot summer months when worming is out of the question. 

Now, for the blood-worms and brandlings. These I have to 

breed. The blood- worm will be found in rotten, decayed leaves 

in abundance. The brandling I breed in the following mixture : 

stable dung, garden mould, vegetable matter of all kinds, the refuse 

of the kitchen, watered continually with the cook's pot liquor. A 

heap of this made up 12 feet square and 2 feet deep will supply 

millions of worms. Now comes the most important part the 

preparation of the worm for the hook. I take two flouer-pots 

large enough to hold two quarts of water, well plug 

the hole at 

bottom with a cork, fill them three-parts full with fresh moss 

washed very clean ; the moss must be wet, but not very wet. Pick 

out the brightest and pinkest-looking worms say, one hundred 

place them carefully on the top of the moss, cover the pot 

over to 

prevent the worms crawling out, place the pot in a shady corner, 

leave it for twenty-four hours, then take your other pot and place 

this for six 

the worms very carefully one by one in that; repeat 

days, taking care that the moss is fresh and well washed eacli 

time. At the end of the sixth day you will have a worm clean, 

transparent, and full of life. The worm will then be ready for 

your bait-box, which should be nearly full of fresh moss, well 

washed, and be wet, but not too wet. 

The worms for the ground-bait I clean in moss for two clays 

only ; you want the lish to select, and if you have the choice 

morsel on your hook there is every probability that on the hook

BAITS. 227 

will be taken. The brandling and blood-worms for ground-bait, 

I simply take as many as I want out of a stock pot. They will be 

found in a compact mass at the bottom, and do not require cleaning 

for ground-bait. Place these in clean washed moss in a small box, 

and all is ready. A bag of boiled rice (2 Ibs.) and the same quantity 

of soaked bread completes the ground-bait, with a bag of bran to 

mix with the whole. Never throw a dead worm in with your 

ground-bait ; one stinking worm will drive all the fish out of your 

swim. Fish are a very great deal more particular than many 

anglers are aware of. I close my remarks with the following : 

One may be a very skilful angler, but, as old George Hone says, 

' 

if the fish won't bite, nobody can ketch 'em.' If to bite study the bait. 

you want the fish 

When the brandling cannot be obtained, of other small 

worms the reddest are the best. 

For barbelling, bream, and chub, the tail end of a lob- 

worm, the largest species of worm that we have, appears for 

some reason probably because it is larger to be a better bait. 

The lob-worm may be constantly obtained in the same spots as 

the brandling, as also in kitchen gardens, and generally in any 

moderately damp heavy 

' 

soil. Another favourite lie ' 

for this 

worm is under an old log, or anything that by pressing on the 

soil keeps it more or less constantly humid. The easiest 

way, however, to gather lob-worms, especially when any large 

number are required, as for ground-baiting for barbel, &c., is 

to collect them with a lantern at night, on low-lying dampish 

lawns and the grass edges of gravel paths. At this time they 

come out of their holes, and may, in a favourable situation, 

literally be scraped up with the fingers by dozens, so that I 

have repeatedly filled a quart pot with them in the space of half 

an hour. When there is not much dew, or the hour is not very 

late, the worms only come partially out of their holes, keeping 

their tails in, apparently to facilitate an immediate retreat, and 

in this case some dexterity is required to cut off the retreat 

successfully, and to avoid breaking the worm in doing so. 

Various prescriptions have been given for making the lob- 

v/orms come out of their holes in an unnatural manner and 

Q 2


in the daytime. The following recipe was given me by a 

gentleman of my acquaintance last year in Scotland. Though 

I have not tried it, I have no doubt his prescription is good. 

1 Mix a little mustard in warm water and with a jug pour it into 

the worm holes along the sides of the gravel walks or carriage 

drives, and the worms come bolting out like rabbits.' 

A decoction of walnut leaf water poured on the ground, has 

been recommended as a prescription for bringing them to the 

surface, nolens rolens, for the last two hundred years, or at any 

rate since the time of Chetham, who, in the second edition 

of his 'Angler's Vade Mecum ' 

(temp. 1689) says: 'In great 

droughts pound walnut leaves, and put the juice thereof mixed 

with a little water into their (the worms') holes, and it drives 

them out of the ground.' 

Another author, * R. H.,' in the 'Angler's Sure Guide' 

(1706), quoted by Mr. Alexander D. Campbell, treats on the 

subject at still greater length : 

There are divers other ways of getting these worms, as by 

bruising green hemp, or walnut-tree leaves, or the green husks, 

the blades of leeks or onions, and laying them to soak, or boiling 

them in water, and after they have been soaked twelve or fourteen 

hours, or boiled an hour or two, pour the water on the ground in 

places where you see many worm castings, or into the worm holes; 

or by mixing soot and water, or salt and water, and throwing it on 

such places, &C. But I use none of these last ways, but only in 

case of necessity, because it hurts the worms, and makes them sick 

and many of them to die. 

I have much pleasure in placing any or all of these recipes 

at the disposal of the National Fish Culture Association, whose 

energetic secretary lately advertised, I see, for 

' 

tenders ' 

for a 

worm contract, for the benefit of the fish in the South Kensing- 

ton Aquarium. 

In baiting with a whole lob-worm, dip the finger and thumb 

of the left hand in dry sand, then take the worm between the 

t\vo and insert the point of the hook either exactly at the point 

of the head or just below it as desired, threading it, as it were,

BAITS. 229 

down the centre, until at least two-thirds of the worm has been 

run upon the hook and line. When the finger of the right hand 

can no longer touch the hook shank, the head of the worm must 

be pulled upwards with the two first fingers and thumb of the 

right hand, at the same time that with the left the threading 

process at the point of the hook is continued. 

Another plan, which is easier than the above, is to enter 

the hook point at the head as described, and after passing it 

through as much as the shank of the hook will cover, bring 

the point out again and run the worm clean up on the gut two 

or three inches above the hook, then again insert the hook point 

at the orifice from which the gut is drawn out. Repeat the 

threading process towards the tail of the worm until again the 

shank of the hook completely disappears, when the gut being 

drawn tight the bait is completed. 

In using the lob-worm tail only, the worm must be broken 

about the middle, longer or shorter according to circumstances, 

and the hook inserted at the point of the breakage, the worm 

being then run up 

the hook until the shank is somewhat more 

than covered, and only the end of the tail remains at liberty. 

For baiting with a whole brandling or other small worm with 

a single hook, the same plan as that employed for the whole 

lob-worm should be followed, with the difference 

that the hook-point must be inserted at or a 

little above the 'knot' the worm in this case 

being 

of course unbroken and that it is better 

to leave a gap between the spot where the point 

of the hook is first brought out and that where 

it is re-entered in the worm. Baiting 

thus the 

hook does not require to be run in quite so far, 

as, when the line is pulled tight and the upper 

part of the worm drawn down, the exposed por- 

TWO-HOOK 

/ .1 i , , i MI 1_ j i î WORM TACKLE. 

tion of the hook- shank will be covered by the 

upper portion of the worm. 

Where my two-hook tackle is used (ride cut) 

agreeable part of the business is dispensed with. 

J 

all this dis

230 


GENTLES AND PASTE. 

It has been stated by a roach fisherman of experience that 

the gentles or maggots the larvae of the blue-bottle obtained 

from fish offal are finer, and appear to be preferred as bait to 

those obtained from the liver of the sheep or bullock. Those 

' 

who are very nice ' 

about such matters can easily satisfy them- 

selves of the accuracy of the assertion by a trial. Fiat experimentum 

in corpore vili ! Whatever be the source from which 

gentles are obtained, they should be placed in moist sand to 

scour and toughen, and get rid of a pinky-brown discoloured 

patch which they 

have when first taken out of the offal. In 

this way they will keep fresh and in good order for several days. 

In the winter months, if it is desired to keep them for any 

considerable period, the plan commonly recommended is to 

put them into a large-mouthed bottle, such as a pickle jar, 

about two-thirds full of earth, the bottle being corked up and 

placed in a cellar or other cool situation. 

The best way of baiting with gentles I generally find is to 

completely cover the shank of the hook with the first gentle 

run on longitudinally, then to put on transversely one, two, or 

three more according to the size of the hook, and the last one 

again longitudinally so as to cover the barb and point. 

Carrion gentles, as they are called, are much smaller and 

proportionally nastier than liver gentles ; they can be used, 

however, when the latter cannot be obtained, but the purpose 

to which they are most commonly put is that of ground-baiting. 

In all gentle-fishing it will be found a great convenience to 

have a bait-box, something in shape like a miniature water 

can, with a tray at the mouth into which the gentles are 'poured ' 

instantly when required for baiting, and from which they at once 

fall back again into the can when done with. The can itself is 

attached to the button hole by a string. 

Most authors mention paste. I find that the best paste is 

made from the crumb of a new loaf worked as follows : Place

the lump 

BAITS. 231 

' 

of crumb in a loosish bag ' 

formed out of a pocket- 

handkerchief, draw the hand down the handkerchief until the 

bread-crumb is lightly pressed upon. Hold the bread, thus 

enclosed, in the water for a few seconds, then take it out and by 

twisting the handkerchief tightly squeeze out the superfluous 

water, squeeze out, in fact, all the water that can be got out ; 

then take out the sort of pudding which remains and work it a 

few times between the palms of the hands, which should be 

clean. This will form a reserve from which small portions can 

be taken from time to time to be manipulated into the desired 

consistency as required for use. 

When putting a piece of paste on the hook roll it up between 

the finger and thumb until it is of a spherical shape, then bury 

the hook deeply in it and give it a slight squeeze between the 

' 

finger and thumb the sum tottle of the ; 

whole,' as Hume 

used to say, being that the point and bend of the hook are 

entirely covered and all but a very little bit of the shank. 

Some roach fishers prefer to cover the whole of the hook, 

shank and all, with a pear-shaped piece of paste. This, however, 

requires some skill, takes somewhat more time, and makes 

the bait larger. All sorts of unguents and essences have been 

at one time or another recommended to be mixed with paste 

for the purpose of giving it a haut-gout. 

All arts, all shapes, the wily angler tries, 

To cloak his fraud, and tempt his finny prize : 

Their sight, their smell, he carefully explores, 

And blends the druggists' and the chymists' stores ; 

Devising still, with fancy ever new, 

Pastes, oils, and unguents, of each scent and hue. 

And in Jones's ' 

Oppian,' 

thus : 

A paste in luscious wine the captor steeps 

Mixed with the balmy tears that Myrrha weeps, 

Around the trap diffusive fragrance rolls, 

And calls with certain charms the finny shoals ; 

They crowd the arch, and soon each joyful swain 

Finds nor his labour nor his care in vain.

232 


Others'again recommend the working up 

with it of a certain 

to the hook. 

quantity of cotton wool to make it adhere longer 

Honey is another addition which is often strongly advocated. 

I cannot say, however, that I have personally found any 

necessity for or advantage in these various refinements, and I 

am disposed to think that a good clean white bread paste made 

in the way that I have described will generally take, when fish 

are taking at all, at least as well as any other variation. 

A sort of composite bait which has been recommended 

on really good authority is made by putting a gentle on the 

point of the hook and covering 

the rest of the shank with 

paste. Mr. Davies, the accomplished author of a charming 

book on ' 

Fishing in the Norfolk Broads,' states that in his 

experience a paste and gentle bait thus concocted has been 

known to kill where no success attended the use of paste 

alone. 

Cheese paste 

i.e. 01 dinar/ cheese worked up into a paste 

is also a bait which has been recommended as deadly for 

carp 

in the ' 

and barbel. That it is so for chub used with a float 

Nottingham style,' under boughs, c., and in pellets 

1 can confidently assert, but I have 

about the size of a cherry 

not tried it myself for any other fish. The cheese I have used 

has also been always compaiativeiy new, whereas to select a 

cheese that 'stinks' is the advice of experts. 

There is, in fact, no end to the nostrums with which writers 

on fishing would complicate our bait-box. They almost all, 

however, depend, as pointed out in an amusing article by 'G. F ,' 

published in the 'Fisherman's Magazine,' some years ago, upon 

tittivating the olfactory fisn nerves, and this again depends upon 

fish being possessed of the sense of smell, which may be assumed 

by analogy, but I doivt think has ever been demonstrated ichthyologically. 

Admitting, however, that in fish as in man, the nose 

' 

be the sentinel of the stomach,' it is hard to believe that it 

may 

could receive with pleasure such a compound as the following, 

recommended by M. Charras to Louis XIV., King of France, 

as an infallible ' 

anointment for fish bait ;

BAITS. 233 

Take of man's fat and cat's fat, of each half an ounce ; mummy, 

finely powdered, three drams cumium ; seed, finely powdered, one 

dram distilled oil of aniseed and ; spike, of each six drops ; civet, 

two grains and ; campline, four : grains make an ointment accord- 

ing to art. When you angle with this, anoint 8 inches of line next 

the hook. Keep it in a pewter box, made something, taper ; and 

when you use it, never angle with less than two or three hairs next 

the hook ; because if you angle with one hair it will not stick so 

well to the line. 

Another of this author's prescriptions is gum ivy, 

commended by Izaak Walton. 

also re- 

' 

It is of a yellowish-red colour 

and with a strong scent and a sharp taste.' Or take this as 

' 

the best unguent compounded for trout in muddy 

gudgeon 

' 

in a clean stream : 

water and 

Take assafoetida, 3 drams ; campline, I dram ; Venice turpen- 

tine, i dram ; put altogether with some drops of the chymical oils 

of lavender and chamomile, of each an equal quantity. 

That a trout should be induced to partake of this precious 

compound in muddy water and gudgeon in clean water must 

surely be ' 

intended, as G. F.' suggests, to illustrate the disparity 

between the intellects of the two species. As a final effort of 

imagination it has actually been recommended to 'take the bones 

or skulls of a dead man at the opening of a grave and beat 

them into powder, putting this powder into the moss where you 

and 

' 

keep your worms, but others like the grave earth as well ; 

' 

man's fat ' 

is not only insisted upon, but we are directed to 

apply to any ' 

surgeon ' 

for it. 

' 

Cat's fat ' 

and ' 

that fat from a 

heron's leg' is likewise advocated. It has been pointed out 

that both the latter animals are partial to fish, and that although 

a cat has a proverbial aversion to wetting her feet she becomes 

a second otter when she has once taken to fish-poaching ways. 

But, as the writer I have been quoting from humorously 

remarks : 

Man is not always fond of fishing, and the fat of a fellow who 

is no ossophagist might tend to drive the fish away rather than to

*34 


induce their presence, and if such be the case, we fear there will 

become a great demand for the adipose of an angler, and he who, 

in dying, carries so tempting a bait may be followed to his last 

resting-place by the brethren of the rod in a humour rather of joy 

than sorrow ! 

This is certainly a grave view to take of the question, 

and naturally brings us to an end. 

GREAVES. 

Greaves, although strongly recommended by many authors, 

sort of 

is to my mind a very unattractive, as well as inconvenient, 

hardly ever,' I might really say 

never, employ it. That fish whose character I have defended 

bait, so much so, in fact, that I ' 

to the utmost from the aspersion of coarseness, shall not only 

be willing to swallow tallow in its normal and sufficiently nasty 

state, but should actually batten upon the fatty refuse of the 

unsavoury product, is a matter which viewed in its proper 

light ought to cause regret to the enthusiastic roach and barbel 

fisher. Here is the receipt, however, for the preparation of the 

greaves, 'such as they are :' The greaves, after being broken 

up with a hammer, should be gently boiled for about half an 

hour, long enough before they are wanted for use to admit of 

their getting cold and hard. The whitest pieces are the best, 

and these can be most conveniently disposed of to hide the 

hook by being cut into broadish strips or slices ; but, as before 

observed, the whole thing as a process is unattractive and as a 

bait beastly ! 

It is refreshing to turn to 

'PITH' AND 'BULLOCK'S BRAINS,' 

Which shine, at least, by contrast As I have observed in 

the ' Modern Practical Angler,' this bait is a modern discovery, 

but it is the most deadly of all baits for chub fishing in winter. 

The ' 

pith ' 

is used as the bait on the hook, and the brains for the 

ground-bait and I shall ; therefore describe them both together. 

thus : 

They are prepared 

Having obtained from a butcher some brains from a freshly

BAITS. 235 

killed bullock, cow, or sheep, first thoroughly clean and mash 

them in cold water, and then boil them for fifteen minutes, 

When cold they 

changing the water once during the process. 

are ready for use. 

The ' 

pith ' 

is the spinal marrow of a bullock or cow, and 

should also be obtained quite fresh. The pith requires to be 

boiled for about three minutes to prepare it for use. The brains 

and marrow from one bullock will be sufficient for an ordinary 

day's fishing. In order to make the brains sink readily, and 

also in order to separate the particles, or make them fine, some 

fishing authorities recommend that the brains should be chewed 

by the angler as he uses them. This process, however, though 

and the best substitute 

effectual, is not relished by most persons, 

is to squeeze the brains in the hand whilst under water. The 

brains should be thrown in from time to time, in pieces about 

the size of a walnut, a few yards (according to stream and 

depth) above the spot which is covered by the bait. 

The pith when used for chub or barbel should be cut up 

as required into pieces about the size of a large hazel nut, and 

baited on a No. 9 or 10 hook. (See plate, p. 207.) 

The author of ' 

Spinning and Float-fishing in the Notting- 

' ham Style is in favour of boiling the brains, but against boiling 

He : says 

the pith. 

' 

It is, in my idea, the winter bait far excellence for chub : I 

allude to pith and brains. The pith is the spinal cord of a bullock ; 

your butcher will draw you a piece out when you want to use it. 

The brains are used for ground-bait, and they must be washed 

perfectly clean and well scalded, or else boiled for a few minutes 

in a bag. They can then be cut up very small with a knife and 

thrown in. Don't, however, be extravagant in this matter ; a very 

few pieces are quite sufficient. The pith itself when you first see 

it looks a very dirty and disagreeable affair ; the pieces are about 

as thick as your forefinger, and I have had them a foot long. The 

skin must be slit from end to end with a pair of fine-pointed 

scissors, carefully pulled off, and thrown away, being useless. 

The pith must then be washed two or three times in clean water 

till it is perfectly clear from blood and all other impurities, and as 

white as card. Some anglers recommend that it should be scalded,

236 


boiled, &c. ; but I say don't be deluded into doing anything 

of the 

sort, for I have tried it, and boiling ever so little makes it very 

soft, and it won't stop on the hook at all. I say do nothing more 

to it than I have recommended above. After it is washed and 

clean it is ready for use, and for this bait a No. 4 hook is the best. 

Cut off a piece of pith about the size of a hazel nut and put the 

hook through and through it several times till you have worked 

the pith up the shank it will ; 

When you 

then stop on the hook very well. 

have a bite with this bait play your fish very carefully, 

for I have found that two out of three of the fish so caught have 

only been hooked by the skin at the side of the mouth. This is a 

clinking bait to use in the depth of winter, when the snow lies 

deep on the ground, and when the thermometer indicates a few 

degrees below freezing point. Indeed, I think it is useless to try 

it unless there is a little frost.' 

OTHER BAITS. 

The white larva of the wasp, or wasp grub, which is found 

in the comb in a mummified (might I say com-atose ?) state, 

is often a successful bait for roach, dace, chub, bream, &c. 

It is, however, difficult, from its delicate nature, to keep it very 

satisfactorily on the hook, and for this purpose some authors 

have recommended that it should be slightly baked before use, 

whilst others have considered that in order to ' 

snatch a grace 

beyond 

the reach of art ' 

the head of the parbaked grub should 

be dipped in some red stain, or bullock's blood, if I remember 

the actual prescription rightly. 

Wasp grubs are plentiful during the summer and early 

autumn months, and the only difficulty is how to become 

possessed of them without inviting attentions of a personal 

character from the bereaved progenitors. Having suffered many 

things, many times, myself in the process I will give a recipe 

for obtaining them, which is both simple and perfect. Having 

marked, during the day, the position of the wasp's nest a levei 

ground being preferable from choice make up a sort of large 

squib of powdered sulphur and gunpowder in equal parts, 

thoroughly mixed up in a pestle with sufficient water to it give the 

consistency of thick paste. Roll the mixture up to the thick-

BAITS. ^37 

ness of a pencil and about six inches long in two or three folds 

of paper, which had better be tied or twisted at the end to 

prevent the contents escaping. At any time after nine or ten 

o'clock at night the whole of the adult wasps will be in their hole, 

and being provided with a fresh-cut sod in cne hand the operator 

approaches the hole, and having carefully reconnoitred the 

orifice, lights his squib, and, as soon as it begins to fizz, pushes 

it down into the hole as far as he can and immediately covers it 

over with the sod which he had better stand or, at least, trample 

upon. In five minutes every wasp in the nest will be dead or so 

stupefied as to be practically so, and the nest, which is usually 

from -| foot to i^ feet below the surface, and more or less in the 

shape of a plum pudding, can then be dug out entire with perfect 

safety, and the parts of the comb selected which contain 

the greatest number of grubs. So certain and expeditious is 

this process that I have taken three or four after dinner, dug 

them all up, taken what I wanted and filled in the holes in little 

over half an hour. 

If wasps unduly swarm in the neighbourhood, which I have 

often known to be the case, they can, by following out the 

above directions, be easily reduced in numbers, if not almost 

entirely exterminated. 

Grasshoppers, both sunk and floating, form an excellent bait 

for chub. I used to employ them successfully under some 

of the steep clay marl banks about Medmenham. In this case 

I managed somehow to make the bait sink, but at this moment 

I cannot exactly recollect the modus operandi adopted ; my 

impression is that it was with a large shot nipped on to the tip of 

the hook shank, two or more grasshoppers, according to size, 

being stuck on below 

Caddis Bait. The caddis-worm the larva of species of 

the Phryganidce, well known to the fly-fisheris found in great 

abundance in some streams, and in others it is comparatively rare; 

In the streams where it is abundant, it probably forms a staple 

article of fish diet, and tends materially to keeping up a fine 

breed of trout. There are a great many variet-es of caddis-

238 


worm, from those inhabiting a plain straw-like case of from 

\ inch to $ inch in length to those whose domiciles are patched 

together with small pieces of stone, sticks, and other debris. In 

order to be used as a bait, it is necessary that the caddis-worm 

should be induced to quit his habitation, and this is a matter 

of some delicacy and difficulty 

one reason, perhaps, why the 

caddis-bait is not more commonly in use. 

Meal Worms are often a capital bait for roach, dace, and 

many other fish. They are to be found amongst 

the refuse 

sweepings of the flour mills and are best preserved by being 

kept in a tin box with some of the meal in which they are 

bred. Mr. R. B. Marston recommends them to be used as a 

winter chub bait in combination with two wasp grubs, the 

meal worm being between the wasp grubs with the hook simply 

passed through the centre laterally, not longitudinally. Both 

wasp grubs and meal worms are usually kept in stock for sale 

by Mr. C. Bradley, of 62 Jacob Street, Bradford, which are 

stated 

' 

to be thoroughly well cured,' although how the process 

of curing is performed I know not 

Stewed Wheat is often to be commended as a bait under 

circumstances where paste and gentles might naturally be used. 

Mr. E. Tildesley, Secretary, Bordesley VValtonians, gives the 

Put the 

following as the best recipe for its preparation : 

' 

wheat in a stew jar and just cover it with cold water ; then 

place it on the oven side of the grate till it gets hot, when you 

will find the wheat begin to swell and absorb all the water ; 

you will then keep adding water from time to time to keep the 

wheat covered for the space of six or seven hours, but on no 

account allow the water to more than simmer. By the end of 

that time the wheat will be swollen to its full size ; the skin 

will be soft and all the flour retained. 

' 

In baiting the hook it merely press in from the broken side 

right to the husk, and the chances are in favour of your hooking 

every roach, bream, chub, or dace that bites.'

BAITS. 239 

GROUND-BAITING. 

The object of ground-baiting is, of course, to collect the fish, 

either spread over a large area or roving about in shoals, to the 

spot at which it is intended to fish for them ; and, having col- 

lected them, to keep them there as long as possible. 

For this it is purpose not uncommon to bait, as it is termed, 

a pond or a river ' 

swim ' 

the day previous^ and even sometimes 

The only danger is 

several days previous, to the actual fishing. 

that the fish should be surfeited with food or rather the special 

sort of food which it is proposed to tempt them with before the 

intended feeding time arrives. In order partly to counteract 

this possibility, and partly also to induce them to prefer the bait 

on the hook to the ground bait, it is very usual to employ a 

coarser quality either of the same or a different bait for the 

purpose. For instance, if gentles are used in ground-baiting 

it is generally the carrion gentles already mentioned that are 

used liver gentles, which are larger and probably more gusta- 

tory, being reserved for the hook. In paste-fishing again, especially 

in ponds, it is also a very good plan to throw in from time 

to time a few small pellets of paste round the float. The 

ground-bait actually used generally consists of bran and soaked 

bread mixed up together. In river-fishing, of course, this 

ground-bait would not answer as the stream would carry it away 

at once and with it probably even those fish which might other- 

wise have come to the fisherman's hook. When this groundbait, 

therefore, is used in rivers it is very commonly mixed with 

a little clay, or else some flour meal or other more adhesive 

ingredient is added to give it consistency, and the ground-bait 

having been worked up into a ball a stone is pushed into the 

middle of it to carry it quickly to the bottom. 

Lob-worms also make a good, perhaps the best, ground-brut 

for bream and barbel. The best way to use them is to enclose 

a handful or two in a large clay ball, taking care that a good 

many heads and tails stick out pour encourager 

' 

In baiting a Thames swim ' 

les antres. 

for barbel as much as two or three

240 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISJL 

quarts, or more, of solid worms are employed often for several 

days consecutively for this purpose. The stream gradually 

washes away the clay balls and releases their content?. 

Some good fishermen recommend that the worms for this 

I cannot 

purpose should be broken into two or three pieces ; 

say that I think the expedient one of any real advantage, whilst 

the preparatory process is disagreeable to say the least of it. 

In ponds, where small whole worms form one of the best ground 

baits for bream, perch, carp and tench, they do not, of course, 

require to be mixed with clay or any other substance. 

Greaves, 

or ' 

scratchings,' are often employed in very much 

the same way as lob-worms, being mixed up 

with a certain 

proportion of clay to carry them to, and keep them at the 

bottom. 

When carrion gentles are used and have to be kept any time 

beforehand, they should be mixed with moist sand, as in the 

mass, 'undiluted,' they are apt to 'scald,' as the expression is, 

that is they become hot so that a large proportion die. In 

combination either with bran and bread or with greaves, or all 

three, they form one of the best ground baits all the year 

round for dace, roach, and bleak, and are also very fairly good 

bait for bream or barbel. In ponds or still waters I know no 

better ground bait without any 

admixture whatever. It is 

not always, however, that carrion gentles can be procured, 

and under these circumstances bran and bread mixed (soaked, 

of course), squeezed into balls with the hand, and flung in 

round the float or where it is intended to fish, form the best 

substitute. 

The tendency of fish to become satiated indicates a fact 

well worth remembering, namely, 

' 

that in river swims ' 

it is 

generally better tp fish rather below than actually over or above 

the ground-bait, because by so doing, there is a greater chance 

of the unsatiated fish, which are working up stream to the 

ground-bait, coming into contact with the bait on the hook. 

Brwers Grains, or malt, that is the grain from which the 

beer has been made, is often recommended for purposes of

BAITS. 241 

ground-baiting ; but it is not a bait with which I can say I 

have ever had much success. 

Boiled Rice is probably the best ground-bait for minnows, 

bran for bleak, and gentles for roach and dace. By only bearing 

this in mind much trouble will be saved in procuring supplies 

of live bait with the casting-net. A stillish curve or eddy of 

the river about two feet deep will be found the best description 

of water for the application of this principle of baiting and for 

using the casting-net effectually. 

' 

As a 'ground-bait for perch, my friend, Mr. Jesse, informed 

me some years ago that a tolerably clear glass vessel filled with 

minnows, and with a wire covering over it, sunk to the bottom 

of a pond or river, proves a most enticing, and, of course, long- 

lasting ground-bait for fish. I can imagine that the exaspera- 

tion of fruitlessly rubbing their noses against the bottle will 

make them go considerably for the real minnow when offered 

to them. 

Worse than Tantalus was their annoy 

To clip Elysium and to lack their joy. 

Somebody else has lately written that a bottle of bright 

coloured flowers has a singularly seductive effect upon the fishappetite, 

or curiosity, whichever it may be. Enthusiasts with 

more leisure than I have may perhaps be inclined to try the ex- 

periment. The bottle must, of course, be anchored in some way, 

and for the purpose might, perhaps, as well be filled with water, 

which would keep the flowers alive for a time at any rate. 

To sum up : as a general rule to which, of course, the above 

are exceptions the rationale of ground-baiting is that the bait 

used on the ground should be of the same description as, but 

of inferior quality to that used on the hook. 

Another hint. After ground-baiting for the next day, or a 

subsequent campaign, plumb the exact depth and have the tackle 

all ready arranged so that it may not be necessary to disturb 

the water when the fishing actually commences. No fish are 

likely to swallow the plummet and many may probably be scared 

by it. 

II. R

243 


THE PERCH. (Perca fluviatilis.) 

Not a nibble has ruffled my cork, 

It is vain in this river to search, then ; 

I may wait till it's night 

Without any bite, 

And at roost time have never a. perch then ! HOOD. 

THE common perch is, to quote an old writer, both 'good fyshe- 

ing and good eating,' and has an especial claim on the notice of 

the tyro as owing to his combined pluck and greediness he very 

frequently falls the first victim to their bow and spear. In fact, 

in many cases he requires hardly any art whatever to catch him, 

and, being a pond as well as a river fish, and spread pretty 

generally over the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, offers 

special facilities for being found. This distribution, however, 

although, as observed, very general, is by no means equal. In 

Wales, for example, the perch is almost rare and confined principally 

to stagnant waters. In Ireland it is more widely diffused 

but still somewhat unequally, and in Scotland, whilst very common 

south of the Firth of Forth, it becomes comparatively scarce 

to the north of it, and ceases entirely amongst the Sutherland 

and Ross-shire waters, or where observed is supposed to owe its 

introduction to very recent times. 

Of the British perch, so far as my experience extends, the 

Thames produces the best in the matter of quality ; Windermere 

and Slapton Ley, the greatest show as to quantity ; and the 

Kennet, from Hungerford to Reading, the finest specimens for 

general size and weight. In this latter river, near Kettering, 

Mr. Francis Hughes and myself took on one occasion several 

dozen perch, averaging more than a full pound weight each, and 

the largest fish considerably exceeded two pounds. A few large

PERCH-FISHING, 243 

ones are to be found in the Hampshire Avon, where I once 

caught one weighing nearly 2f Ibs. The numbers of perch 

existing in Windermere and Slapton Ley, Devonshire, are almost 

incredible ; but their size is insignificant, rarely passing a few 

inches, and more commonly being still less. 

Even in the Thames, after the first flood has swept them into 

the eddies and mill tails, I have caught them literally as fast as 

I could drop in a paternoster. I remember once when fishing 

behind Temple Mills above Marlow, with Mr. Henry R. Francis 

and the late Tom Rosewell, we caught upwards of twelve dozen 

in this way, besides some jack, in a few hours on a late autumn 

or winter afternoon, and my remembrance is that we only 

stopped catching them for want of bait. 

The perch of the Thames, which is also noticeable for its 

fine colouring, probably owes its superior gastronomic attrac- 

tions to the great purity of the stream above the locks, as well as 

to the wide range in the choice of food, spawning-ground, &c., 

which it affords ; but in whatever waters the fish breeds, it is 

seldom other than palatable as well as wholesome, and it is on 

this account a frequent item in the invalid's dietary. Izaak 

Walton, indeed, mentions a German proverb which would give 

' More wholesome than a 

it a very high place as a comestible, 

pearch o' Rhine,' and quotes a learned authority to the effect 

that it possesses a small stone in the head thought to be very 

' 

medicineable,' and which was at one time an ingredient in our 

Pharmacopoeia. 

The perch lives long out of water (resembling in that respect 

the carp and tench species), and if carried with care, and occa- 

sionally moistened, will in cold weather exist for several hours 

in this condition, not unfrequently undergoing a journey of 

thirty or forty miles without serious injury. Yarrell says that 

perch are constantly exhibited in the markets of Catholic coun- 

and on 

tries, where they are a popular article of ' 

fast ' 

diet ; 

these occasions, when not sold, they are taken back to the 

ponds from which they came, to be reproduced at another 

opportunity. 

R 2

244 


The best mode of ' 

transferring ' 

perch, as well as carp and 

tench, which possess the same amphibious qualities in common, 

is to place them loosely among wet sedgy grass, in a coarse 

wicker basket, through the interstices of which the air can cir- 

culate freely. By this means specimens may be conveyed by 

fast train from London to Inverness, or for any similar journey, 

without injury, as Mr. Stoddart states, to their vital functions. 

The only precautions necessary to be observed are that they 

must not be too closely packed, that is, not too many between 

the same layers of wet grass, and that fresh water should be 

sprinkled over them every now and then to keep the consignment 

cool. As minnows are one of the most common and killing, 

perhaps the most killing, perch bait, it may be well to refer 

here to the instructions for carrying live baits given at pages 

42-7, all of which are fully applicable to minnows. A dozen 

or two may, however, be carried in a common soda water bottle 

for several hours by frequently changing the water ; the bottle 

should not be more than three parts full. When the minnows 

begin to exhibit symptoms of distress, which is known by their 

rising to the surface of the water, it is a sign that a fresh supply 

is needful. In an emergency they may, however, be partially 

restored, without changing the water, by simply extracting the 

cork and shaking the contents of the bottle so that the water 

may be re-acratcd. Another plan mentioned by Mr. Stoddart, 

who was an adept in minnow fishing for trout, was to carry them 

loosely wrapped up in well-wetted grass or moss in the corner of 

the fishing basket, by which expedient, the vitality more or 

less, and the consequent freshness of the minnows may be pre- 

and the same treatment will 

served throughout an entire day ; 

be found successful when applied to loach and sticklebacks. 

I am not prepared to say that they will be as lively at the 

end of the day as when first put into the moss, but if care is 

taken to carry out the instructions given and sprinkle the moss 

or grass frequently, they will, at any rate, preserve a certain 

amount of vitality and freshness, which will fit them admirably 

for spinning.

PERCH-FISHING. 24$ 

But to return : such is the extraordinary hardiness and lon- 

gevity of the perch, according to authorities, that there is one 

of the perch genus, Perca scandens or Climbing Perch, a native 

of several parts of the East, which not only travels over land, 

but actually ascends trees in pursuit of the crustaceans upon 

which it feeds, having been taken at an altitude of many feet 

from the ground. 

The structure of this fish peculiarly fits it for the exercise 

of this remarkable instinct. Its gill covers are armed with a 

number of spines, by which, used as hands, it appears to sus- 

pend itself. Making its tail a lever, and standing, as it were, 

on the little spines of its anal fin, it endeavours to push itself 

upward through the interstices of the bark by the expansion of 

its body, closing at the same time its gill covers that they may 

not impede its progress ; then, reaching a higher point, it opens 

them aiain. Thus, and by bending the spiny rays of its dorsal 

fins to right and left and fixing them in the bark, 

its journey upwards. These 'travelling fish ' 

it continues 

are all more or less 

expressly equipped by nature for the purpose. 

Whilst alluding to the late Mr. Stoddart, not only as a mighty 

to find that 

fisher of trout, but also of salmon, it is pleasant 

notwithstanding his almost unrivalled opportunities of satiating 

his tastes in this direction, he yet kept a warm corner of his 

heart for the humbler pursuits of float fishing and especially 

perch fishing by pond and lake. 

There is a diversion, after its kind, he says, in watching for the 

dip of one's float, near the edge of a lake or pool, in which you 

have reason to know that perch are tolerably plentiful, and of a 

size, in the long run, worth capturing ; diversion, sufficient at 

least ; which will content and ever excite thousands among the 

Waltonian order of anglers ; nay, to work upon the fancy, now and 

then, of the experienced slaughterer of trout and salmon. I admit, 

for my own part, under these circumstances, that I take special 

pleasure in a few hours' perch fishing. The variety itself is most 

on that 

acceptable ; and many a time would I gladly exchange, 

score alone, a promising forenoon's sport on Tweed or Teviot for 

a quiet fling in Yetholm or Fasten Loch, two well-known preserves

346 


situated at the foot of the Cheviots, the nearer of them being 

within an hour's drive of Kelso. 

Indeed, notwithstanding the clamour against bait-fishing raised 

in certain quarters, I feel inclined to hold the opinion that diversity 

in one's sport gives a sustaining relish to every individual branch 

of it ; and that an occasional indulgence, by way, as it were, of 

interlude, in the tamer and ruder, adds to the enjoyment of the more 

exciting and refined department. I have frequently also, amongst 

rod fishers of my acquaintance, adepts in trout and salmon slaying, 

noticed, that however much at starting they may affect, in the way 

of comparison, to despise the amusement of perch-fishing, they 

will quickly enter into the spirit of it, as a diversion, when the 

game is fairly set a-going, and evince by their keenness that, in 

the sudden dive of the float and the leisurely sailing out of the line, 

under conduct, now and then, of a two-pound fish, they experience 

a hiyh measure of satisfaction. 

Personally also I may say that I have satiated my soul with 

salmon slaughter (having once taken fifteen spring fish with the 

fly between breakfast and dinner), yet the prospect of a good day's 

float-fishing of any kind is always charming to me. There is 

a fascination of its own in 

no doubt, as Mr. Stoddart truly says, 

float-fishing, and of this the great majority of anglers numbering 

hundreds of thousands, scattered over the country, each and 

all ' 

brethren of the quill,' afford convincing proof. Many of 

these men have perhaps never had an opportunity of seeing a 

salmon or trout caught in their lives, but the ' 

enthusiastic 

patience,' to misapply the Queen's English, with which they stand 

for hour after hour watching the top of their tiny quill for the 

chance of a bite is simply splendid, and I am afraid I must in 

honesty add, to ' ; 

myself, incomprehensible. Ad e'er a bite, 

Jim?' 'No, I only cum here yesterday morning,' is a somewhat 

exaggerated, but not inapt expression of this long suffering 

and inexhaustible patience. 

The clergy are great float-fishers as well as fly- fishers ; 

fish- 

ing being one of the few sports which are now considered seemly 

in a parson, and some of the best performers in this way that 

I have ever come across have been 'sky-pilots,' as a nautical 

friend of mine calls them.

PERCH-FISHING. 247 

A story is told in a newspaper lately that a clergyman on 

his way to church on Sunday came upon two of his parishioners, 

lads, by the side of a pond, fishing. The good man, though 

himself a devotee of the gentle art, felt it due to his cloth 

to rebuke the 'Sabbath breakers.' 'Boys,' said he, sternly, 

' 

do you know what day this is ? Have you not been taught 

that it is a sin to 

' 

At this point down went one of the 

floats with a jerk. 

' 

Pull him up, pull him up,' shouted the 

parson, ' 

you young fool ! Don't you see that you have got a 

bite?' 

The excitement of the ' 

' 

quivering quill communicates itself 

apparently by a sort of magnetic attraction to the fisherman's 

four-footed companion. Dogs have been known to become so 

carried away by their feelings in watching the capture of a big 

fish that they have at last plunged headlong into the river 

with a sort of idea, it may be presumed, of being ' 

in at the 

death.' 

A water spaniel belonging to the miller at Braemore, on the 

Avon, whose feats have also been chronicled by Mr. Buckland, 

was a wonderful performer and has been known to bring out a 

2-lb. roach in his teeth. This unexpected interruption must 

have been very interesting, though, if frequently repeated, slightly 

unconducive to sport. 

Some of the perch, however, which I have taken below 

Braemore Mill would prove a very awkward subject for the 

miller's water spaniel if he happened to get the spines in his 

mouth the wrong way upwards. The Avon perch are not 

numerous, but what there are are splendid, both as to colour 

and size, and some I have taken still lower down the Avon in 

Lord Normanton's water have averaged 4 Ibs. a brace right 

through. 

The size to which perch will attain is somewhat doubtful. 

The largest specimen that I ever remember to have met with 

was preserved in a small inn in Perthshire. It was very im- 

perfectly stuffed, and had no doubt shrunk considerably in the 

Ibs. when 

operation ; but the label stated that it weighed 7

248 


caught, and from its appearance it certainly could not have 

weighed less than five or six. 

Perch of 2 and 3 Ibs. are by no means uncommon, and 

specimens of even 4 Ibs. are probably less rare than may be 

supposed. Such fish have been taken in Pen Ponds, Richmond 

Park ; and Pennant records the capture of a perch in the 

Serpentine which weighed 8 Ibs., and Stoddart, 

in his ' 

Angler's 

Rambles,' one of 4 Ibs. by Dr. Scott, in the Castle Loch, in 

1858. Donovan speaks of a perch of 5 Ibs., caught in Bala 

Lake. 'Ephemera' (the late Edward Fitzgibbon) mentions 

having seen a specimen which weighed 4 or 5 Ibs. One 

of 6 Ibs. was taken by Mr. Hunt, of Bi/ades, Staffordshire, 

from the Birmingham Canal ; and two fish of 8 Ibs. each are 

stated to have been caught, the one in the Wiltshire Avon, and 

the other in Dagenham Reach, Essex. All the above, however, 

are capped by dear old Izaak, who says that he knew of one 

being taken by a friend, which measured two feet in length ; 

and in the ' 

Sure Angler's Guide ' 

he saw also the figure of a 

perch drawn in pencil on the door of a house near Oxford, 

which was twenty-nine inches long, and he was informed that it 

was the outline of a living fish. 

It is not probable, however, that we know accurately 

what is the maximum weight attainable by the perch under 

favourable circumstances, even in British waters ; and they 

probably reach a much greater weight in Scandinavia and 

other northern countries. The Danube breeds enormous 

perch ; and Schaffer assures us that in the church of Lulea, 

a foot 

Lapland, the head of one is preserved which is nearly 

long, giving the entire length of the fish at something about 

The annexed table of the comparative weights and measures 

of perch, which, with several other similar scales, was kindly 

furnished me by Mr. Charles Wright, of the Strand, may 

possibly be useful to the angler when unprovided with the means 

of weighing his fish. It will, Mr. Wright assures me, be found 

generally accurate when the fish are in season.

Length. 

PERCH-FISHING. 249

250 


Since I can remember anything I always remember reading 

in angling books that the perch was a ' 

bold biter.' This bold 

biting combined with his voracious appetite, constitutes, no 

doubt, from an angler's point of view, his principal charm. 

From the point of view of the minnow and other small fry whose 

misfortune it is to inhabit the same locale it presents itself no 

doubt in a different point of view. 

To find half a dozen good sized minnows in the stomach of 

the perch is nothing out of the common, and failing these he 

takes kindly to insects, frogs, caterpillars, worms, and grubs of all 

sorts. The extent to which the perch will gorge himself with his 

favourite food may be illustrated by a fact which has come under 

the observation of many fishermen. When he has pouched so 

many minnows that his stomach positively refuses to contain 

any more he will endeavour to bite and, if possible, masticate 

others and under these circumstances I have repeatedly hooked 

and captured a perch by a minnow with the tails of the previous 

victims, which he had already swallowed and was unable to 

pouch, protruding from his gullet. When thus gorged he often 

ejects a portion of his prey on being landed. 

A very singular, though I believe, not unparalleled instance of 

the voracity of the perch occurred to me when fishing in Win- 

dermere. In removing the hook from the jaws of the fish, one 

eye was accidentally displaced and remained adhering to it. 

Knowing the rcparative capabilities of piscine organisation, I 

returned the maimed perch, which was too small for my basket, 

to the lake and, being somewhat scant of minnows, threw the 

line in again with the eye attached as bait, 

there being no other 

of any description on the hook. The float disappeared almost 

instantly ; and on landing the new comer, it turned out to be 

the fish I had the moment before thrown in, and which had 

thus been actually caught by his own eye. 

This incident proves, I think, conclusively, that the structure 

of cold blooded animals enables them to endure very severe 

injuries and wounds without experiencing material inconvenience 

; a fact which may tend to remove any qualms of

PERCH-FISHING. 2 5 1 

conscience felt by anglers on the score of the sufferings sup- 

posed to be inflicted on their captives. 

This incident appears on the face of it so very much like one 

of the flights of fancy of Baron Munchausen, that were it not 

that it took place in the presence of not less than half-a-dozen 

witnesses I should have hesitated to mention it. Singularly 

enough, one-eyed perch actually exist, are, I mean, bred with 

this deformity in several British waters. Mr. Stoddart, in his 

' 

Angler's Rambles,' mentions that he himself caught a large 

number of perch having only one eye in Dunse Castle loch. 

' On one of the four or five occasions,' says Mr. Stoddart, ' 

on 

which I fished here, I took out three dozen of perch exactly 

one half of which wanted an eye. How to account for such 

a contingency in so large a proportion remains to me a 

puzzle. The Rev. W. Crouder, of Dunse, was along with me 

at the same time and met with a similar experience. On 

a subsequent occasion in the same pond among 

four or five 

scores of perch taken I -could only discover a single one-eyed 

specimen.' 

With most of us, in fiction as well as in fact, one-eyed perch 

figure. We must all remember in Lord Lytton's charming 

romance 'My Novel,' how the half-starved Dr. Riccabocca 

fished daily for his one-eyed perch, although the novelist does 

not, if I remember rightly, crown his perseverance with eventual 

success. 

An account of some totally blind perch and how they become 

so is given by Thomas Hurtley, in his description of the natural 

curiosities in the environs of Malham, near Craven, Yorkshire. 

The perch of Malham water, it appears, after a certain age 

become blind. A hard yellow film covers the whole surface of 

the eye, when the fish gradually acquires a black hue, yet these 

perch frequently attain the weight of 5 Ibs., and are only to be 

taken with a net that sweeps the bottom, where they feed on 

loaches, miller's thumbs, &c. 

Perch seem to be specially favoured in the matter of de- 

formities, and Sir John Richardson has given us an interesting

252 


account of some of them : 'A deformed variety of perch,' he 

says, 'with the back greatly elevated, the tail distorted, and 

bearing the local name of finda/iorse, was noticed by Linnaeus at 

Fahlun, in Sweden ; and similar monstrosities occur at Elgsjon 

in Ostrogothia, and in other lakes in the north of Europe. De- 

formed perch are also found in Glyn Raithlyn, in Merioneth- 

shire. Such a fish is figured in the volume of Daniel's ' 

Rural 

Sports,' devoted to fishing and shooting, p. 247. Perch almost 

entirely white inhabit the waters of particular soils ; and I am 

indebted to the kindness of G. S. Foljambe, Esq., of Osberton, 

for specimens of a variety of perch from Ravenfield Park ponds, 

near Rotherham, in Yorkshire, the seat of Thomas Walker, Esq., 

which, when received in London, were of a uniform slate grey 

colour with a silvery tint ; and this peculiarity of colour is re- 

tained when the living fish are transferred from the park ponds 

to other waters. 

It would be easy to multiply such instances, indeed I my- 

self took on one occasion several specimens of deformed perch 

in some ponds near New Brighton, Cheshire ; and elsewhere 

they do not appear to be very uncommon. 

To other fish of his own size the perch is a formidable foe, 

although, unlike the pike, whose gape stretches almost as that of 

a boa constrictor, his mouth is incapable of taking in anything 

much above bait size or of being used as a weapon of offence. 

In this particular, however, he has a unique advantage in regard 

to the spines with which his back fin is armed, as well as in the 

sharp long points of his gill covers. 

How far the spines of the perch protect him from the 

assaults of the pike is not quite certain. In many fishings 

both in England and Scotland, small perch are considered the 

favourite baits of the pike, which does not seem to be at all 

deterred by their spiky appearance. Moreover, as the pike 

always swallows his prey head foremost, whilst the spines of the 

perch are capable only of projecting backwards shutting down 

like the props of an umbrella, upon pressure 

from in front it 

would not appear that they could impede the operation of


swallowing, but that, on the contrary, they would naturally 

rather assist it than otherwise in the same way that the ' 

beard ' 

of an ear of barley assists it in forcing a way up one's coat- 

sleeve. 

The effect of these back-action chevaux-de-frise is curiously 

illustrated by a circumstance of not unfrequent occurrence in 

Sweden, and elsewhere, where pike and perch inhabit the same 

lakes. The perch swallow the trimmer baits, and then pike in 

their turn gorge the hooked perch. In this case, although the 

pike is seldom or never actually hooked, yet, on the fisherman's 

drawing in his line, the perch sets so fast in his throat that he 

is unable to get rid of it, and both are taken. 

That the spines of the perch are very formidable weapons, 

of which they readily make use, is proved by an instance 

recently in a stock-pond near Weybridge, where one of these 

fish, of about half-a-pound, attacked a pike of the same weight, 

the result being that after a prolonged contest, carried on by 

both combatants with great fury, the pike was apparently either 

killed or stunned, and lay motionless on the bottom, belly 

uppermost. The Rev. Henry Francis, my informant, an en- 

thusiastic naturalist as well as a most careful observer, was of 

opinion that perch themselves certainly do not object 

to these 

spines, so far as swallowing is concerned, and in a vivarium he 

has often observed them take with avidity smaller members 

both of their own and the ruffe species. 

Here is rather a tall American story on this subject, which 

I lately read in the New York Spirit of the Times : 

Who will believe the statement ? and yet we know it to be true. 

A two pound perch caught a bull-head in his mouth, in the 

Connecticut River, near Hartford, and the bull-head used his 

prongs to so good advantage that the black-fish could neither eat 

him, nor get away from him \ and after a day or two the black-fish 

was found by the master of a sloop in that neighbourhood, entirely 

dead, with the bull-head or cat-fish sticking across his mouth the 

bull-head being not only alive, but full of energy, and ready for 

another adventure.

S54 


The common stickleback, also a spine-armed fish, is in its 

turn constantly swallowed both by pike and perch ; used for 

bait for perch where minnows cannot be got, it is best, how- 

ever, to cut the spines off, and specimens of the brightest colour 

or red-throated are the most attractive. Although greedily 

taken by the larger perch and small pike, it is probable, 

notwithstanding, that the results of stickleback-swallowing, 

especially in cases of small pickerel and young perch, not 

unfrequently prove 

fatal to the latter. The sort of relation- 

ship existing between the two families is thus amusingly 

described by Dr. Badham, a propos of the pike : 

By old pikes, he says, sticklebacks are held in yet greater 

abomination than perch, and not without good reason, seeing the 

havoc they commit amongst young and unwary pickerels. It is 

only by personal suffering, that fish any more than men, ever buy 

wisdom; growing pikes no sooner begin to feel the cravings of 

hunger, and to find that they have large mouths, well furnished 

with teeth on purpose to cater for it, than they proceed to make a 

preliminary essay upon the smallest fish within reach ; 

these are 

commonly the gasterostei, or sticklebacks, who, observing the 

gaping foe advance against them, prepare for the encounter by 

bristling up their spines in instinctive readiness to stick in his 

throat, instead, as he supposes, of going smoothly down into his 

stomach. This induces a dreadful choking disease, which we 

venture to call ' 

sticklebackitis,' by means whereof many a pro- 

is cut off /' cunabulis, 

mising young jack 

'Piscator' alludes to this circumstance, and adds that as 

long as they are alive they keep their prickles standing 'erect,' 

'for,' says he, 'if little, they are desperate and game to the last.' 

If the pike is the tyrant of the water, the stickleback is 

certainly its knight-errant. Now, with sheathed weapons and 

glittering in green and purple, he tenderly woos the object of 

his devotion, or armed cap-a-pie, patrols 

a watchful sentinel 

before her nuptial bower. Now, he fiercely disputes with rival 

claimants the possession of a favourite nook, or bristling with 

spines, charges through the liquid plains in search of other

PERCH-FISHING. 25$ 

sticklebacks as pugnacious as, and more penetrable than 

himself. 

Even in confinement the movements of sticklebacks are 

described by those who have watched them as being most 

warlike. When a few are first turned in, they swim about in a 

shoal, apparently exploring their new habitation. Suddenly 

one will take possession of a particular corner of the tub, or, 

as it will sometimes happen, of the bottom, and will instantly 

commence an attack on his companions ; and if either of them 

ventures to oppose his sway, a regular and furious battle ensues. 

The two combatants swim round and round each other with 

the greatest rapidity, biting and endeavouring to pierce each 

other with their spines, which on these occasions are pro- 

jected. 

Contests of this sort frequently last several minutes before 

either will give way ; and when one does submit, description 

can hardly exaggerate the vindictive fury of the conqueror, 

who, in the most persevering and unrelenting way, chases his 

rival from one part of the tub to another, until fairly exhausted 

with fatigue. The stickleback also uses his spines with such 

fatal effect, that one has been known during a battle absolutely 

to rip his opponent right open, so that he sank to the bottom 

and died. 

Three or four parts of the tub are occasionally taken 

possession of by as many little tyrants, who guard their territories 

with strict vigilance ; and the slightest invasion invariably 

brings on a battle. During these internecine combats, the 

colours of both belligerents frequently undergo a marked and 

extraordinary change, those of the victor becoming a deep 

crimson on the belly and green on the back, and the vanquished 

losing both his brilliancy and spirit together. These, 

the females 

it should 

be observed, are the habits of the male fish alone ; 

are quite pacific appear fat, as if full of roe and never 

assume the brilliant colours of the male, by whom they are 

unmolested. 

In a former essay on the ' 

Outlines of Ichthyology,' I alluded

256 


to the remarkable clearness of fish sight. How exceedingly 

acute is this sense in the perch, an illustration, for the opportunity 

of witnessing which I am indebted to Mr. Bartlett, the 

eminent superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, Regent's 

Park, may be mentioned : 

In the large aquarium, which will be familiar to many of my 

readers, were placed two plate glass tanks, one containing a 

pike, and the other half-a-dozen perch. These fish took no 

notice of our entrance ; and in order to show how supine they 

were to everything around, Mr. Bartlett directed the keeper to 

walk several times past their tanks, as if about to feed them. 

He did so, but failed to evoke the smallest symptom of interest 

or recognition. Mr. Bartlett then ordered him to walk away 

from them towards the cupboard where the net with which the 

baits were caught was kept, desiring me to observe the effect. 

The keeper accordingly crossed the room (about thirty feet 

wide) in the direction indicated, when instantly the stolid demeanour 

of the fish both pike and perch gave way to the 

most intense excitement. They rushed to and fro across their 

enclosures, straining their noses against the glass, erecting their 

fins, and exhibiting every token of agitation ; and when the 

keeper, having taken the net, proceeded 

with it towards the 

bait-tank, the whole shoal fastened their eyes upon him, follow- 

ing every movement, and constantly veering round, as if under 

magnetic attraction, towards whichever part of the room he 

turned. I should mention that this occurred in the afternoon, 

the usual time of feeding being in the morning ; but by 

Mr. Bartlett's direction, the feeding had on this occasion been 

postponed until my visit. It is, therefore, evident that these 

fish knew where the net was kept, that the keeper was going to 

fetch it, and that his doing so was a necessary preliminary to 

their being fed. These perch had been five, and the pike ten 

years in the Zoological Gardens, having increased in weight 

during that time a quarter of a pound and a pound and a half, 

respectively. 

As may be gathered from the foregoing incident, perch are


by no means difficult to tame ; Mr. Jesse succeeded, after a 

few days only, in inducing them to feed from his hand. 

Bloch mentions having watched them deposit their ova in a 

vessel kept in his own room ; and I am informed that the 

perch of the Zoological Gardens, already referred to, increase 

their numbers by an annual shoal of young fry, which are 

hatched and reared under the eyes of hundreds of visitors. 

A comical anecdote, turning upon this faculty of ready 

acclimatisation, is related by 

' 

the author of Fishes and Fishing.' 

A country gentleman was anxious to induce a London friend 

to visit him, and knowing the latter to be a very keen angler, 

bethought him of adding the temptation 

of a ' 

day's fishing in 

to the usual attractions of a suburban villa. 

his private water ' 

The bait took. A day was fixed ; and, punctual to his appoint- 

ment, arrived the sportsman, with the usual assortment of rods, 

reels, lines, &c. He was all impatient to be at his work ; but 

his host persuaded him first to partake of luncheon ; after 

which he introduced him to ' 

his water,' which proved to be an 

ornamental basin, in width about equal to the length of one of 

the rods the visitor had brought with him. The chagrin and 

disappointment of the latter may be imagined ; but upon the 

assurance that there really were fish in the pond, he put his 

tackle together and adjusted a bait. It had hardly touched the 

water before he hooked and landed a fine perch ; another and 

another followed, and by the time his friend came to summon 

him to dinner he had thirty-five fish in his basket. 

' 

Well,' said the kind-hearted host; 'I am glad you have 

had such sport ; I caused three dozen to be put in the day 

before yesterday/ 

' 

Indeed,' replied the angler ; 

' 

then I will come back and 

catch the thirty- sixth after dinner.' 

The spawning season of the perch is at the end of April or 

the beginning of May, and in a specimen of half-a-pound 

weight no less than 280,000 ova have been found. The ova 

are deposited in strings, which hang about amongst the weeds 

and rocks, and when seen through the sunlight, present the 

II. 

S

258 


appearance of glittering festoons of pearls. Perch spawn, at 

any rate when deposited in confinement, vivifies in from seven 

to seventeen days. This is the statement of James Tennant, 

keeper at the Zoological Gardens aquarium. 

It was maintained by the ancients that the perch was self- 

productive ; an opinion confirmed by Carolini and Valenciennes. 

In recent times the point has, however, been satisfactorily set at 

rest by the researches of M. Duffosse, extending over no less 

than 368 specimens of Perridiz. He not only proved them to be 

normally unisexual, but observed them depositing their ova, and 

at the same time casting their milt. Notwithstanding, there- 

fore, Mr. Darwin's dictum against the structure of any animal 

being such as to insure self-fertilisation, 

it would seem that in this 

case there is every reasonable ground for supposing it to be so. 

Though attaining their greatest perfection in clear, sharp 

streams, perch thrive well on clayey or sandy bottoms, preferring 

generally a water of a moderate depth and current, and 

frequenting holes, mill-dams, hollow banks, and in summer, the 

undercurrents of weirs. In winter their favourite haunts are 

backwaters and eddies ; and at this time of the year they feed 

best about the middle of the day, more particularly if bright and 

warm. They usually go in large shoals, and in Lough Corrib 

and other places that I am acquainted with, it is customary to 

try and discover the position of the .shoals in the lough before 

attempting to begin fishing. When the perch cease biting it is 

assumed that they have moved on to other grounds, and great 

efforts are made to keep on their track. 

There is a small species of the perch family, and in ap- 

pearance very much resembling it, called the ruffe or pope, 

which is very apt to be taken occasionally by the angler when in 

pursuit of other fish, and especially after raking fur gudgeon. 

The distinctive mark between the perch and the ruffe consists 

in the back fin, whit h in the perch is in two clearly separated 

portions, and in the ruffe is joined into one. The ruffe also, 

though resembling the perch 

in most of its characteristics diffeis 

from it, in that it apparently thrives only in running wateis,


at any rate I have never to my knowledge taken them in waters 

which are absolutely stagnant, though I once caught one under 

rather droll circumstances in a tributary of the Mole near 

Leatherhead, which long-continued drought had changed into 

a succession of small isolated pools. 

When taking a 'constitutional ' 

with some friends, a ruffe 

was perceived at the bottom of one of these pondlets, and 

something led to 

' 

a discussion as to his catchableness.' The 

upshot was a small wager on my side that I would catch him 

there and then, though without rod, line, hook, or bait. The 

first was easily procured from a neighbouring hazel-bush ; the 

second I manufactured out of the beard of my ' 

' 

bettee ; the 

hook we extemporised with a pin borrowed from a passer-by ; 

and the bait, a worm, was not long in being unearthed from 

under a fallen log. In less than five minutes from the time of 

making the bet, the diminutive specimen of acerina was lying 

on the bank a victim to misplaced confidence and an empty 

larder. 

The red worm is the most attractive bait for the ruffe. It 

is of no value to the sportsman, and seldom caught in sufficient 

quantities to be a matter of interest for the table. In length 

it rarely exceeds 4 or 5 inches ; spawning about April, and 

depositing its eggs at the margin of the water amongst flags 

and rushes to which they adhere. 

PERCH FISHING WITH THE PATERNOSTER. 

The most killing bait for perch all the year round is, as I 

have stated, a live minnow, and of the several methods of 

fishing by which it can be used, the best is the paternoster ; the 

other two being minnow-fishing with the float, and spinning. 

The construction of the paternoster has been described at 

page 165. It is available under almost all circumstances when 

there is any chance of perch fishing being successfully pursued. 

It is most strictly however in its 'element' in deep holes, and 

under steep banks, in back-waters, eddies, and similar river 

s 2


also under 

reaches, not too much acted upon by the current ; 

such very rapid streams as mill tails, weir pools, and the like. 

The best time for fishing in the largo, deep eddies or back waters 

is from October to January, as into these, especially after a flood, 

the perch are swept by the current. Such spots abound on the 

Thames and most large rivers, and I have mentioned already 

instances in which, with another rod to assist, I killed with the 

paternoster in such a backwater on the Thames some twelve 

dozen perch in a few hours. 

For summer paternostering, on the contrary, weirs and 

rapids and rushes of water under which the perch congregate to 

scour and brace themselves after spawning will be found the 

best localities. 

I used the word under advisedly, because the chance of em- 

ploying the minnow and paternoster effectually in such positions 

is the dropping it through the rush of surface water and getting 

the minnows into the comparatively quiet undercurrents or back 

tows. It is not uncommon on the Thames, when using the 

paternoster, especially in winter, to add a third hook dressed on 

gimp and baited with gudgeon or small dace for the chance of 

coming across a jack, and this will be found a very good plan to 

adopt in waters where the latter fish are known to be abundant. 

It remains to describe the modus opcrandi of paternostering. 

The rod should be a longish one and moderately pliant, 

(say such a spinning rod as is described at page 10, with the 

longest top) and the tackle arranged according to the instruc- 

tions given as above, and baited with two minnows or small 

gudgeon, the leaded line should be dropped under the point of 

the rod or gently swung out into the spot it is desired to fish, 

and the lead allowed to rest on the bottom. The line between 

the lead and the point of the rod should always be kept ' 

taut,' 

in order that the bite, which is perceived only by the touch, 

may be more readily detected and the probability of hooking 

increased. When a bite is perceived the bait should not be 

pulled up immediately ; on the contrary, it is better to drop the 

point of the rod slightly so as to slacken the line a very little,


and prevent the biter being prematurely pricked. 

After two or 

three preliminary twitches or nibbles a decided downward tug 

or pull will generally be experienced, and this is the moment for 

the fisherman to pull in return, which should not be done 

suddenly or in any degree striking-wise, but by a firm and 

steady upward movement of the rod. Should the bite be struck 

in the ordinary sense of the word, the effect is certain to be the 

loss of both baits as well as diminished probabilities of landing 

the perch. 

The chances of hooking the fish are increased in proportion 

to the shortness of the line that can be employed, in other 

words, the smallness of the space between the point of the rod 

and the lead ; indeed, I always prefer, especially in swift water, 

where possible, to fish with the baits right under the rod point. 

It is not recommended to leave the bait too long in the same 

place. After it has been, say half a minute or so, stationary 

without any signs of a fish, it is better to shift the position 

somewhat, which can often be most conveniently done with 

the least disturbance of the fish or distress of the baits by 

shifting the lead from one place to another without taking it 

out of the water. 

As in all other fishing the finer the tackle used the better, 

and it is recommended that at least two yards of carefully 

selected stained gut should be placed between the reel line and 

the lead. Some paternosterers advocate gimp as the material 

of the trace, and carry their theory out in practice, but surely 

to land 

gut, which is fit for heavy trout fishing, is strong enough 

a less game fish which very rarely exceeds ii or 2 Ibs. in weight. 

The bait hooks should be so attached to the central link as to 

stand out as nearly as possible at right angles, to produce which 

result one of the simplest as well as most effective expedients is 

to attach the gut of the hook by an ordinary double half-hitch 

round the central link of the trace, taking care that the hook end 

of the gut is laid upwards when the knot is tied, and that the 

latter should be kept from slipping out of its position on a 

downward pull by one of the gut knots of the trace. The


lighter the lead that can be used having regard to the depth, 

current, and other circumstances, the better, and pear-shaped 

leads are preferable to bullets as they disturb the water less 

and are not so liable to catch in stones and stumps. 

The paternoster is a very useful adjunct to nil sorts of punt 

fishing, in places where pike and perch are pretty numerous. 

It may not only add to the creel, but, especially in roach or 

gudgeon fishing, its hoc genus, improve the chances of a good 

take of fish by ridding the immediate neighbourhood in an 

effectual manner of any pike or perch that may be roving 

about. 

MINNOW FISHING WITH THR FLOAT, 

or roving, is simply substituting a live minnow hooked through 

the upper lip for the worm or other ordinary bait. A hook one 

size smaller than that recommended for paternostering, say 

No. 7, is the best size, and with a fine gut line, No. 3 float, and 

an ordinary bottom rod that is not too limp, the angler will be 

well equipped for ' 

roving.' If roving is resorted to in rivers it 

must be only in eddies and backwaters where there is practically 

no current, or none to speak of, but it is best adapted for pond 

or lake fishing, as on Windermere for example, and other 

similar stretches of water, though even here I should myself 

give the ] -reference to the paternoster until convinced by actual 

failure that it was unsuitable. In striking with this sort of 

tackle the fisherman should not be in too great a hurry. It 

is better to wait until the float disappears completely or sails 

leisurely and steadily away. 

Spinning. It sometimes happens both in lakes and rivers, 

that capital sport may he had with perch by using the spinning 

bait, whether natural or artificial. As regards the latter any 

of the small artificial hails which are used in spinning for trout 

may be adopted with success, and I have known a small spoon 

bait, in si/e between a sixpence and a shilling, to be exceedingly 

deadly when allowed to sink to the bottom of the water 

and drawn quickly up again towards the surface. This sort of


sink and draw will, in fact, often be found a most killing 

method of spinning for perch under all circumstances. With 

regard to the natural bait, although I have often caught large 

perch with the gudgeon, and sometimes even with small dace, 

when pike-spinning, the best bait will be found to be a goodsized 

minnow ; and of methods of flights for spinning it, one 

FIG. I. MINNOW-SPINNING FLIGHT 

FOR PEKCH. 

or other of those described under the head of trout-fishing, in 

the first volume. If it is intended to make long casts with 

the minnow bait, or to trail it behind a boat, a lead and swivel, 

such as described for pike-spinning, page 83, must be added 

between the minnow and the running line, to prevent kinking. 

In the last two cases the bait should not be spun too rapidly, 

as the perch has not got the same dash and clan in pursuit of

264 


his prey that the pike has, and if the bait is moving fast 

through the water, he is not unlikely to fail in his attempts to 

seize it. 

This tackle, of which for the sake of convenience I repeat 

the diagram, is equally applicable to a very small gudgeon, 

loach, or large stickleback. Perhaps, as I have repeated the 

diagram, it may be convenient to repeat also the directions for 

baiting 

it : 

Fig. I is the flight of hooks, with a leaden sinker run on to the 

trace, but, of course, in baiting the minnow this has in the first 

instance to be slipped off altogether, by detaching the flight from 

the rest of the trace. Having attached a baiting-needle to the loop 

of the strand of gut on which the flight is tied, pass it in at the vent 

of the bait and out at its mouth. The baiting-needle is now taken 

off, and the leaden cap slipped over the gut into the position indicated 

in fig. I, and pushed down the bait's throat until it occupies 

the position shown in fig. 2. The whole bait is then pressed, or 

pushed, downwards on to the triangle sufficiently to curve it, by a 

bending of the back, in the manner represented in the diagram 

(fig. 2). The 'nicks' or slices on the bottom part of the lead are 

made with a penknife for the purpose of keeping the lead in its 

place in the bait's throat and belly, but many spinners prefer it 

smooth, and it slips more easily down the bait's throat when ' 

unnicked.' 

The trace consists of two or three yards of moderately fine 

salmon-gut, with a good sprinkling 

of swivels at convenient 

intervals (N.B. double swivels best) and attached to a very light 

dressed silk plaited running line. 

The following is another good perch minnow-spinning 

tackle in streams, where the mode of employing it is by 'in 

' 

and out,' or, more correctly, sink and raise ' 

casts. In order 

to bait it, all that is necessary is to push the lead (fig. i) down 

through the minnow's mouth into the belly, pass the lip-book 

through both lips of the bait to close its mouth, and then 

insert one hook of the first triangle just below the back fin, 

so as, by aid of the lead inside, to crook the body of the bait 

as shown in fig. 2.


Where larger 

baits are used, a miniature edition of either 

of the spinning nights already recommended for pike-fishing 

will be found the most suitable. As a rule, however, spinning 

or perch across the ordinary current or channel of a river as 

PERCH-SPINNING FLIGHT. 

you would for pike does not succeed. There must be special 

natural features, such as deeps, eddies, back waters, and so 

forth, to give some probable indication of where the perch are 

most likely to congregate. 

WITH THE WORM. 

In rivers, ponds, and in lakes also, the worm is a universal 

and favourite perch bait, and is, of course, always obtainable,


whereas live minnows often are not The tackle described for 

or ' 

float-fishing with the live minnow, with a No. 6 hook, 

' 

5 

where the fish run small, and either No. i or No. 3 float is also 

best suited to worm fishing, and the best worms are brandlings, 

scoured as previously described at page 225. 

There is no need to go into the details as to the ' 

where ' 

of 

perch-fishing with the worm, inasmuch as it is applicable to all 

sorts and conditions of waters, running or stagnant, where the 

fish are to be found. In striking with the worm, as with the 

but to let 

live minnow, it is better not to be in too great a hurry, 

him fairly swallow the bait or run away with it, as when once 

he takes it into his mouth he is not, like the roach and dace, in 

the habit of quitting it again without some considerable provocation. 

It is well, however, not to leave the bite too long before 

striking, as, if allowed, the perch will frequently gorge or swallow 

it entirely, which occasions a loss of time and an unpleasant 

operation in extracting the hook. 

The best general rule is to let the float be carried well 

under or away before striking. The stroke should be a gentle 

one, consisting 

of a sort of cross between a twitch and a 

jerk, and approximating as much to the pull as either. In 

rivers and streams the Nottingham style of fishing with the 

worm for perch will often be found the most killing, and in this 

rase the bait should not actually touch or dribble along the 

bottom. 

I cannot help fancying that the two-hook worm tackle 

recommended for trout-fishing would be found very suitable 

for ordinary pond and river fishing with the worm, whether for 

perch, tench, carp, or other fish. This is the result also of the 

few experiments I have had an opportunity of trying, by con- 

trasting the two methods at the same time and place. I should 

be glad if any of my readers, with more available leisure than 

I now have, would give the two-hook system a trial. Its 

advantages are, of course, that the worm is presented to the 

fish alive, and in a natural, instead of deader half-dead and in an 

unnatural position, and that the fisherman strikes immediately,


thus avoiding the chance, such as it is, of the bait being quitted 

by the fish after closer examination. I think in any fishing 

where it is especially desirable, as in the case of pond fishing 

for carp and tench, that the bait should actually lie on the 

bottom, that a great advantage ought to rest with the two -hook 

tackle, with which the worm would be able not only to present 

a life-like appearance to the fish, but actually to crawl about. 

Perch, being gregarious, where one fish is brought to bank 

others frequently follow, and it is of the utmost moment, from 

the point of view of the basket, to make play while the sun 

shines, that is whilst the shoal remains within reach. In this 

respect, also, the two-hook tackle would possess a marked 

advantage, as it can be baited in half the time, or less, and, as 

observed, requires no interval before striking. 

These shoals can frequently be perceived with the naked 

eye even in deepish lakes, when the water is calm and the eye 

can be brought close to the surface of the water ; indeed, I 

have known oil put upon the water with the object of producing 

an artificial calm. Another plan is to look through a square 

lidless box with the bottom of plain window glass, the latter 

being immersed a few inches in the water. As success or 

failure frequently depends upon being able to 'spot' the 

wandering perch shoals, the above hints, which may at first 

sight appear fanciful, are worth remembering. I have sometimes 

thought of trying a telescope or opera-glass with the 

object end under water. 

In Windermere I have often followed about these shoals 

from place to place catching them all the time as fast as I 

could pull in the line and I have noticed the shoals not un- 

frequently to consist of many 

hundreds. The Windermere 

perch, however, as a rule run very small ; on Lough Corrib, 

on the contrary, where smaller shoals are to be met with, the 

fish often run from i Ib. to \\ Ibs. or even occasionally to 

upwards of 2 Ibs. Here, however, in consequence of the great 

it is sometimes better both to observe 

depth of the water, 

them and catch them at the surface than at the bottom, and

268 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FfSIL 

for this purpose a gaudy red fly dressed on a No. 9 or No. 10 

hook or a spinning minnow is the most effective bait. The fly 

may be either trailed or cast. The former plan offering the 

best chance until the shoal is discovered and the latter after- 

wards. 

The time for fly-fishing for perch is in bright hot weather 

and a dead calm, when all other fishing is at a standstill. In this 

way fly-fishing or spinning for perch may often come in very 

opportunely on an otherwise blank day, the weather suitable 

for perch being, as a rule, totally impracticable for either salmon 

or trout. 

Principal characteristics of the Perch. The whole length of 

the fish, head, body, and tail-fin being considered as one, the 

length of the head alone, to the point of the gill-cover, is about 3i : 

depth of body at the deepest point as nearly as possible equal to 

length of head ; nape of neck, and shoulder, rising very abruptly, 

giving a general appearance of the fish ' 

being rather hog-backed : 

' 

belly-line less convex. Fleshy portion of tail very slender. Tail-fin 

rather small. Two back-fins, the first supported by strong pointed 

the second back-fin having sixteen 

bony rays fourteen in number ; 

over the anal-fin : the com- 

soft rays, and commencing very nearly 

mencement of the first dorsal, pectoral, and ventral fins, very 

nearly in a line, slanting slightly backwards towards the belly ; 

and the pectoral-fin commencing a very little more forward than 

the point of gill-cover. Colour : muzzle dark brownish green ; 

iriclcs, cheeks, and gill-covers, a greenish bronze ; pectoral-fins 

nearly yellow of a lightish tint ; pectoral anal and tail fins, brilliant 

scarlet ; second back-fin greenish, with a slight tint of scarlet or 

orange. Back dark olive green, becoming nearly brown in large 

sides golden yellow marked with dark transverse bars 

specimens ; 

of a greenish colour : belly from muzzle to tail quite 

in lateral line about sixty-bix. 

Lateral line convex. 

white. Scales

269 

AND TENCH? 

Each yellow carp in scales bedropp'd with gold. 

POPE'S Windsor Forest. 

I prithee come dance me a reel, carp, 

I prithee come dance me a reel, 

I thank you, my lord, I've no taste for your board, 

You'd much better play to the eel. 

The Cunning Carp and the Contented Knight. 

IN the ' Whole Art of Fishing,' we are informed that ' 

a carp 

is a stately and very subtle fish called the Fresh-water Fox and 

Queen of Rivers,' and Randal Holme in his remarkable work, 

the ' 

Academie of Armory,' tells us that in Heraldry, 'the carp 

is the emblem of hospitality and denotes food and nourish- 

ment from the bearer to those in need.' By 

this same 

Randal Holme we are told how every sort of fish are named 

after their age and growth, and we learn that a carp is first a 

'seizling,' then a 'sproll or sprale,' before it arrives at the full 

majesty of carphood. When arrived at its it maturity must be 

confessed by all who have given much attention to carp catch- 

ing, that its intellect matures at least in an equal ratio with its 

body, indeed, I used to call my carp fishing expeditions ' 

carp 

bubbles,' to convey my feeling of the entirely illusory nature of 

the quest as appreciated by many and singular failures. 

The well known Horatian motto, 'Carpe diem,' might, it 

has been suggested, without doing great violence to the 

original, 

' 

be rendered Catch your carp to-day,' that is if you 

can, 

' 

for the cunning customer may not be inclined to give 

you a 

3 

chance on the morrow.' Its suspicious vigilance even

270 


in eluding the fatal sweep of the seine net has been described 

by Vaniere, in his ' Predium RustLumj thus translated : 

Of all the fish that swim the watery mead, 

Not one in cunning can the carp exceed. 

Sometimes, when nets enclose the stream, she flics 

To hollow rocks, and there in secret lies ; 

Sometimes the surface of the water skims, 

And springing o'er the net undaunted swims ; 

Now motionless she lies beneath the flood, 

Holds by a weed, or deep into the mud 

Plunges her head, for fear against her will 

The nets should drag her and elude her skill ; 

Nay, not content with this, she oft will dive 

Beneath the net, and not alone contrive 

Means for her own escape ; 

but pity take 

On all her hapless brethren of the lake ; 

For rising, with her back she lifts the snares, 

And frees the captive with officious cares ; 

The little fry in safety swim away, 

And disappoint the nets of their expected prey. 

The fact of the carp dodging the net has been so repeatedly 

borne testimony to, that, although not by any means inclined to 

be d.ôbe-mouclie with regard to fish anecdotes and superstitions, 

I think it may be fairly accepted as substantially true. Indeed, 

the carp ought to be the cleverest as they possess the largest 

brain in proportion of any fresh-water fish, and the bones of 

the head are remarkable for their exquisite polish and symmetry. 

Fiction, if not fact, has, however, failed to credit the carp with 

the uncircumventible sagacity which is the theme of so many 

angling writers. In a curious old book, ' 

Dialogus Greaturain 

MoralizatusJ published in 1480, it is recorded that at a red 

fish festival the carp and the grayling quarrelled on a point 

of precedence. 

carp, ' 

'I bask in the favour of the great and powerful,' said the 

even man condescends to take care of me, and make 

ponds for my special use and protection.' 'Ijiit,' retorted the 

grayling, 'look at my elegant form and glittering scales, I

CARP AND TENCH. 271 

am much handsomer than you are.' The other fishes com- 

mencing to side with the contending parties, a scene of general 

strife seemed imminent, when the wily old trout restored peace 

to the company by saying 

' 

should we all be disturbed 

Why 

by this ridiculous quarrel ? Let the disputants go to Judge 

Dolphin, he is a wise and just fish, and will soon decide the 

question.' Accordingly the carp and the grayling went to the 

dolphin, and having laid the case before him, he said : 

children, you place me in a very awkward position. I am 

bound to do you justice, but how can I, never having seen 

either of you before? While you have been residing in 

fresh-waters, I have all my life been rolling about in the restless 

waves of the ocean. Consequently I cannot give a conscien- 

tious opinion as to which is the best fish, without I first taste 

you.' So the dolphin incontinently snapped up the carp and 

the grayling, and swallowing them down his gullet, said : 

No one ought himself to commend, 

Above all others, lest he offend. 

It is curious, however, that although carp are exceedingly 

difficult to take with the rod and line, being altogether the 

most shy and difficult of capture of any species with which I 

am acquainted, they are, when in stew ponds and in confine- 

ment, one of the easiest of all to tame. They will come regu- 

larly to their meals, according to some authors, at the ringing 

of a bell or at the sound of their keeper's voice. 

In Vol. IX. page 396, of the Censitra Literaria there is an 

amusing ballad, from which the quotation at the head of this 

article is taken, commemorating the crafty character of the 

carp. It was written, according to the late Mr. William Pin- 

kerton, by the Chief Justice Abbott, of Denton, in Kent, the 

seat of the late well-known literary antiquary, Sir Egerton 

Brydges, who is celebrated in it as the Knight of the Lake. 

Sir Egerton, though the House of Lords refused his claim, 

always alleged himself to be, per legem terra, Baron Chandos, 

of Sudley, and a lineal descendant of the hero of romance, 

Sir Launcelot du Lac. The musical Lord of Pembury's board, 

' 

My

272 


mentioned in thej'eu ([esprit, cannot be now identified. As the 

song is completely buried from the notice of the general public, 

in the only place in which it appears in print, no apology can 

be required for introducing it to the reader : 

THE CUNNING CARP AND THE CONTENTED KNIGHT. 

To the tune of ' St. George and the Dragon? 

Within the wood a virgin ash 

Had twenty summers seen ; 

The elves and fairies marked it oft 

As they tripped on the green ! 

But the woodman cut it with his axe, 

He cruelly fell'd it down, 

A rod to make for the Knight of the Lake, 

A knight of no renown. 

Turn and taper round, turner, 

Turn and taper round, 

For my line is of the grey palfrey's tail, 

And it is slender and sound. 

St. George he was for England, 

St. Denis he was for France, 

St. Patrick taught the Irishmen 

To tune the merry harp, 

At the bottom of this slimy pool 

There lurks a crafty carp, 

Were he at the bottom of my line, 

How merrily he would dance. 

In the Pacific Ocean 

There dwelt a mighty whale, 

And o'er the waves from London Town, 

There went a noble sail, 

With hooks and crooks, and ropes and boats, 

'Twas furnished in and out, 

Boat-stecrers and bold harpooncrs, 

With sailors brave and stout ; 

The dart flew true and the monster sle\v, 

The seamen blessed the day, 

All from his fin a bone so thin, 

At the top of my rod doth play. 

St. George, &c.


Moulded and mixed in the magic mass, 

The sun is below the hill, 

O'er the dark water flits the bat, 

Hoarse sounds the murmuring rill, 

Slowly bends the willow's bough, 

To the beetle's sullen tune, 

And grim and red is the angry head 

Of the archer in the moon. 

Softly, softly, spread the spell, 

Softly spread it around, 

But name not the magic mixture 

To mortal that breathes on ground. 

St. George, c. 

The squire has tapped at the bower window, 

The day is one hour old, 

Thine armour assume, the work of the loom, 

To defend thee from the cold. 

The knight arose and donned his clothes, 

For one hour old was the day, 

His armour he took, his rod and his hook, 

And his line of the palfrey grey. 

He has brushed the dew from off the lawn, 

He has taken the depth by the rule ; 

Here is gentle to eat, come partake of the meat, 

Sly tenant of the pool. 

St. George, &c. 

The carp peeped out from his reedy bed, 

And forth he slyly crept, 

But he liked not the look, for he saw the black hook, 

So he turned his tail and slept. 

There is a flower grows in the field, 

Some call it a marigold-a, 

And that which one fish would not take, 

Another surely would-a ! 

And the knight had read in the books of the dead, 

So the knight would not repine, 

For they that cannot get carp, sir, 

Upon tench may very well dine. 


II. T

?74 


He has brushed the dew from the lawn again, 

He hath taken the depth by the rule : 

Here is boiled bean and pea, come breakfast with me, 

Sly tenant of the pool. 

The carp peeped forth from his reedy bed, 

The carp peeped forth in time, 

But he liked not the smell, so he cried fare ye well, 

And he stuck his nose in the slime. 

But the knight had read in the books of the dead, 

And the knight did not repine, 

For they that cannot get carp, sir, 

Upon tench may very well dine. 


Then up spoke the Lord of Penbury's board, 

Well skilled in musical lore, 

And he swore by himself, though cunning the elf, 

He would charm him and draw him ashore. 

The middle of day he chose for the play, 

And he fiddled as in went the line ; 

But the carp kept his head in the reedy bed, 

He chose not to dance nor to dine. 

I prithee come dance me a reel, carp, 

I prithee come dance me a reel, 

1 thank you, my lord, I've no taste for your board, 

You'd much better play to the eeL 

St. George he was for England, 

St. Denis he was for France, 

St. Patrick taught the Irishman 

To tune the merry harp. 

At the bottom of this slimy pool, 

There lurks a crafty carp. 

\Vcre he at the bottom of my line, 

I low merrily he would dance. 

Mr. Bradley, a great observer of fish, relates an instance 

of carp tamcncss : 

'At 

Rotterdam, in a garden belonging to 

M. Eden, I had the pleasure,' he says, 'of seeing some carp 

fed, which were kept in a moat of considerable extent. The 

occasion of my seeing these creatures was chiefly to satisfy me 

that they were capable of hearing. The gentleman having


filled his pocket with spinach seed, conducted me to the side 

of the moat. We remained quiet for some time, the better to 

convince me that the fish would not come till he called them. 

At length he called in his usual way and immediately the fish 

gathered from all parts of the moat in such numbers that there 

was hardly room for them to lie by one another.' 

The same sort of thing may be noticed in the waters of 

some public gardens near Rotterdam. 

In these ponds the carp are also in the habit of following 

visitors about, in expectation of food ; and one immense 

fellow, with a side as broad as a flitch of bacon, and an appetite 

that seemed insatiable, actually pursued us for nearly a hundred 

yards along the side of the bank until our stock of bread being 

exhausted, we were fain to try experiments with some paper 

pellets, when he sailed off in magnificent disgust. The fish 

must have weighed at least 15 Ibs. 

It is not to be supposed, however, from these instances, that 

carp are the only fish which are capable of being tamed, or are 

sensible to the influence of external sounds. At Sir J. Bow- 

yer's, near Uxbridge, Mr. Bradley tells us, there is, or was, a 

pond full of tame pike, which could be called together at plea- 

sure. Mr. Salter was acquainted with a person who for several 

years kept, in a waterbutt, a perch, which came to the surface 

for its food whenever the owner tapped on the side of the butt. 

According to ./Elian, the chad was lured to its destruction by 

the sound of castanets. Professor Renni states that in Ger- 

many this fish is still taken by nets hung with rows of little 

bells arranged so as to chime in harmony ; and, without going 

back to the story of Amphion and the Dolphins, or the old 

Scottish harper, who, according to the ballad, 

' 

harped a fish 

out of the salt water,' we may find hundreds of well-authenti- 

cated anecdotes pointing to the conclusion that fish have a very 

considerable perception of external sounds. It is only fair to 

add that a number of striking experiments have been tried of 

late years upon the trout, which would appear to lead to an 

exactly opposite conclusion. Possibly the explanation may be

276 


that some species of fish hear better than others, or that in 

some the sense of hearing is entirely undeveloped. 

Tench, as well as carp, are a favourite stew pond fish, and 

the late Mr. Grantley Berkeley, who kept a number in a pond 

leading out of the Avon, near Ringwood, commended them 

highly for their edible, as well as for their eating qualities. I was 

so unlucky as not to be able to accept Mr. Berkeley's invitation 

to make a practical essay of one of these fatted tench at his 

hospitable table. But swimming about in the water they looked 

most majestic, much more golden-hued than the pond and river 

tench I have usually seen, and I can well imagine that, as he 

told me, when scientifically cooked they made a really excellent 

addition to the cuisine. How kindly both carp and tench take 

to their food when in confinement was noticed also by the late 

Mr. Edward Jesse, who mentions of some carp and tench that 

were kept by him, that ' 

they were soon reconciled to their situation, 

and ate boiled potatoes in considerable quantities and the 

; 

former seemed to have lost their original shyness, eating in my 

presence without any scruple.' 

My experience agrees with Mr. Jesse's. I kept for more 

than a year in a vivarium three sturdy little fellows that would 

readily take anything I threw them, and almost out of my 

fingers. 

dying' 

One of them afforded a good example of the 'hard 

qualities of the species. He was 'killed' in the 

usual manner, and consigned with others to the cook, in whose 

care, however, after some hours, he began to show signs of 

revival. A kind-hearted damsel compassionately transferred 

him to the vivarium, where he afterwards throve, showing no 

effects of his narrow escape save a scar on the back of the 

head. 

The carp is sti'l more remarkable than the tench for its 

'hard dying' qualities as well as its power of sustaining life for 

a long time out of water. I have more than once taken a 

basket of carp a considerable journey in the broiling heat of a 

July or August day with no more moisture than could be obtained 

from a damp cloth, and yet they have been alive, and


even lively at the end of it. The idiosyncracy is so well-known 

and acted upon that in Holland it is no uncommon practice to 

fatten carp for the table by hanging them in a cellar in a net 

full of moss kept damp, and feeding them, like great babies, on 

bread and milk poked into their mouths with a spoon. 

The capacity of enduring this sort of amphibious existence 

is no doubt due to the construction of the fish's breathing apparatus, 

which is peculiar. The supports of the gill covers are 

bony ; whilst in the perch they are formed partly 

of bone and 

partly of cartilage, and in the bream, barbel, and pike wholly 

of cartilage. The consequence is that instead of becoming 

stuck together when deprived of the moisture of the water, 

these gill covers, which represent the lungs of the fish, can be 

separated by 

the action of the muscles so as to absorb the 

oxygen from the air in other words to breathe. In the carp 

also the gill-openings, which in the salmon and trout are equal 

in extent to the length of the gill-arches, are partially closed by 

a membrane, thus enabling them to retain moisture. 

The secretary of the National Fish Culture Association 

lately tried the experiment of endeavouring to revive with 

brandy some carp which had been left eight hours out of water. 

Of this experiment the Daily Telegraph publishes an amusing 

account. 

The actual facts, as may be found stated in the Fish Culture 

Journal, are these. Two Prussian carp were taken out of a tank 

of the South Kensington Aquarium and put into two separate dry 

cans, and one of the fish, to distinguish it from the other as a carp 

of temperate habits, was decorated with a piece of blue ribbon. 

They were left in their wretchedness until they were to all appearance 

quite dead, the teetotal fish succumbing half an hour after 

the other. To make sure of decease the corpses were left alone 

for four hours, after which they were both restored to their proper 

element, it was then obvious that the thoroughly 

floating things were as 

defunct as need be. The Secretary, being satisfied of 

this, then took out the fish without the ribbon the Licensed 

Victualler we will call it and gave it a dose of brandy with a 

feather, and put it back into the water. The effect was amazing,

?78 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE I-ISIL 

for the carp in a very few minutes pulled itself together, and 

though a trifle groggy in its movements at about. Meanwhile the other 

first, began to swim 

which for distinction's sake we may 

call the Teetotaller continued dead, and, the experiment being 

considered complete, it was taken out of the water and thrown 

away. A dead carp, even though it may have died of excessive 

abstinence, is not worth much, at any rate not as a carp. About 

four hours later, however, it occurred to the Secretary that perhaps 

it was all piide on the part of the Teetotaller that made it go on 

being dead ; that it would not commit itself to anything that 

might seem to countenance the tippling of its companion ; that, 

in fact, it persisted in keeping its eyes shut to the important fans 

transpiring before it out of sheer obstinacy of principle. With this 

in his mind, the Secretary took up the representative of temperance 

and we shudder as we write it poured some brandy down its 

throat. There was no feather used this time. He simply opened 

the Teetotaller's mouth and let the spirits run down. The fish 

was then restored to the water for the second time, and for five 

minutes refused to confess that the brandy had done it any good. 

It floated helplessly on its side. All of a sudden, however, it 

thought better of it a live toper is, after all, something better 

than a dead teetotaller and wagged its tail. The motion was 

very feeble, a mere apology of a wag a waggle ; but, still, it was 

a beginning. Then it moved a fin, and then it gaped, and finally, 

turning itself right side uppermost, proceeded to swim. Both fish 

are now alive and well. 

I have seen it stated, though I cannot say 

that I have met 

with an instance within my own knowledge, that upon the 

drying up or exhaustion of a pond, the carp 

that were in it will 

bury themselves deep below the surface of the mud, and re-appear 

like the celebrated mud-fish of Ceylon in undiminished num- 

bers upon the first return of the water. An instance of this 

was recently staled in a contemporary to have happened in the 

case of a dried up pond at Filly, near Norwich, and I accord- 

ingly wrote to the Rev. Edward Gillet (the gentleman upon 

whose authority the circumstance was narrated) to ask him to 

be so good as to inform me of the real facts of the case. The 

following is his reply :


Sir,--I have great pleasure in answering your enquiries about 

the carp in the pond. Let me begin by correcting an error into 

which the writer of the paragraph in the Field has fallen. The 

pond is in the parish of Great Ormesby, otherwise Ormesby St. 

Margaret, and not two miles distant from Filly. There were seven 

carp, weighing (by estimation) from a Ib. to 6 ozs. each. They 

were found on emptying out the pond. 

The pond containing about 32 rods rather less than a \ of an 

acre only contained about 4 rods of water the rest was mud, 

and had been nearly dry, at least six weeks, on the surface, so that 

ducks could walk on it, when the mud was taken out, all except the 

upper part of about a foot in depth was somewhat liquid, the upper 

foot had consistence enough to retain its shape. About 450 cubic 

yards were taken out of the pond. The holes in which the fish 

were three in number 4 fish in one hole, 2 in another, and I in 

another, were not exactly circular, but an irregular oval shape, 

about 4 in. by 3 in. ; they varied in depth from 18 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. 

There was water in each hole and I have no doubt from the effect 

of the spring, there would have been water for months to come. 

It leaves the question offish becoming torpid in mud exactly where 

it was. All that surprises me is that the gas from the mud did not 

kill the fish. I shall be most happy to answer any enquiries about 

this case. I am, &c., 

Vicarage, Runham, Filly, Norwich, 

Nov. 30, 1864. 

EDW. GILLET. 

The splendid colour of the scales of the carp when in high 

season has been graphically described in the quotation heading 

this article as ' 

bedropped with gold,' and probably, as Mr. 

Pinkerton suggests, that may have been one of the causes 

which led to the carp (alone amongst all fresh water fish) attain- 

ing to mythical honours. The story which is given by Vaniere 

describes how Saturn flying from Jupiter, came to a wide lake. 

With Carpus, the master of it, he made a compact for a free 

ferry across, but tempted by the love of lucre he would have 

made a prisoner of his passenger had not the god perceived 

his treachery in his face and turned the traitor and his crew 

into fish, which, however, still follow after sailing ships in hope 

of ' 

golden fragments : 

'

2So PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

The carp which in the Italian seas was bred, 

With shining scraps of yellow gold is fed ; 

Though changed his form, his avarice remains, 

And in his breast the love of lucre reigns. 

Of the groups composing the carp family generally, some 

are to be found in greater or less abundance throughout 

almost all the warm and temperate parts of the globe, India 

and China producing the greatest variety, and Germany the 

greatest number of particular species under notice. Austria 

and Prussia especially abound with carp, which form a staple 

and in such request are fresh water fish 

commodity of traffic ; 

as articles of food in parts of these countries, that according 

to Yarrell, an acre of water will let for as high a rent as an 

acre of land. The carp is an inhabitant also of most of the 

rivers and lakes of Russia and Eastern Siberia : and Valencinus 

states that it thrives and reaches to an extraordinary size in the 

Caspian. 

The common carp is so well known to most fishermen and 

others as hardly to require description. It exists, either in 

ponds or rivers, in tolerably equal distribution throughout the 

whole of the counties of England, and in some of those of 

Ireland and Scotland, where, however, the water appears less 

suited to it. 

Although the carp is not unfrequently found in rivers, yet 

stagnant water appears to be its natural element, and in ponds 

it breeds fastest and reaches its greatest size. Large carp are 

occasionally taken in the Thames ; and in some of its tribu- 

taries the fish is also found in tolerable abundance, and of 

heavy weight : of these, the Wey in Surrey contains pro- 

bably the finest specimens, though I believe they are rarely 

caught. 

Of all fish, the carp family generally are, perhaps, the least 

carnivorous ; and, indeed, their teeth, which are placed in the 

throat, are entirely unsuited for purposes of seizing or retaining 

prey. Their food consists of soft vegetable substances, insects, 

and occasionally of worms or grubs. Mud is often found in


their stomachs, having been swallowed, it may be, on account 

of the minute worms or other animal matters it contains. 

The crowns, or upper surfaces, of the teeth of carp are 

furrowed, and altogether present a very similar appearance to 

those of ruminating animals. These teeth masticate the food 

by working against a gristly plate in the roof of the throat, in 

front of which will be found the soft fleshy mass, commonly 

known as ' 

' 

carp's tongue ; 

the real tongue, however, is placed 

as usual between the limbs of the mandible, and is small and 

inconspicuous. 

Besides the singularity already noticed in the interior supports 

or gill leaves of the carp, which enables it to survive 

lengthened exposure, the air bladder is also remarkable for its 

size, and is double, being divided by a short narrow neck or 

necks into two or more chambers. 

We have at least three varieties of the carp family, besides 

Cyprinns carpio, more or less acclimatised in this country. The 

Crucian, or German carp (Cyprinus carassius), the Prussian, or 

gibel carp (Cyprinus gibelio), and the gold carp the common 

gold and silver fish of the aquaria (Cyprinus auratus). The 

last three are probably introduced species into this country, 

and are hardly sufficiently common or widely distributed to 

form important items in our list of sporting fish. The shape 

both of the Prussian and Crucian carp differs materially from 

that of the common carp, being, in fact, broader and flatter and 

' 

more bream-like ' 

altogether 

in appearance. In colour, also, 

they are both of a much paler gold, especially at the sides. 

The Crucian carp again differs from the Prussian carp 

in the 

shape of its head, the head of the Prussian carp being much 

rounder and more 'chub-like,' and the depth of the body, 

though still exceeding that of the carp, being less remarkable. 

Indeed, the Prussian carp bears externally considerable resemblance 

to the gold fish, whilst the Crucian carp more distinctly 

reminds one of the bream. The Crucian carp is the rarer species 

of the two, and has never, according to Yarrell, been taken 

except in the Thames between Hammersmith and Windsor. I


believe, however, that it exists in some ponds in Surrey, and that 

I have repeatedly caught it in a small piece of water on Putney 

' 

Heath, locally called Elgin's Pond.' Having no specimen of 

the fish preserved, I would not state this as a positive fact, but 

to the best of my memory, the fish I caught, which were either 

Crucian or Prussian, resembled more the former than the latter. 

They never much exceed a pound in weight. 

The Prussian carp is found in several counties in England 

and probably exists in many others where it has not hitherto 

been noticed. In their habitats and generally in their food, 

spawning times, &c., the Prussian and Crucian carp resemble 

the common carp. They are not bold biters, and though, perhaps, 

not quite so difficult to catch as Cyprinus carpio, seldom 

afford any great sport to the angler. 

a small well-scoured red-worm. 

The best bait for them is 

The common carp, which is extraordinarily prolific, insomuch 

that 600,000 eggs have been counted by Bloch in a single 

specimen weighing 9 Ibs., spawns generally towards the end of 

May or beginning of June according to the temperature of the 

water and the nature of the season. It is supposed to continue 

spawning occasionally for four or five months, the eggs being 

deposited upon weeds amongst which the female is followed by 

several males, thus securing the impregnation of a very large 

proportion of the eggs. It is in season for the table from 

October to April. 

Although the carp is in its habitats more strictly a pond than 

a river fish, it is not unfrequently found in running streams, 

never reaches 

though, under these circumstances, it probably 

the same size as in ponds and stagnant waters. 

The largest carp recorded as being taken in England does 

not appear to have exceeded 22 Ibs. It was taken in 1836 in 

the county of Surrey, famed of old for its large carp, and was 

exhibited by the late Mr. Yarrell at a meeting of the Zoological 

Society. This car]) was netted in a piece of water called the 

Mere, at Penn's Hill, and in length was 30 in., having a girth 

at the commencement of the dorsal fin of 24 in. This carp


belonged to the well-known naturalist, Mr. Edward Jesse, and 

Mr. Yarrell observed ' 

that he could find no record of any carp 

so large having been before taken in this country.' 

A brace weighing 38 Ibs. was sent by Mr. Ladbroke, from 

his park at Gatton, Surrey, to Lord Egremont, as challenge- 

specimens to compare with the carp of Sussex. A carp is 

mentioned as having been taken from a piece of water at 

Stourhead in 1793, which was 30 inches long, upwards of 

22 inches in girth, and weighed 18 Ibs. At Weston Hall, Staf- 

fordshire, the seat of the Earl of Bradford, is preserved the painting 

of another which weighed 19^ Ibs.; and in the large lake in 

Wimbledon Park, I took on one occasion with a landing-net, a 

specimen weighing upwards of 19 Ibs. These are a few large 

fish that happen to have been chronicled from English waters ; 

but I am convinced that many much larger ones have been 

taken. 

Length. 

Comparative Lengths and Weights of Carp.

284 


in a net (of not too small meshes) suspended about a foot 

from the bottom. When all is sucked away but the clay, put 

fresh in the net or nets.' 

This recipe is said to have been used by the old monks ; 

but the chronicler adds, ' 

Now, how the carp are to suck away 

the barley meal and chalk leaving the clay behind, appears 

difficult to understand.' This seems a pertinent question. 

Probably wheaten or other flour would be a better ingredient 

A hundred a hundred and fifty even two hundred have 

been stated as the number of years attained by the carp under 

the most favourable circumstances. Supposing, however, that 

this should be an exaggeration, there is no doubt that many of 

the fish which were introduced into the ponds at Versailles, 

&c., in the reign of Louis XIV. (say 1690), are either still living, 

or were so a very short time before the Revolution of 1830. 

Dr. Smith, in his 'Tour to the Continent,' mentions them, and 

observes that they had grown white through age, a fact partially 

confirmed by my friend, Mr. R. W. Stuart, who recently visited 

and fed the historic carp. Mr. Stuart noticed that although 

not entirely white, so far as his observation extended, many of 

these fish had a large white spot or scar on the top of their 

heads a sort of equivalent to baldness in the human subject, 

he considered it. 

A reviewer in the Athenccitm of August 8, 1863, gives the 

following comical account of the Fontainbleu carp : 

Visitors to Fontainbleu will doubtless remember the lake adjoining 

the palace and its large carp population, numbering many 

of the most ancient of the family in Europe. To those who have 

never been at Fontainbleu, we may state that the lake swarms 

with these fish, of all ages and sizes, and that it is the custom of 

visitors to feed them with bread ; 

but as ordinary bread would dis- 

appear in a moment amongst the hungry shoal, a plan has been 

devised to give the visitors more amusement by using balls of 

bread, about the si/.e of a man's ness. 

fist, baked to biscuit-like hard- 

On casting one of these balls into the lake, it is immediately 

surrounded by scores of carp, hungry youngsters for the most


part, who being apparently aware that they cannot possibly devour 

the food in hard and unbroken condition, proceed with wonderful 

unanimity to push it with their snouts to the nearest part 

of the 

stone wall confining the lake. Against this they continue butting 

it violently, until at length the repeated blows, and the softening 

effect of the water, cause the ball to break ; when, just at the 

moment that it is in a fit state to be eaten, some half dozen enormous 

carp, white with age, who have been watching the proceedings 

with evident interest, shoulder away the young workers, who retire 

with great precipitation, while the tyrants of the lake gobble or 

rather suck in the pabulum which has cost the small carp so 

much trouble to render fit for their eating. It is the old story of 

might against right, and as we have often witnessed what we have 

described, we have no doubt that old carp are as wily as ancient 

foxes. 

This gentleman, it will be observed, confirms Dr. Smith's 

statement as to carp becoming gradually white from old age ; 

and it is a curious fact that great age and exclusion from the 

light produce apparently the same effects both on fish and 

other animals the skin or scales undergoing a sort of bleach- 

ing process, either from a gradual drying up of the invigorating 

juices of the body, or from want of the sun's rays. 

In the case of fish and reptiles whitened by exclusion from 

the light, it is an almost universal rule that the eyes are so 

much undeveloped as to produce total blindness. The fish 

taken in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky are blind, and of a 

white colourless hue, as also is a species 

of crawfish found in the 

same subterranean waters. The Proteus angninus, inhabiting the 

caves of Illyria, exhibits the same peculiarities. 

This singular 

creature, which is apparently a link between the reptile and the 

fish, presents in every respect the appearance of a blind pinkywhite 

eel, with four very thin eft-like legs near the head and tail. 

When swimming, these legs fold back against the sides, and 

they appear to answer no purpose except that of balancing the 

animal when at rest on the ground. The specimen which I 

examined was about a foot long, and was brought by a gentleman 

from the cave of Adelsberg, near Trieste. Its lungs or


gills were double, one pair being on the inside and one on the 

outside of the neck ; but I could not discover that it ever 

came to the surface of the water to breathe ; it appeared to 

sleep constantly ; and its motion in swimming, when disturbed, 

was exactly like that of an eel. It was always necessary to keep 

it covered up, as upon lengthened exposure to light 

and its colour ebbed away together. 

its life 

It is probable that during the winter months carp retire 

almost wholly into the mud, or under roots, hollows, and 

weeds, and at this time they are hardly ever to be taken 

with a bait In the summer they frequently lie sucking in 

the weeds, in a sort of lazy state, each ' 

suck ' 

making a very 

distinct and unmistakable noise. It very much resembles the 

sound made by a pig, to which animal, indeed, a big carp has 

always appeared to me to bear a striking likeness, both in face 

and character. When not sucking or basking, the carp usually 

swims about in shoals near the surface of the water, returning 

to the bottom to feed. 

Early in the morning, and, occasionally, late in the evening, 

are the best times for fishing ; but, as observed, the catching 

of carp with the rod and line is always a difficult and uncertain 

operation, particularly if the fish are large. The smaller the 

pond, the better the chance I have always found of catching 

carp and tench, though, of course, they are not so large as in 

bigger waters. I once caught half a bucketful of carp before 

breakfast, in a pond by the side of a road between Weybridge 

and By-fleet, which was not bigger than an ordinary sized ball- 

room. The biggest of these carp did not, however, exceed 

2 Ibs. in weight. 

The following is the method of carp fishing in stagnant 

waters which I have found most successful : 

Let the line be entirely of medium sized or fine round gut 

clouded, if possible with a very light quill float, say, No. 4, 

and one good sized shot, about six inches or so from the hook, 

which should be No. 5 or 6 and baited with a brandling or red 

worm. Plumb the depth accurately ; and arrange the distance


between the float and the shot, so that the latter may exactly rest 

on the bottom, weighing down the point of the float to about 

' 

half-cock,' and letting the gut below the shot and the bait lie 

on the ground. Fix the rod in the bank and keep perfectly 

quiet. When a bite is perceived, do not strike until the float 

begins to move away. 

It constantly happens, however, that the carp will not be 

taken either by this or any other mode of fishing with which I 

am acquainted ; but if he is to be caught at all it is thus. 

The baits are, worms (first), gentles, greaves, grains and 

various sorts of pastes, of which latter, however, I believe, the 

plain white bread crumb paste is the best, as well as the most 

easily made. Professor Owen, who had a good deal of carp 

fishing experience in Virginia Water, gave me the results of his 

practice which concur in a great measure with my own, except 

that he fished with his bait paste made of soft herring roe 

worked up with bread crumbs and wool, a favourable substi- 

tute sometimes for the brandling. 

Of all the curious as well as unsavoury morsels which have 

been advocated at one time or another, as baits for carp I think 

coagulated sheep's or bullock's blood is about the most nauseous, 

yet it is not many weeks ago since this was gravely recommended 

by a writer in a sporting contemporary. 

I was, he says, a resident at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in which 

river the carp, in the vicinity of the city, were plentiful. After 

trying many baits in vain, I bethought me of one I had seen used 

in Paris by the Lutetian cockneys, and found it successful. I got 

from the slaughterhouse then situated in the Dom Platz a tin 

canister full of blood ; whether of sheep, oxen, or goats, or all inter- 

mingled, I cannot say. With this coagulated gore I was able, 

after some practice, to bait my hook. The baiting was, of course, 

very frequent. The hook had to be let down very gently, and the 

bait would melt off after a few minutes' immersion. Every bite 

which did not result in a catch also necessitated re-baiting. But 

I caught a good many carp. I presume that in a river which flows 

pretty rapidly, as does the Maine, these fish do not, as a rule, 

attain to such a size as those in ponds. With me they used to run


from i Ib. to 4 Ibs., but generally between 2 and 3 Ibs., which seemed 

to be the average weight of those caught in nets in the same 

localities. I daresay you have often seen anglers using blood as 

bait on the quays in Paris. I was a youngster when I fished with 

it, and do not think I should care to try it now. It is not pleasant 

to handle, and is apt, in summer, to become smelly on the least 

provocation. But in those days, wherever there was water I was 

bound to fish, and I shirked no nastiness short, perhaps, of holding 

in my mouth worrums for bait. 

Any of the before-mentioned baits either simply or mixed 

with clay, or bran, or both, according to the nature of the pond 

or current will form a good ground bait, which should be 

thrown in overnight on the spot where it is intended to fish. A 

few gentles or bits of chewed bread, occasionally added when 

fishing, are generally advantageous. 

A propos of ground baiting for tench, Mr. R. House, writing 

lately to the Fishing Gazette, mentions the following facts under 

the head of 'Necessity of Judicious Ground Baiting' : 

Sir, You are quite right about tench taking paste 

or boiled 

potatoes (provided they have been fed with them beforehand) ; 

but the feeding is the secret ! For instance, a few years ago, a 

friend asked me to fish his trout preserve, where he had scarcely 

ever before allowed any one to fish. I tried with my spinner, and 

in two hours had eleven trout, none under 2 Ibs.; but he told me 

there was one that never would take minnow or worm he was 

lying at the back of the premises where the garbage was thrown. 

I asked the cook what she gave him ; she said she often threw him 

out bread. I cut a piece of bread, and threw it in, and he took it 

in a minute near 6 Ibs. 

I also know of a case at Newbury, where a splendid trout fed, 

and no one could entice him to take their bait ; 

but at the last, the 

cook said that whatever was thrown out cabbage or potatoes he 

took it. My friend took a small potato, boiled, and with a large 

hook nailed him II Ibs. I am, &c. 

It is curious that this ground baiting should have been 

practised more than sixteen hundred years ago ; it is described 

by Oppian, who says that the paste was made with scented


cheese and flour, which was divided into little pellets and 

scattered in by the fishermen to attract the fish. 

A quondam writer in the Field gives under the signature of 

' 

Eothen ' 

his experience in Indian : 

carp-catching 

This fish is known in the Deccan, he says, as the komlah. It 

exists in great numbers in most of the rivers, and attains a con- 

siderable weight, from 10 Ibs. to 40 Ibs. They are often fed by 

pilgrims near the steps leading down from temples to the water- 

side, and in such places they become very tame and bold, almost 

tumbling against the legs of natives performing their ablutions in 

the river. If handfuls of dried earth nuts in the pod are thrown 

in, they will scramble for them with the utmost eagerness, rolling 

over each other like porpoises, great fellows, with broad backs, 

averaging 25 Ibs., a sight to see, I can assure you ! But, flourish 

a rod for five minutes, and they will be off with a rush ; not a fin 

will be seen near the place again for at least half-an-hour. No ! 

they have a marvellous discrimination between friends and foes ; 

and why it should be so I never could understand, because it is 

only at rare intervals that they are fished for, by some wandering 

civilian or officer from the distant cantonment. 

Under these circumstances the only feasible plan of circum- 

venting them that I could discover, was to trail my rod to the 

water's edge and lay it down on the ground. I baited the hook 

with a good-sized lump of plain paste, and then, holding this ready, 

I threw in several handfuls of boiled rice, mixed with the dal. The 

water would soon be in a boil with the fish greedily feeding at the 

bottom, and then was the time to drop in the baited hook, which 

in the general scramble was sure to be bolted, or, at any rate, laid 

hold of. In the meantime, I had darted back and picked up the 

rod, and if I was lucky enough to make a successful strike not 

by any means an easy thing under the circumstances there would 

be a ' 

whirl' and an So yards run before there would be any display 

of the butt. 

These fish were wonderfully powerful and active, and as the 

river there was broad and deep, it was necessary to have at least 

50 yards of line. I was put up to this dodge by a military friend 

who had been very successful. The largest fish of his capturing 

that I saw, weighed 36 Ibs., and it was truly a noble fellow, short, 

at the shoulder. The scales are 

but exceedingly broad and deep 

silvery, not yellow, and remarkably large one would quite cover 

II. U

290 


the palm of a man's hand. I wish I had brought some home for 

display in the Field window. Since I left India, I met an officer 

who is a mighty sportsman in every branch, and he told me that he 

had fished with great success in the very same river, but in another 

manner. In the evening he would watch for the rise of a single 

fish, and then, by an underhand cast, he would drop his hook, 

baited with a bean of green grain, just within the curl of water, 

when it was generally snapped at. Of course, if the first cast failed 

there was no use in making a second ; and, indeed, I think few 

men but himself could have made an underhand cast with the 

requisite nicety and precision. However, my friend threw with 

such success, that in seventeen days he killed /o fish weighing 

I,20olbs. 

A singular expedient for catching carp is suggested by Mr. 

' 

Fitzgibbon in his 

Notes to Walton ' 

A correspondent, he says, not long since wrote to me for 

advice. He had a pond in which were many large carp ; and 

although he had an tried for them in due season from February to 

October during seven years, he had not succeeded in capturing 

them. I advised him to line with hurdles the bank of the pond at 

the spots where he meant to fish to ground-bait those spots with 

red worms, gentles, and especially with sweet paste, for three or 

four days to then take his rod, and, supporting it on a bifurcated 

prop (cut off the branch of a tree) inserted in the bank behind the 

hurdles, to place on his line a hook broken off at the bend, that is 

without barb or sharp point, to bait this harmless hook with 

sweet paste, and to sink it nearly to the bottom of the already 

ground baited water. The carp will soon take this bait ; and 

finding they can do so with impunity, they will become bolder 

hourly. Replacing the bait every time it is nibbled off, and con- 

tinuing to do so for three or four days, commence then angling in 

earnest : with the same rod and line, but with a barbed hook 

baited exactly as before, come behind the hurdle, and, with very 

light float, angle cautiously. My correspondent acted on my 

advice, and succeeded in catching as many of the Luge carp a;> he 

wanted. 

This is doubtless a very ingenious plan ; but, with all clue 

deference to Mr. Fiugibbon, I think that most fishermen might 

feel somewhat disinclined to sit for ' 

three or four davs ' 

: 

crouched


behind a hurdle, without the possibility of catching anything 

unless, indeed, it were a stroke of rheumatism. 

' 

Ephemera,' however, had evidently conceived a very profound 

veneration for the craftiness of carp, especially old 

ones : 

Neither I, nor any one else, he says, can tell you how to 

catch satisfactorily with the angle the paterfamilias of the : carp 

he is so sly, and nibbles in such a namby-pamby way, that he 

strips the hook of its bait mouse-like. The angler 

that can 

catch large carp, Captain Williamson says, ' must possess several 

qualifications extremely valuable to the angler, and bids fair, by 

general practice, to be, according to the old saying, able to teach 

his master.' All I can tell you is, that you must fish for the carp 

proper with as fine a tackle as you use for the roach, and at the same 

time it must be stronger, for carp grow to salmon size. The baits 

are worms, larvas, grains, pastes, green gentles, and green peas. 

A sweet paste is perhaps the best. ... A Huntingdonshire corre- 

spondent once wrote to me that he had a pond well stored with 

very large carp, and that after seven years' patience with line, rod 

and hook, he could not catch one of them. He asked my advice 

I told him to try a net ! 

Mr. F. Miller, in a recent article in the Fishing Gazette, 

gives the following account of a method of catching carp which 

he had pursued successfully : 

A few weeks since I was favoured with permission to fish a 

private pond well stocked with large carp. The owner of it 

thought it a waste of precious angler's time to attempt to hoax so 

capricious a feeder, and so cunning a biter, the more so as many 

adepts at the art had been previously disappointed. The day of 

my adventure was rough, though warm. The wind at times was 

almost sufficiently strong to blow a man out of his hat but ; towards 

evening it lulled, and the carp began to move, jumping clear of the 

water in their well-known vigorous, if not graceful, manner. 

I was fishing in about 4 feet of water, with two rods resting on 

pegs, as for bream. I had ground-baited 

with soaked bran and 

ordinary gentles, and had placed on each hook two or three wasp 

grubs. These I always find appreciated by the crafty Cyprinits 

carpio. To complete the sweet-toothed dainty, I took a small box

292 


of honey, and, without touching the bait with my fingers, 

thrust it 

into the box, and coated it with the manipulated nectar. I waited 

and watched with the superabundant, or rathci superhuman, patience 

necessary on such occasions, and had almost concluded that my 

patron's prognostications were about to be fulfilled, when my upper 

or left-hand float, lying flat on the water, began to glide along the 

surface in a very suggestive and gratifying manner. 

I struck, not ' 

ile,' as the Yankee would say, but a game fish, 

which rushed upward and onward as if eager to cut my acquaintance. 

I had hardly felt the grip of my first fish when float No. 2 lying at 

length on the right, began to move in the opposite direction to the 

struggling captive, which already questioned my right of deprivation. 

'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' and a fish on the 

hook is worth two in the water. I resolved at once to let my 

second bold epicure take his hook and his chance. The rod was 

firm, the line was good, and some 60 yards of it formed a miniature 

cable between the fish and the shore. My quarry was evidently 

steeled to the encounter, and soon disappeared round a bend m 

the bank. 

' 

Frailty, thy name is woman !' My first-hooked carp pursued 

the uneven tenour of his way, and showed signs 

of exhaustion. 

I looked down at my companion reel and saw that but a few yards 

remained of the rapidly-running line. I had given it the previous 

day to a fair enthusiast to place on the winch, and the idea that 

perhaps it had not been properly fastened, and the fear of losing 

it altogether, aroused me to a sense of danger and a change of 

action. Seizing the line with the right hand, while holding my 

bending rod with my left, I placed it between my teeth, and held 

on with a nodding grip of desperation whilst I successfully grassed 

my first-hooked and now defeated opponent. I then brought his 

roaming companion nearer home and in a few minutes he joined 

his mate on terra fii'ina. One weighed nearly, and the other jubt 

over 6 Ibs. 

An editorial postscript to the above will be read with 

interest, as giving some recent experiences of a thoroughly 

practical fisherman: 

We also possess a piece of water which holds some carp 

perfect patriarchs, some of them. In the hot weather they roam 

about near the surface, and in the spawning season roll about in 

the weeds like pigs. We have liihed the water almost every week


foi two summers, and have taken numbers of bream between two 

and six pounds, and many tench, roach, and rudd ; but we have 

never got hold of a carp. And yet we have used the finest tackle, 

drawn gut and hair, tried every kind of sweet paste, worms, gentles, 

potatoes, blackberries (bream like blackberries), figs, bananas, a 

bit of crumb of bread just under or on the surface ; in fact, there 

is not a bait recommended for carp fishing we have not tried, both 

with float and with ledger. Others who have fished the same 

water have had no better success with these carp. In other waters 

not so much fished we have taken them with small red worms and 

paste. We confess we have never tried for them ' from daybreak 

to five o'clock,' which is said by some to be the magic time, but 

have often wondered that when fishing late from sunset to mid- 

nightfor eels, the carp have never touched the baits, though 

tench have, long after dark. Of course, we have tried groundbaits 

of all kinds. Potatoes mashed up with bread and pollard we 

have found bring the bream on best, and we should be obliged if 

any of our readers can suggest some plan which they find successful 

under similar circumstances. 

I was once witness to a very curious occurrence, where a 

carp naturally such a timid and dainty feeder took in succession 

two hooks baited with worms, on two different lines, and 

was itself taken simultaneously by both, one hook being fastened 

on each side of its mouth : the youths to whom the singular 

accident happened were brothers. The distance between their 

two rods and baits at the time the fish took the latter could not 

have been less than several yards, and the floats disappeared 

almost at the same moment, both anglers striking together and 

the carp being lifted out between them. 

With regard to the tench the methods of capture pursued in 

the case of the carp are also the best that I can recommend, 

but though, like the carp, good bags of tench may be occasionally 

made under exceptional circumstances, it is hardly sufficiently 

certain sport to offer any great inducement from the angler's 

point of view. Indeed, I never made but one real basket ot 

tench, so to speak, in my life and that was in a stagnant pond 

belonging to my friend, Colonel Brooksbank, of Middleton Hall 

on the Wolds, Yorkshire, which had been recently stocked

294 

PIKE A^ 7D OTHER COARSE FISH. 

with them. The largest of these tench did not exceed, how- 

ever, one pound in weight, and as soon as the sun had fairly 

risen they stopped biting. Indeed, whatever the chance may 

be of catching either carp or tench, it is in the very early morn- 

ing hours that it is usually to be found, and after about 7 or 

half-past arrives, the carp and tench fisherman may as well put 

up his rods and go home to breakfast. 

Carp and tench very commonly inhabit the same waters, 

both stagnant and running, and should be fished for in pre- 

cisely the same manner. Although these fish are frequently 

found in rivers, as before observed, they are very seldom caught 

there, and when they are, in my experience it is usually when 

they are not being fished for. Indeed, fishing for either of 

these species is at the best very uncertain work, and, in the case 

of rivers, generally wholly unprofitable. In weight the tench 

does not equal its congener, seldom exceeding 5 or 6 Ibs., 

although occasionally heavier specimens have been taken. 

The largest on record weighed somewhat over n Ibs., and 

was taken from a clay-hole which had been scooped out for 

brick-making. This sort of pit often abounds with tench and a 

basketful has been known to be taken out of one not wider than 

a boy could jump over, and where the weeds were so thick as 

to be almost solid. In fact, like the carp, the tench appears to 

prefer foul and weedy to clear waters. Daniel, 

' 

in his Rural 

Sports/ gives an account of the capture of the tench weighing 

1 1 Ibs. above referred to : 

A piece of water which had been ordered to be filled up, and 

into which wood and rubbish had been thrown for years, was 

directed to be cleaned out. Labourers were accordingly employed ; 

and, almost choked up by weeds and mud, so little water remained 

that no person expected to see any fish, except a few eels ; yet 

nearly two hundred brace of tench of all sizes, and as many perch 

were found. After the pond was thought to be quite free, under 

tonic roots there seemed to be some animal who was conjectured 

to be an otter; the place was surrounded, and on opening an 

entrance amongst the roots a tench was found of most singular 

form, having literally assumed the shape of the hole in which he


had, of course, for many years been confined. His length from 

eye to caudal fork was 23 inches, his circumference, almost to the 

tail, was 27 inches, his weight II Ibs. 9^ ozs.; the colour was also 

singular, his belly being that of a charr, or vermilion. This extraordinary 

fish, after having been inspected by many gentlemen, was 

carefully put into a pond, and at the time this account was written 

twelve months afterwards, was alive and well. 

It is surprising in what unpromising looking holes and 

corners tench will live and apparently thrive. It is really the 

most tenacious of life of any fresh water fish except the eel. I 

have known one of them live for a whole day with the gimp of 

a double jack hook passed under the skin from gill to tail, the 

fish being meanwhile cast about from place to place on the 

water, and suspended in a most unnatural position. In fact, 

such is the perfection of the organs of the species, that they 

have been proved by experiment to be able to breathe when the 

quantity of oxygen is reduced to the 5,oooth part of the bulk of 

the water river water ordinarily containing about one part of 

oxygen in a hundred. 

For the tench has always been claimed the royal gift of heal- 

ing by touch ; and he has been supposed to possess, in the 

slime with which he is thickly covered, a natural balsam for the 

cure of himself and others. 

He has been called by old writers the ' 

physician of fish,' 

who assert that, as a consequence, the pike, unsparing of every- 

thing else that swims, has yet in him that 'grace of courtesy' 

that he will not molest his benefactor. Some experiments, in- 

deed, which I myself tried appear to lend colour to the fact of 

the pike's refusing to attack the tench, whatever may 

cause of his self-restraint. 

be the 

I procured some small tench, and fished with them as live 

baits for a whole day in some excellent pike water, but without 

getting a touch. In the evening I put on a small carp, and had 

a run almost immediately. I also tried some pike in a stock 

pond with the same tench, but they would not take them ; 

and though left in a pond all night one on a hook, and one

296 


attached to a fine thread both baits were alive in the morning, 

some pike teeth marks, however, being visible upon the hooked 

fish. 

These facts I mention, however, for what they maybe worth, 

without expressing any opinion as to the truth or otherwise of 

the theories before alluded to. 

The notion is at least a poetical one, and as such in this 

utilitarian age deserves to be encouraged. We are all getting 

so confoundedly prosaic and matter of fact that the introduction 

of a little idealism can but be an improvement. It would be 

quite refreshing to encounter a few angling troubadours on 

Marlow Bridge, or fishermen-serenaders, in gondolas d la 

Venice, outside Pope's Villa at Twickenham. 

Anyhow, the hypothetical relationship between pike and 

tench has been related in verse as well as in prose : 

The pike, fell tyrant of the liquid plain, 

With ravenous waste devours his fellow train : 

Yet, howsoe'er by raging famine pined, 

The tench he spares a medicinal kind ; 

For when by wounds distrest or sore disease, 

He courts the salutary fish for ease, 

Close to his scales the kind physician glides 

And sweats a healing balsam from his sides. 

So much for the poetical explanation. A more prosaic one 

is given by Lingley, who suggests that, as the tench is so fond 

of mud as to be constantly at the bottom of the water, where 

the pike cannot find him, the self-denial of the latter may be 

attributed to more natural causes. 

However, as I said before, whether true or false, I am for 

the more poetical solution of the rexata qiucstio. 

The flesh of the tench is white and firm and not unnutritious, 

though, like the eel, it would appear to be palatable in a pre- 

cisely inverse ratio to tlv.> cleanliness of its abode, improving in 

gustatory attractions as it approaches more nearly in colour 

and diet the composition of its habitual mud. Thus, ' 

tench


were taken out of Munden Hall Fleet, Essex, which was so 

thick with weeds that the flue-nets could hardly be sunk through 

them, and where the mud was intolerably foetid and had dyed 

the fish of its own hue, which was that of ink ; yet no tench 

could be better grown, or of a sweeter flavour.' ... 'In a 

clear pond at Leigh's Priory a quantity of tench were caught of 

about 3 Ibs. weight each, of a colour the most golden and 

beautiful ; but when dressed and brought to table they smelt 

and tasted so rankly that no one would eat them. 5 

By washing 

the slime off the fish with warm water before cooking the 

muddy 

taste is said to be removed. 

Walton says the tench ' 

' 

eat pleasantly 

addition to the cuisine, 

and form a desirable 

also the dictum of the late Mr. Grantley 

Berkeley, whose experience of tench in stew ponds I have already 

referred to. Indeed, it is stated that in extensive tracts of 

water near Yarmouth tench are still bred in large quantities as 

a marketable commodity, being fattened, until fit for the table, 

upon a mixture of greaves and meal. 

Characteristics of the Common Carp. Body covered with 

large scales, 

in about twelve rows between ventrals and back 

fin ; a single very long back fin. Lips fleshy. Mouth small, 

and without teeth. Throat-teeth in three rows on each side, 

the inner row composed of three with broad flat crowns which 

are furrowed, somewhat resembling those of ruminating ani- 

mals. Two barbels or beards at each corner of the mouth. 

First back-fin, ray, short and bony ; the second also bony, 

notched on the posterior surface, as likewise the first ray of the 

anal fin. Tail deeply forked. Colouring, generally, golden 

olive-brown, head darkest ; belly, yellowish-white ; fins, dark 

brown. Scales covered with a thick mucus or epidermis. 

Vertebra; 36. 

Finrays : D. 22; P. 17; V. 9; A. 8; C. 19. 

Characteristics of the Common Tench. Length 

of head 

compared to total length of body, excluding tail, as 2 to 7. 

Head rather large and blunt. Mouth small, toothless, with a 

small barbel at each corner. Throat-teeth in a single row on

298 


each side, 4 on the right side and 5 on the left. Scales very 

small. Back and anal fins destitute of bony rays. Ventral fins 

in the male very large, and concave on the inside, reaching far 

enough to cover the vent ; 

in the females smaller and less 

powerful : the males and females may be distinguished by the 

size of these fins. Pectoral fins large and rounded. Tail, in 

young fish, concave, afterwards straight, and in old fish convex. 

General colour, greenish olive and golden; fins, darker; lips, 

flesh-colour. 

Finrays : D. n; P. 17; V. 10; A. 10; C. 19.

BARBEL 1 AND 

299 

BREAM* 

BARBEL and bream, though not so intimately 

associated as 

carp and tench, are yet linked together by many common ties 

in the domain of angling ; one of their principal similar cha- 

racteristics being that they are usually fished for, at any rate 

so far as rivers are concerned, in the same place, with the same 

tackle, and the same baits. The barbel, however, so far as my 

experience goes, is never found in anything but running water. 

The bream, on the contrary, thrives best in large open lakes 

and in slow rivers alternating with broads or lagoon-like reaches. 

Although from an angler's point of view infinitely less wary 

and difficult to capture than the carp, the barbel, both in its 

natural state and in confinement, is the shyest and most untame- 

able of all our fish, except perhaps the roach, exhibiting a degree 

of reserve and intolerance of observation rarely met with. In 

the spring, however, when the fish seek the gravelly shallows 

to spawn, they become very lively, and at this season may 

frequently be seen tumbling and rolling about, with their bodies 

half out of the water, like a shoal of porpoises. Amongst some 

specimens kept in a vivarium, it was observed that, when they 

fancied no one was looking, they would plunge and rub them- 

selves against the brickwork, and otherwise show considerable 

signs of playfulness. 

Barbel are numerous in many parts of the world, but their 

natural habitat appears to be the warmer parts of Europe, and 

it is stated by Cuvier that in localities favourable to them they 

will grow 10 feet long. They are plentiful in the Danube, the 

1 Barbus vulâris. 

2 Abramis drama.

300 


Elbe, and the Weser ; in almost all the rivers flowing into the 

Black Sea ; and in the Volga, where they attain the weight of 

40 and 50 Ibs. On the banks of this river the natives make a 

kind of fish glue or isinglass of the bladder, boiling the roe and 

feeding their geese and poultry with it. The fish themselves 

are sold at Astrakan at about g!. the thousand. 

The flesh of the fish, to be guilty of what sounds like a bull, 

very much resembles that of the sturgeon, to which also, in 

shape, it bears a strong 

resemblance. As is well known the 

flesh of the sturgeon is very solid and almost meat-like, stand- 

ing, in fact, apparently about half-way between fish and flesh. 

I used, when living in the neighbourhood of the Thames, often 

to see a dish of barbel on the sideboard at breakfast time, and 

very good it was. I have not the recipe for the cooking, but 

I know that the principal secret lies in its being baked in an 

open dish with some cloves and perhaps other spices. When 

cold, the liquid it was baked in became a stiff jelly, which shows 

unmistakably the, so to speak, meaty, and probably nourishing 

qualities of the fish. 

The barbel is a native of many parts of England, and is 

exclusively a river fish. It abounds particularly in the Trent 

and the Thames, in the latter being so numerous that in the 

neighbourhood of Walton and Weybridge as much as 280 Ibs. 

weight are said to have been taken by a single rod in one day. 

The name of Barbel is derived from the barbs, or beards, 

at the corners of the mouth, which are given to the fish to assist 

it in feeling its way about in deep and, consequently, more or 

less dark waters, and probably also for the purpose of enabling 

it to detect the nature of the substances with which it comes 

in contact. Of the species provided with these barbs, viz., the 

carp, tench, gudgeon, loach, and burbot, 

all find their food 

principally or wholly on the bottom ; and generally the fact of 

the fish 

' 

being 'bearded affords a correct index to its habits. 

Thus the barbel frequents the deepest parts of pools and 

weirs, for example, Temple Pool, just on the right hand of 

the lock above Marlow, and New Lock, on the Harleyford side

BARBEL AND BREAM. 301 

of Hurley Weir, between Marlow and Medmenham, are two of 

the best swims for heavy barbel that I know of, and both are 

so deep that even with a heavy ledger-lead the difficulty is to 

get the bait to the bottom or keep it down when it has been got 

there. In this latter pool there are, I am sure, some barbel of 

leviathan dimensions, and I was once hooked in one which I 

played for three-quarters of an hour without ever seeing the tip 

of his tail. The same thing happened at the same place to 

a well-known Thames fisherman, except that in this case, I 

believe, the time fruitlessly spent in the struggle approached 

nearly to an hour and a quarter. In fact, the moment the 

barbel is hooked he goes straight down to, or rather, perhaps 

more correctly speaking, 'clings' close to the bottom, burrowing 

and this particular method 

head downwards with all his force ; 

of fighting makes him, when hooked, an obstinate and sluggish 

rather than a lively fish. 

His food consists principally of slugs, worms, grubs, and 

perhaps occasionally of small fish : and in order to procure 

these he turns up the gravel and loose stones with his nose in 

very much the same manner that a pig furrows a field with its 

snout. The baits for the fish are lob-worms (whole or the tail 

end), gentles, greaves, cheese, caddis-worms, and many others ; 

but of these the first two are, in my opinion, much the best. 

Three styles of fishing are employed in barbel-fishing, or 

' 

barbelling,' as it is called on the Thames, one of which is 

peculiar to the barbel. These are ordinary float-fishing, 

Nottingham fishing, and leger fishing, which is the speciality 

of the art, and was, until late years, almost wholly confined to 

the Thames and its habitues. A good chapter on the subject 

of Nottingham fishing for barbel will be found in Baily's 

'Angler's Instructor,' p. 43. 

The mode of Nottingham fishing, so far as the float and 

tackle are concerned, has been already described at p. 215. In 

adapting it to barbel a light bamboo rod with small stiff rings, 

so as to let the line run freely, and a thoroughly strong (though 

by no means coarse) gut line are the principal addenda. For

302 

PIKE AXD OTHEk COARSE FISH. 

Nottingham fishing with the lob-worm, or tail of a lob-worm, 

which is generally preferred, a No. 9 hook will be found about 

the best size, and when the bait used is gentles a No. 5 or 6. 

The bait should just be carried by the current dribbling along 

the bottom. A No. 9 hook is about the best size when greaves 

or scratching is the bait. 

Strike the moment the float disappears. In ordinary float 

fishing for barbel which, on the Thames, at least, where I have 

principally seen it practised, is constantly combined with roach 

fishing 

a somewhat smaller hook and even finer tackle may be 

employed with advantage. In deep water a No. i float of 

larger size than that represented in the engraving is as good a 

pattern as any that can be used. The stroke in this case also 

should be, if possible, contemporaneous with the disappearance 

of the float. 

The speciality, however, of barbeling, by which also heavy 

bream, chubb, and perch are not unfrequently taken, is what is 

commonly known on the 

' 

Thames as legering.' In this case 

no float whatever is employed, and the bite is detected by the 

hand, it being generally advisable to wait until the nibbling 

becomes a more decided tugging before the stroke. 

A leger-lead of improved form, shown at the late Fisheries 

Exhibition, is represented in the woodcut. The object 

of the 

flattened shape of the lead is to enable it to 

rest steadily on the bottom, and the ' 

rounded 

angles' prevent it being so likely to get fast 

in stones or other obstructions. The object 

is that the line should run freely through the 

lead on being pulled by a fish, without which, 

of course, it would be necessary for the fish 

LEGKK-I.KAD. ..... . , 

... 

, 

to carry off the lead bodily in order that a 

bite might be felt. The tackle for producing 

this result is 

of the simplest. At the end of two links of fine salmon gut 

attach a No. 9 or 10 hook and fasten the two links of gut to 

a yard of fine gimp, attaching also a shot at the junction of the 

two to prevent the lead slipping down on to the hooks. The

gimp is run through 


the lead and then attached to the reel 

line. 

Some fishermen, less particular, attach the reel line itself to 

the gut bottom, and others again carry refinement to a greater 

pitch and ' 

' 

interject a yard or two of salmon gut between the 

upper end of the gimp and the running line. The last named 

is the most complete because the finest form of leger tackle, 

and the other the most rudimentary. Either a whole or half 

a lob-worm may be used according to taste in this mode of 

fishing, some fishermen preferring one and some the other. 

The mode of baiting in both these cases has been already 

described at p. 229. For the method of getting and keeping 

lob-worms see also p. 225. 

It is very essential when barbeling always to ground bait, at 

least some hours previously, the spot at which it is intended to 

fish. For this purpose bran, clay, and boiled greaves, worked 

up together into balls about the size of a small cocoa-nut, form 

a good mixture : gentles or chopped worms may be added with 

advantage, but clay and any of these before mentioned materials 

will answer the purpose. Another excellent ground bait, already 

described, and to which the Thames fishermen are very partial 

is made by putting handfuls of whole lob-worms into hollow 

clay balls, some of the heads and tails of the worm being left 

sticking through the sides. In choosing baits for the hook, 

worms without knots in them should have the preference. The 

last observation holds good with regard to every description of 

worms and worm fishing. 

For bream fishing in rivers, the Nottingham style of fishing 

with baits as described for barbel is undoubtedly the best. 

Gentles and sometimes paste are also good baits for bream ; 

the latter is principally, however, confined to stagnant waters. 

As regards ordinary float fishing, it may be said, speaking 

generally, that all ground bait and tackle suitable for roach 

fishing, but somewhat stronger and with a size larger hook, will 

be found suitable for bream fishing. 

In its distribution, the carp bream is an inhabitant of all

304 


the central districts of Europe, as well as those northward of 

St. Petersburg, Finland, and Scandinavia. Some of the lakes 

of Ireland also produce it in large quantities. In England it 

is found in many countries, appearing to thrive best in large 

open sheets of water, and in slow rivers, where the stream 

occasionally widens out into broads or deeps. Of the rivers 

near the metropolis which breed this fish, perhaps the Mole 

and the Medway are the most noted. They are also very 

numerous in the Thames at Weybridge, just below its junction 

with the Wey, and in the latter river, higher up towards Wisley, 

are occasionally caught of very large size. I recently examined 

a specimen weighing upwards of 5 Ibs. taken thence ; the 

scales of this fish were rough and almost file-like, from a small 

whitish tubercle which is a periodical production common to 

the species, as well as to several others of the carp family, at 

the spawning time. Baily mentions one of 17 Ibs., taken in the 

Trent, but 7 or 8 Ibs. appears to be the highest average really 

attained by the bream, at any rate in Great Britain. 

Bream are gregarious, and their food consists of worms, 

slugs, aquatic insects, and vegetable substances. 

Two varieties of the bream species are found in this country : 

one the Pomeranian l 

bream, an exceedingly rare fish, being 

known in very few waters, and the other the white bream, 

or bream-flat, 2 which is comparatively common. Indeed, the 

carp-bream and bream- flat are frequently found in the same 

waters, and in habits and food are nearly identical. The white 

bream is known to exist in Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire, 

Norfolk, and Dumfriesshire. I have taken it frequently in the 

River Wey, in Surrey, and it is probably locally recognised in 

many 

other counties. It is also common on the Continent 

and in Scandinavia. It is best fished for with roach tackle and 

a red worm or gentle, and has this singular habit by 

which it 

may be constantly recognised, even before it has been seen of 

rising instead of descending with the bait ; in consequence of 

* Abramis Biiôihaîi. 

2 Abramis Dlicca.

BARBEL AND BREAM, 305 

which the float, in lieu of being drawn under water, is laid flat 

upon the surface. The fish takes a bait readily, but often spits 

it out again, from being too indolent to swallow it. The 

Swedish fishermen call it Aetare, or the glutton. 

In the Bavarian dialect, the term blicke is applied to fishes 

that have a silvery glitter in the water, whence the specific name 

blicca, given to it on account of the brightness 

of its colour as 

compared with the carp-bream. 

The points of difference between the bream- flat and the 

carp-bream are : (i) its colour, which is almost silvery instead 

of yellow ; (2) its size, which rarely exceeds i lb., whilst that of 

the carp-bream frequently reaches 7 or 8 Ibs. ; and (3) its teeth 

(throat-teeth), which are in two rows on each side, numbering two 

and five respectively, those of the carp-bream being placed in 

only one row on each side, numbering five. This last point of 

difference is so obvious and easily verified that no mistake can 

possibly occur. 

The only waters inhabited, so far as I am aware, by the 

Pomeranian bream are the Logan River, near Belfast, a pond 

at Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, some water near Wolver- 

hampton, and the preserves at Dagenham Reach, Essex, well 

known to London anglers. It may be readily distinguished 

both from the white and carp-bream by the number of throat- 

teeth on each side, which are in two rows numbering five and 

three respectively, instead of, as in the former, in two rows of 

five and two, and, as in the latter, in a single row of five. It is 

also distinguished by the greater thickness of its body, which 

is equal to half its depth, whilst in the other two the same 

measurement is only equal to one-third of the depth. The 

anal fin is shorter and has a smaller number of rays than that 

of the bream-flat, which, again, presents a similar proportion 

as contrasted with the carp-bream. 

The bream spawns in May, and the barbel in May or June ; 

the latter depositing its ova, which, in large fish, sometimes 

number 7,000 or 8,000, in the gravelly or shingly beds of the 

stream, where they are immediately covered by the parent 

II. X 

/

306 


fishes. These eggs are vivified, in warm weather, between the 

ninth and fifteenth day. 

The spawners, so soon as they have recovered a little 

strength, make their way into the swiftest stream they can find, 

such as rivers, mill-tails, &c., to scour and brace themselves, 

beginning to get into condition again in a few weeks, and being 

in the best season for the angler until September and October, 

when the frosty nights drive them from the streams and shallows 

into deeper waters. Here they will be found until the spring ; 

and in these quiet deeps and eddies they are to be caught, if 

anywhere, during the winter months. At this period, howevtr, 

especially if the weather is very cold, it is of comparatively 

little use to fish for them, as they lie in a sort of semi-torpid 

condition and refuse to move. So inanimate are they, that the 

fishermen not unfrequenlly provide themselves with hoop-land- 

ing nets, which they place near the barbel, and with a pole 

literally push them in. Shoals sometimes collect under the 

shelter, of a sunken punt or other tidal obstruction, lying 

one over the other as closely as they can pack, and when 

thus congregated, they are often taken by being ' 

foul.' 

hooked 

The principal Characteristics of the Barbel are : Mouth, 

toothless ; throat teeth in three rows on each side, the rows 

numbering two, three, and five respectively. Body, elongated. 

Length of head compared with total length of fish as i to 5. 

Depth of body less than length of head. Head, elongated, 

wedge-shaped ; upper half of jaw much the longer. Upper 

lip, circular and fleshy. One pair of barbels at the front of the 

nose, and a single one at the end of upper lip on each side. 

Third ray of back fin largest and strongest, toothed on its 

hinder surface. Tail deeply forked at the end. Colour : 

general hue of upper part of the head and body, greenish- 

brown, becoming yellowish-green on sides ; cheeks, gill-covers, 

golden-bronze ; belly and throat, silver-white ; back fin, olivebrown 

; margins of tail, pectoral, ventral, and anal fins, pale 

red, or fleshy-pink, gradually diminishing in tone nearly to base


of tins ; scales, browny-bronze at base, at tips silvery-whitish ; 

irides, golden-bronze. 

Principal Characteristics of the Common Bream. Throat 

teeth cylindrical, with smooth crowns adapted for bruising, 

placed in single rows, five teeth on each side. Mouth small, 

toothless, without barbels. Scales placed in curves on the fore 

part of the back, a naked place behind the ventrals. Length 

of head to body as i to 3. Head small, nape of neck de- 

pressed. Body deep and flat ; very convex above and below, 

scales comparatively small. Scales of lateral line varying in 

number from 52 to 58. Tail long, and deeply forked at the 

end. Colour : generally yellowish white, becoming yellowish 

brown by age. Cheeks and gill-covers, silvery white ; fins 

light-coloured ; pectoral and ventral tinged with red ; back, 

anal, and tail fins with brown.

3c8 


1 DACE AND 

CHUB* 

I HAVE bracketed these two fish together, first, because they 

are, amongst coarse fish, the only two that can properly be said 

to be of interest to the fly-fisher, not being also a float-fisher, 

and secondly, with a view of pointing out the characteristics by 

which they may be most readily distinguished the one from the 

other. 

When the chub is not full-grown, its resemblance to its 

closely allied species, the dace, is so strong that I have known 

experienced fishermen, and even naturalists at fault in deter- 

mining positively whether the fish which they had caught was 

a large dace or a small chub ; and I well remember on one 

occasion finding an enthusiastic young ichthyologist sitting the 

picture of despair on the bank of the Wey, with Yarrell's 

'British Fishes' in one hand, and in the other a diminutive 

specimen of the genus Leuciscus, which he was vainly attempting 

to identify by a critical comparison of its proportions, fin rays, 

scales, &c., with those given in the pages of that scientific, but 

occasionally somewhat perplexing volume. By bearing the 

following rules in mind, however, no fisherman need ever be in 

doubt as to whether the fish he has in his basket is a chub or a 

dace : (i) The anal fin of the dace is pale greenish while, until 

occasionally a rery slight tinge of red in the chub, this fin is of a 

brilliant pink colour. (2) The hinder margin of the anal fin is, 

in the dace, concare in the clntb convex. 

In adult specimens the size of the chub is, of course, a 

sufficient distinction without referring to particular marks. The 

whole fish, moreover, rapidly assumes a bronzed or golden 

appearance, in place of the silvery tinting which the dace 

retains in its original brilliancy to the last. 

Between dace and chub, and any other fish of the same 

1 Lcuciscus rnlârii. 

2 I.euciscus ccphalits.

DACE AND CHUB. 309 

genus, no comparison can well arise, as all these latter (with 

one only exception the minnow) are what might be termed 

in one sense flat-fish, i.e. narrow across the back and compressed 

at the sides whilst the former are plump and generally round- 

shaped, so to speak, as to the body. 

The dace is the type fish of the genus Leuciscus, which con- 

tains, in addition to the chub, the roach, the rudd, the bleak, 

and the minnow, and from its game qualities when hooked is 

well worthy of the fisherman's notice. It is a bright, graceful 

fish, glancing about in the clear quiet streams with which the 

southern counties of England especially abound, and which are 

often barren of trout or salmon. Moreover, it is in full season 

in October, November, December, and January, when trout 

and salmon are spawning or preparing for the process, and thus 

a red-letter day's sport is often to be obtained, which would 

As a 

otherwise have had to be left blank in the angler's diary. 

live bait for pike, also, it is especially worthy of notice, its 

scaling being brilliant so as to be easily seen in thick water, 

and its entire appearance glittering and attractive. 

The dace rises freely at the artificial fly, and I have gene- 

rally 

' 

found that a small red or black gnat ' 

will kill as well as 

anything. Some good dace fishermen assert that the fly becomes 

more irresistible by the addition of a small gentle on 

the point of the hook, especially when the fish are rising 'shy.' 

I strongly recommend the Turned-down Eyed hooks 

manufactured under my name, by Messrs. Harrison and 

Bartleet, of Redditch for chub- and dace-flies as well as 

trout-flies. The engravings represent the hooks both turned- 

up eyed and turned-down 1 

eyed but it ; 

is the turned-down 

eyes that I use myself, and the advantages of which I 

can hardly too strongly advocate. 

think I 

These hooks are specially constructed for attachment to the 

casting line by the 'jam knot,' which I introduced to the public 

1 My bend of hooks are made as well ' 

eyed,' as without eyes for lapping 

on to gut on the old system ; and both can be obtained from Messrs. Farlow, 

191 Strand, London.


in the columns of the Fishing Gazette. Who was the actual 

inventor I am unaware. Diagrams of the knot (here repeated 

'JAM KNOT' ATTACHMENT FOR Tl'RNED-EYKD HOOKS. 

for the convenience of the reader), and instructions for tying 

it, are appended. Fig. i shows the fly (enlarged), and the 

'jam' knot in act of being tied 

EYED HOOKS. 

17 16 15 11 13 12 11 10 8 7 

' 

first position '; fig. 2 is the 

' 

I'ATTKKN. 

u u U 

1 00 OUU ODD UU 1 23 -1 

'I'l.VM I.I.-SM-.i K" PATTI.RN. 

completed 'jam knot 'on a hare honk, mngnified ; and fig. 3 

a facsimile of the lly, actual si/e, with the knot finished, and 

attached to the casting-line. 

The verbal formula fur tying the Jam Knot is as follows :


First. Take the fly by the bend in the position shown, with the 

two or three inches of the end 

eye turned upwards (fig. l) ; pass 

of the gut casting-line, B (previously well moistened) through the 

eye, towards the point of the hook, and then, letting go the fly alto- 

gether, double back the gut and make a single slip-knot, C, round 

the centre link, D. 

Secondly. Draw the slip-knot tight enough only to admit of its 

just passing freely over the hook-eye, and then run it down to, and 

over, the said eye, when on gradually tightening (pulling) the central 

link the 'jam knot' is automatically formed. 

In addition to its extreme simplicity, by which fly 'pro- 

and all other adventitious aids are entirely dispensed 

tectors ' 

with, this method of fastening has the advantage of very great 

rapidity I find I can make the attachment of the fly to the 

casting-line complete in thirty-five seconds. 

The duration of the natural 'life' of an artificial fly espe- 

cially of a large fly attached to one of my turned-down eyedhooks 

by the 'jam knot,' is at least as 3 or 4 to i in comparison 

with a fly lapped on to gut in the ordinary way. Indeed I have 

used the same chub-fly throughout the whole of a hard day's 

fishing, 

' 

order at the end of 

' 

and it has been still in working 

it. Two days before writing these lines I thus used one fly 

from morning till dusk, taking seventeen chub with :t, and 

whipping under boughs nearly the whole time. 

Even more important, however, than the foregoing advan- 

tages, great as they undeniably are, is, in my opinion, the 

freedom enjoyed by fly-fishers who use eyed hooks from the 

necessity of attaching fresh links of gut always dry, often glittering 

from newness, and generally of a different substance from 

the rest of the casting line at the very point where extreme fine- 

ness, harmony of colour, and equality of taper and thickness are 

most desirable.' Then again there is the saving of all subsequent 

loss of time not to say of temper in ' 

sucking,' or otherwise 

moistening, the newly added gut-link, without which it cannot 

be used unless at the risk of flicking off the fly at the first cast. . . . 

I claim to present the remedy for these manifold and ad- 

mitted evils in a form at once so complete and simple as to

312 


bring it within the practical reach of all ; and in the words of 

an enthusiastic friend to have thereby ' 

confened upon trout- 

fishers the greatest boon since the invention of the artificial fly.' 

Another experienced trout-fisher, whc has given my system 

a thorough trial, writes : 

'The "Jam Knot" is the simplest, and probably the strongest 

fastening for trout- and grayling-flies ever invented ; whilst at the 

same time owing to the hook-eye having only to be large enough 

to pass the gut once through it it is also the smallest and the neatest. 

1 

77/i? combination of your Turned-Down eyed hooks ivith the 

"Jam Knot" produces an absolutely perfect attachment^ andfinally solves the great Eyed Hook problem? 

In venturing to quote this laudatory expression of opinion 

I would be understood to in no sense derogate from, or mi- 

nimise the important labours of Mr. H. S. Hall and other able 

explorers and pioneers 

in the same direction labours which 

entitle them to our gratitude. But for their good work the 

present combination would probably never have been arrived 

at at least in our time. After saying this, however, the 

fact remains that of all existing systems of eyed-hooks, none 

owing to one defect or another has been generally adopted, 

or seems likely to be so ; whereas I am sanguine enough to 

believe that in a few years the turned-down eyed hooks I have 

elaborated and the Jam Knot attachment by whomsoever originally 

invented, but certainly perfected by Mr. Campbell's admi- 

rable discovery will have become universal all over the world. 

The following extract from a highly-practical letter, published 

in the Fislting Gazette of June 6, 1885, under the signature 

of ' 

Blue Upright,' and entitled 'Mr. Pcnnell's Turned-down 

Eyed Trout-hooks,' corroborates my own experience : [Having, 

the writer says, tested them during an entire week against the 

ordinary flies lapped on to gut, 'so as to contrast them fairly,' 

he thus sums up in favour of the turned-down eyed hooks :] 

'The result of the week's fishing, during which my worst day 

was four brace and my best nine brace, is, on every point, favour- 

able to the flies tied on turnfii-doivn cycd-]woks.


I may summarise these points as follows : 

1. The flies never "flick" off. 

2. They can be changed 

half the time. 

attached and detached in less than 

3. They are stronger ; because whenever the gut gets at all 

frayed at the head it can be at once shifted (re-knotted on) whereas 

with flies lapped on gut the weakening at the head commences very 

soon, especially after catching a few fish, and any change involves 

sacrificing the fly , consequently the fly is, in many cases, used long 

after it has become weak. ... I have not met with an instance of 

the knot slipping. 

4. The turned-down eyed hooks appear to me to hook more fish 

in proportion to rises, and to lose fewer fish after being hooked.' 

These hooks have lately been adopted for float- and sea-, as 

well as fly-fishing ; and I have used them myself for Gudgeon, 

Rudd, Chub, Perch, Mackerel, Whiting, and Flat-fish, with 

perfect success. The following is the knot for attaching the 

line to the bare hook : 

KNOT FOR ATTACHMENT TO BAKE HOOK. 

Push the end of the gut-line through the eye, in the direction of 

the hook-point, and run the hook up the line, to be out of the way ; 

then make a noose the common running noose, with a slip-knot, 

fig. I at the end of the gut, and passing it over the hook, 'lasso- 

wise,' fig. 2, draw in the slack of the noose and pull tight, fig. 3. 

Of baits to be used with the float the dace prefers, in most 

cases, a small red-worm ; gentles, paste, caddis-worms, &c., 

are, however, not uncommonly taken. The tackle should be 

of the lightest : very fine gut line, No. i hook, and light float, 

say No. i or No. 2, according to the strength and depth of 

the stream. 

.

3i 4 


On some of the shallows above and beyond Richmond, I 

had in bygone years very good sport with the dace, using the 

artificial fly ; 

and at Twickenham dace-fishing appears to be still 

a profitable pursuit, to judge by the following account of a suc- 

cession of takes in the neighbourhood during the last season by 

Mr. R. A. Banfield, of the Clapham Junction Angling Society : 

I fished on fifteen days ranging from August 26, 1883, till 

February 10, 1884, my total take during that time being 107 Ibs. 

4^ ozs., an average of 7 Ibs. 2^ ozs. The best take was on the 

first-mentioned date, viz., 17 Ibs. 10 ozs., the whole being dace, with 

the exception of 13 ozs. of roach. . . . The lowest day's take was 

on November n,viz., I Ib. 4 ozs. 

The dace spawns about June in most, or, at any rate, in 

many rivers. In the Teme they come up in great shoals, and 

at this time are often caught by the net, as it is desired to keep 

down as much as possible the stock of coarse fish. 

The principal Characteristics of the Dace are : The whole 

length of the fish, body, head, and tail-fin being considered as 

5, the length of the head alone is about as i. Depth of body, 

about same as length of head Back fin commencing half-way 

between point of nose and end oft. fleshy portion of tail. Tail 

fin small and a good deal forked. Scales smaller than those of 

chub, 50 in lateral line. Colour : back, dark olive or brownish 

green, becoming rapidly silver on the side. Belly, white. 

Cheeks, gill covers, and eyes silvery, with a touch of bronze. 

Pectoral fins, pale pinkish, sometimes nearly green. Ventral 

fins, ditto. Anal fin, pale greenish-white, sometimes with very 

slight tinge of red. Back fin and tail fin, same colour as 

back. 

Of the chub as a 'sporting' fish, less can probably be said 

with truth than of the dace. It is not so mettlesome or gamesome, 

but it grows to a far greater size, and has the merit of 

taking the artificial fly kindly. 

As its specific name 'the headed dace' implies, the chub is 

somewhat slow and clumsy in its movements and appearance, 

though, withal, a stately and handsome fish when large and in 

good conditiou , but I cannot but think that the fashion with


old writers of painting him as a sort of water-donkey, must 

have either lacked sufficient foundation, or else that the chub 

of our ancestors were somehow different from those with which 

we are acquainted. 

For one thing I can vouch that a fish of quicker sight 

than the chub does not swim in English waters. The slightest 

gleam of the rod the shadow of the swallow flitting over his 

quiet corner and down he goes like lead ; so quickly, in fact, 

that the eye is rather conscious he is no longer there, than 

Add to this extreme quickness of 

aware of his disappearance. 

perception the woody nature of the haunts in which he is to be 

found, and the fact that the successful chub fisher must be 

prepared to cast his fly to within a few inches of the boughs 

often into a space the size of his hat under penalty of losing 

either his fish or his tackle, and it will be conceded that the 

task is no easy one. In fact, in this school not a few of the 

masters of the craft have passed their apprenticeship. A 

gentleman who is a most successful chub fisher on the Thames, 

and who- recently gained a prize offered by the Piscatorial 

Society, in consequence of the very heavy baskets which he had 

made, informed me that, by covering his face and head with 

some sort of mask he was enabled to look over the edge of the 

bank unperceived, and could thus guide his bait into the jaws 

of the fish he wished to catch, and watch them take it. If he 

attempted the same process unmasked, the fish were instantly 

alarmed and ceased biting or made off altogether. 

When once hooked, and the first powerful rush for the boughs 

checked, the chub very seldom escapes, having remarkably tough 

and gristly jaws, or being, as it is termed, 'leather mouthed.' 

The best flies are black and red palmers and Marlow buzzes, 

varied according to the state of the water, weather, c., and both 

are greatly improved by the addition of a small piece of white 

leather, or a gentle, on the point, or rather bend, of the hook. 

I can also recommend a chub fly, which I have christened 

the 'sweep' a name that may be interpreted in either of 

two ways. The formula for dressing it is as follows : Body 

of 

black ostrich herl, and tail of white or satin coloured ostrich herL

316 


In regard 

Legs of black hackle, as long as the body of the fly. 

to this, as also to palmers and Marlow buzzes, the size of the 

hook on which they should be dressed must depend on a great 

variety of local considerations, not the least being the size of 

the chub which it is expected to encounter. As a rule, a larger 

fly may be used after dusk, and the brighter the day the smaller 

should be the fly employed. 

The natural grasshopper may also be used like a fly and 

especially with a few gentles on the point ot the hook is a very 

deadly bait for chub. Both with this and with the artificial fly 

plenty of time should be allowed the fish to get the hook well 

into his mouth before striking, as he is much more deliberate in 

his movements than any other fish usually taken with the fly. 

Not more than one fly at a time should ever be used. 

The brightest days with the most sun and least wind are 

generally the most favourable for fly-fishing for chub, which are 

then basking on the shallows or near the surface of the water in 

a position from which the fly can be readily perceived. 

The artificial caterpillar, with two or three gentles, or more, 

according to size, on the hook-point, and leaded so as to sink 

slowly, is a very deadly bait, especially in deep waters, 

as is 

also, towards dusk, a natural caterpillar, cockchafer, or grass- 

hopper, used ' 

by dipping or dapping ' 

over the bushes. The arti- 

ficial sinking bait has this immense advantage, however, that it 

may be thrown as a fly and does not require constantly renewing. 

Mr. Henry Cox, of Guildford, who has given special atten- 

tion to chub fishing, informs me that the best bait, according to 

his experience, is an artificial black slug, natural size, leaded and 

used as above described for the artificial caterpillar. This was 

the bait also which was used by a friend of Mr. Cox's, who made 

the biggest baskets of chub ever seen on the Thames, and 

caught the biggest fish. 

For bottom- fishing and ground-baiting for chub, the best 

baits, as well as ground baits, are those recommended for bream 

and barbel fishing. Minnows are also not unfrequently a killing 

bait in the earlier part of summer when the chub is to be


found in the sharpest and swiftest streams, into which it rushes 

to recover its strength after the spawning exhaustion of May. 

In June and July it moves into deeper waters, especially 

below banks hung with trees or bushes, and will be there found 

until October or November when it takes up its winter quarters 

in quiet swims, under willow beds, amongst roots, by sunken 

piles, or in any other cover affording good 

shelter. At this 

period the fly ceases to be of much use, and ground fishing 

takes its place, for which purpose I can speak very highly of 

cheese paste (vide p. 232). 

A winter bait which has found many advocates of late yeans 

is the 'pith' or spinal marrow of a bullock or cow, with 

bullock's brains as ground bait, as described at p. 234. In 

the ' Modern Practical Angler,' I have observed that, ' 

For 

this mode of chub-fishing the colder the weather the better, 

provided only that the water is not discoloured. The pith 

should be used with Nottingham tackle, so as to fish the 

stream for fourteen or fifteen yards down, the most favourable 

position being deepish water close to ' 

boughs and rooty ' 

banks. 

The bait should swim about three or four inches from the 

bottom, as nearly as may be, the brains being thrown in from 

time to time above the swim. In this mode of fishing it is not 

advisable to bait any one swim beforehand, as chub are shy fish 

and it is seldom that more than two or three can be taken out 

of the same place without scaring the rest ; consequently it is 

better to move from place to place, throwing in a small quantity 

of ground bait at each. By this mode of fishing the largest 

chub are to be taken ; and when used by skilful hands, I have 

known a punt well to be half filled with fish. 

The following correspondence on the subject of ox brains 

and pith as bait, took place sorne^ years ago in the columns of 

the Field) between ' 

Greville F.' and the editor. As the corre- 

spondence, besides giving some valuable hints, presents the pros 

and cons of the question in a picturesque way, I here quote it. 

Sir In reply to ' 

E. R.,' in notices to correspondents in last week's 

Field the : following paragraph appears 'We never used it, as one

3i8 


of the first directions given by those who use it is to chew it and 

spit it into the water as ground bait and as we had an intolerable 

; 

aversion to chewing raw material of this kind, we never got any 

further with it.' Now, Mr. Editor, every angler will know by this announcement 

what is meant, and that it is an unequivocal denounce- 

ment of the uses of ox brains and ' 

pith ' 

as a bait for chub. Anglers, 

in verity, have quite enough to refute on the score of habits scarcely 

refined, when the impalement of worms, frogs, gentles, beetles, 

snails, and even cockroaches, is in question ; but it is a leetle too 

bad to add to this category of uncleanly handlings that of a process 

hitherto confined to Otaheite. Too hot to eat these brains may 

sometimes be ; for let me tell you, in spite of the italicised 

' 

raw,' they are first boiled, and many an Italian considers them, 

with the accompaniment of a little melted butter, as fine a dish as 

is brought to table. I know of no work where the instructions are 

that these brains should be masticated in a raw state : and if any 

exist, the writer must have been wholly ignorant at the time that they 

would be useless, for the simple reason that they could not be 

separated by the teeth into that state of fineness of particles 

necessary to form the most tempting ground bait if that can be 

called so that does not sink that was ever offered to a chub. But 

as some doubt does exist upon this subject, let me, for the sake of 

decency, first remove the prejudice against this bait entering the 

mouth of the most fastidious. I have here a recipe from my late 

friend M. Soyer, who, it will be admitted, was not altogether an 

unaristocratic gastronome : 

' 

Lay the brains in lukewarm water to 

disgorge, then carefully take off all the skin : put about a quarter of 

a pound of butter in a sautd pan, rub all over the bottom, cut the 

brains in slices, lay them in the pan, and season according to liking. 

Many prefer the brains as a dish by itself, plain boiled, and merely 

flavoured with salt, pepper, and perhaps a slice of lemon.' Here, 

then, we have the luncheon prepared for the chub, minus the condiments. 

They arc not raw, as stated, but scrupulously cleaned 

and skinned. Many a poor man gets a worse dinner, and there are 

well-fed fishermen on the Thames puntsmcn spoiled by over in- 

dulgence who labour under a shrewd suspicion that, when they recommend 

brains, it is one word for the chub and two for themselves. 

My only personal objection to their use is dental and if it be so in 

; 

others, they must choose their fishermen like a horse, by his teeth. 

When Colonel S. first saw 'Nottingham George' go through this 

process, and witnessed the cargo of chub that was brought to punt 

by its application, he is said to have astonished the company at dinner


at the palace in the evening by accounting for his fatigue with the 

statement that, while he was fishing, a man in the same punt 'blew 

out his brains' the surprise being only allayed when his friends 

were assured that the fellow did it for his living. In using brains, 

the essential is that the particles should be so minute that they 

should be capable of being extensively dispersed upon the water. 

If too large, the chub would be satisfied with this gratuitous offering, 

and not come to the hook Master Chub being somewhat like the 

guest of Count Beauflitte, an eminent gourmand 

of Louis XIV.'s 

reign, who, objecting to the fricassee not being sufficiently minced, 

was answered, ' 

Oui, je pense la denture de mon chef actuel n'est pas 

si bonne que celle de mon dernier.' But what is ' 

pith ' 

? This is 

simply the spinal marrow of the ox, which requires some little skill to 

manipulate for the hook, and is the bonne bouche of the repast, the 

brains being but an appetising whet or preparation. It will be 

found that after the pith is taken from the vertebras it possesses two 

skins. The outer one, which if boiled would be too tough for the 

hook to penetrate, is removed by first cutting the tube the entire 

length on one side with a sharp pair of scissors, and then with the 

finger and thumb pulling it off the pith, which is now perfectly 

white, but when boiled for a few minutes the inner skin becomes 

brown, and is then consistent enough to hold on to the hook. 

This is, perhaps, the most killing bait for chub in the winter 

months, even when the snow is on the ground, that has ever been discovered. 

'The Angler's Instructor ' 

on this head says: 'Bullock's 

brains, when nicely cleaned and cooked, are as white as a curd, and 

fully as sweet to eat as sheep's brains. The renowned " Bendigo " 

when he goes chub fishing and he is no novice at this game 

takes half a hatful with him, and he is obliged to chew the brains 

before he throws them in ; 

nor can he prevent, as he says, a portion 

going down his throat, they are so sweet : so, you see, he fishes 

with one part and swallows the other. Two heads of brains are 

quite sufficient for a day's chub fishing.' If, however, you have an 

epicure in the punt with you, it may be well to provide accordingly, 

or you may find yourself brainless before half the day is over. 

GREVILLE F. 

[The process of chewing ox-brains, whether cooked or raw, and 

sputtering them into the water all day long for ground bait is cer- 

tainly Cat least in our opinion) one which might raise an objection 

to the use of such a bait on the part of any angler troubled with the 

slightest feelings of delicacy in the following of his amusement.

320 


Perhaps we are over-fastidious, but we cannot help thinking that, 

even at the expense of a slight reduction in the weight of our bag, 

we should prefer some other bait. We fancy we know something 

about chub fishing, having made some tremendous bags of them 

in our time ; and if chub are in the least inclined to feed, we do not 

believe that the superiority of brains over greaves or cheese, &c. 

would be so great as to make it worth our while to undergo such a 

process. We might like to eat ox-brains cooked we cannot ; say, 

however, for certain, as we never tried them. We do like sweet- 

breads, for example, but we might have a well-founded objection 

to chew them and spit them in the water all day. It is perhaps a 

' 

matter of taste after all, and 'Nottingham George and the renowned 

' 

Bendy,' though no doubt capital fishermen, are hardly the Mentors 

whom we should select to instruct us on a matter of that kind. As 

regards the question of cooked or raw, we certainly have seen it 

recommended that they should be masticated raw, and we well 

remember that precisely the same objection was raised to them as 

we have made. We believe that a short correspondence embracing 

these points took place in the Field some years ago ; and we well 

recollect, that the answer of the advocate for chewing the brains raw 

was that ' 

they were very sweet.' As we have said, we never used 

them, having an objection to them, as already expressed ; and per- 

chronicled our want 

haps it would have been better to have simply 

of experience, instead of adding thereto the reasons for it. We 

fear that even now, when we do know they are to be cooked, that 

want of experience is likely to continue, unless, indeed, our friend 

' 

(ireville F.' has any sympathy with the puntsman whom he quotes, 

and would really like to do the masticating and blowing part of the 

process for us ; in which case we will test the infallibility of the bait 

with the greatest pleasure. ED. Field.'] 

Table of Comparative IVcigJits and Lengths of Chub. 

Length.


The chub usually spawns in May or in the latter end of 

April, selecting for th:s purpose a shallow gravelly bottom 

under weeds. After the spawning process it is supposed to be 

ready to bite almost immediately. 1 The taking, however, of this 

or any other species immediately after spawning is an unworthy 

practice which should be discouraged by all true sportsmen, as 

the fish are then weak, ravenous, and more or less unfit for 

food. 

Although, as observed, the dace appears to be a -purely 

river fish or, at any rate, cannot thrive or breed freely in waters 

that are absolutely stagnant, I have reason to believe that the 

chub will do both. Mr. Cox mentioned to me a pond at 

Finchley, the name of which has now escaped me, in which it 

was evident that chub must have bred, as those put into the 

pond were all large fish, and specimens were subsequently 

caught under half-a-pound. In another pond, at Guildford, 

having a stream through it in winter though stagnant between 

spring and autumn, chub throve and grew, but did not breed. 

It seems probable, therefore, that no absolute rule upon the 

subject can be laid down, and that the extent to which chub 

will thrive and breed in stagnant and semi-stagnant waters 

depends upon a variety of local conditions, food, &c., that 

cannot be precisely formularised. The same observation applies 

to gudgeon which, while sometimes breeding by thousands 

in ponds with a current occasionally running through 

them, in others, apparently quite as well adapted for them, 

become infertile. 

The following recipes for making the chub a palatable dish 

may be of interest to those who like, on principle, to have all 

the fish they catch cooked, and, if practicable, eaten . 

After being scaled and cleaned, they should be cut open like 

haddocks, well peppered all over, and then a good handful of salt 

rubbed in ; let them lie in this all night. In the morning hang 

them up in the sun all day, to let them dry ; fry them in the 

evening, with as little lard or butter as practicable, and eat them 

II. 

1 Daily's Angler's Instructor. 

Y

322 


cold for breakfast. If you try it, I think you will say they 

are an 

excellent relish for breakfast, and nearly as good as anchovies. 

The secret lies in well drying them in the sun, and eating them 

cold. 

Another angler lately wrote to the Field : 

Although the chub is generally a much despised fish, 

he is 

capable during the days of winter, the colder and more frosty 

the weather the better, of being elevated to a dish by no means 

despicable. At a dinner recently I was 'helped twice' from a plat 

of this fish, not knowing what it was composed of, and being in- 

its delicious flavour to commit this solecism. When 

duced by 

told that I had been regaling so earnestly upon chub from a neighbouring 

stream, and expressing my desire for the recipe, my hostess 

very kindly upon my quitting gave me the following, telling me at 

the same time she had received it, while residing in Italy, from a 

Jewish family : 

' Take four or five large onions, boil them until they 

take the back bone 

give to the pressure of the spoon, slice them ; 

out of the fish, and cut it, if large, into pieces of 3 in. or 4 in. ; 

strew equally over the bottom of a stew-pan a little ginger in 

powder, salt and pepper ; place the fish on these, and almost cover 

the fish with fresh water, then the sliced onions over all ; put the 

lid on close, and let it simmer gently till all is done. While this is 

proceeding beat up the yolks of four eggs, with a good quantity 

of parsley chopped very fine, and a little of the liquor from the 

stew-pan, and while it is amalgamating, squeeze the juice from two 

lemons into it, very gradually, or the juice will curdle the egg. 

Take up the fish with the onions upon it in a deep dish, and pour 

the mixture over it.' I ought to add that I tasted the dish again 

when cold next morning at breakfast, and that it had lost nothing of 

its relish, and I do not think that many who sat down before it with- 

out prejudice would come to any other than such a favourable con- 

clusion. Perhaps vinegar instead of lemon might cheapen the dish, 

but as the recipe is given, it may be classed as economical. 

The principal CJiaracteristics of The 

the Chub are : 

whole 

length of the fish, body, head, and tail fin being considered 

as 5, the length of the head alone is a little more than as i. 

Depth of body, a little greater than length of head, which is 

rather blunt at the nuix/le. Back fin commencing half-way 

between point of nose and extremity of tail fin, and rather


nearer the tail ; hinder margin of this fin and anal fin convex. 

Tail fin large and somewhat forked. Scales very large ; 44 or 

45 in the lateral line. Colour : all the upper part 

of the back and 

back fin dark brownish green or olive-brown, the margin of each 

scale being darker than the rest. Belly silvery-white. Sides, 

when young, silvery, becoming more golden or bronzed towards 

the back, and darker and more bronzed as the fish attains 

maturity. Tail fin in adult specimens dark brown almost black 

in stripes, and with still darker margin. Pectorals, bronzy olive- 

green. Ventral and anal fins, bright reddish pink. Cheeks 

and gill covers, golden yellow. Irides golden-greeny bronze. 

y 2

324 


GUDGEON^ AND BLEAK* 

APART from the interest which bleak and gudgeon possess as 

baits to the pike and trout fisher, they are by no means without 

attractions of their own, from an angling point of view, and 

certainly any treatise on British sporting fish and fishing in 

which they did not figure would be incomplete. 

At this point, however, all common bond of union between 

the two species ends. Indeed, it would be difficult to hit upon 

two fish whose appearance, habits, and habitats are more totally 

dissimilar. The gudgeon, like the barbel, is essentially a 

ground feeder ; the bleak, on the contrary, is most frequently 

to be seen glancing about either actually on or quite close to 

the surface of the water. In shape the body of the former is 

cylindrical, and that of the latter almost flat, whilst the olivebrown 

head, back, and sides of the gudgeon, with their black 

spotting, contrast forcibly with the silver and white scalure of 

the bleak, which at its darkest point (on the top of the back) 

presents no more sombre tint than the palest of bluish greens. 

Their food, of course, differs in the same way according to 

their different habitats, and as the result of this 'similarity of 

difference,' it is probable that if one were to fish for the bleak 

from one year's end to another with the tackle appropriate to 

the gudgeon, and rice versa, he would not take a solitary tish. 

In its shape, it has been observed, the bleak contrasts 

remarkably with the cylindrical body of the gudgeon. It may, 

one of our fresh 

however, be added that the bleak is the only 

vater fish which is in shape narrow as well as flat. Rudd, 

1 Cobio/lui ia/i,'is, 

* Lcuciscus Alburnits.

GUDGEON AND BLEAK. 325 

roach, and bream are all more or less flattened or compressed 

at the sides, but then they are also broad i.e., deep from the 

back to the belly 

and in this particular show a striking contrast 

to the bleak, which is almost sprat-like in appearance. 

The bleak is so common throughout England and in most 

rivers producing roach and dace, that a detailed description of 

its appearance would be superfluous. It is a very playful and 

sportive fish, and on a summer's evening may be seen perpetually 

darting about and leaping at the midges which would fain 

flit out their three hours' existence over their native stream. 

Whipping for bleak used to be a favourite amusement with 

our ancestors, and even with the classical anglers of ancient 

times : 

Ouis non et virides vulgi solatia Tineas 

Norit, et ALBURNOS praedam puerilibus hamis? 

By the young Etonians of the present day, however, bleak- 

catching is voted infra dig., and the little fish is seldom molested 

unless for the purpose of bait. 

Its name, bleak, which has reference to its shining white 

scales, is taken from a northern word signifying to bleach or 

whiten blik (Danish), blick (Swedish and German), 'glance,' 

' 

glimmer.' 

Its brilliant scalure appeared, some years ago, not unlikely 

to lead to its total extinction. A silvery pigment is found 

on the under surface of the scales from which they derive their 

metallic lustre ; 

and this colouring matter was universally used 

in the bead trade for imparting a pearly tint to their wares. 

So great at one time was the demand, when the fashion of 

wearing imitation pearls was at its height, that the price 

of a 

quart measure of scales varied from one or two guineas to five. 

At one factory alone, in Paris, 10,000 pearls were issued per 

of scales cost 

week ; and when it is considered that each pound 

the lives of 4,000 fish, and that this pound only produced 4 oz. of 

pigment, some estimate of the destruction effected amongst the 

bleak may be formed The Thames fishermen gave themselves

326 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE F1SIL 

no trouble beyond stripping off these valuable appendages, 

throwing away the fish when scaled. Roach and dace, and 

some other fish also furnished a colouring substance, though of 

an inferior quality, the best of all being procured from the 

white-bait ; and it was the regular custom amongst hawkers, 

before selling any 'white fish,' as they were termed, to supply 

the bead-makers with their scales. 

The method of obtaining and using the pigment was, first 

by washing and then scraping the scales, until the colouring 

matter descended to the bottom of the vessel in the form of a 

small tubes and 

pearly precipitate, whence it was removed by 

beads of various sizes. These 

injected into thin hollow glass 

were then spread on sieves, and dried in a current of air. If 

greater solidity appeared to be necessary, a further injection of 

melted wax was resorted to. 

At present the material for making the artificial pearls is 

supplied by the swimming bladder of the Argentine or Tiber 

pearl fish. The bladders are placed in spirits of wine, and 

when required for use, are taken out and steeped in a solution 

of isinglass until all the pearly particles have been detached, 

the method of injection being as before. 

It occasionally happens to the angler to catch pearls ready 

made. These are found in the large river mussel, which, as is 

well known, will not unfrequently swallow a worm or other 

ground bait, taking so fast a hold with its shell lips as to be 

fairly hoisted out of the river's bed and basketed. An instance 

recently occurred near Tweed Mill, Coldstream, where a boy, 

who was worm fishing for trout in the Chapel Brook, caught a 

mussel four inches long and two broad, containing no less than 

forty fine pearls of different sizes, some of which were thought 

to be worth ten shillings each. 

It has several times happened to me to take mussels whilst 

fishing ; but, cither owing to my want of luck or lack of inquisitiveness, 

I have hitherto discovered nothing in them more 

valuable than mud. There is another species of mussel, never, 

I believe, found on these shores, called the 'nacre,' from which


mother-of-pearl is procured ; this shell-fish grows to the length 

of two feet, and according to Oppian, enters into co-partnership 

with a small species of crab, which permanently resides within 

its shell, and in return for this lodging accommodation caters 

for the ' 

board ' 

of both parties. 

Pearl-fishing is often a very productive industry on theTayand 

other Scotch rivers, such as the Earn, Isla, Lochy, and Dockart. 

On the Tay it commences a little way above Scone Palace. 

The pearls are found in the shell of the common fresh water 

mussel. The fisher, armed with a long stick split at the end, 

wades into the water till he reaches the mussel beds. Lifting 

up the shells one by one with the stick, he transfers them to a 

bag which he wears. The great purity of the water enables 

him to choose the shells which he may reckon most likely to 

suit his purpose. After his bag is filled he comes to the bank, 

and sitting down opens the shells with a knife, examining them 

carefully before he tosses them back into the water. Sometimes 

he may open hundreds and find nothing ; at other times pearls 

of great value are found, worth as much as io/., i5/., or 

even 2o/., and some years ago a young lad got one in a small 

river, a tributary of the Tay, which was shortly afterwards 

sold in London for ico/. Pearl fishing is by no means an 

unpleasant employment for a fine summer's day, and it is 

only then it can be prosecuted 

when the waters are low and 

clear. 

Of one mode of catching bleak I have already spoken in 

the note which Mr. Senior has embodied in his article, 'Roach 

fishing as a fine art.' This is the most certain way of taking 

bleak that I am acquainted with. The method is to use a 

single gentle at the end of a very fine casting line, without shot, 

and with a piece of cork the size of a pea, to serve as a sort 

of float three or four feet above the bait a few gentles or 

soaked Iran also being from 

time to time scattered into the 

river to attract the fish. The hook should be small enough to 

be entirely concealed in the gentle. A light fly rod is the most 

agreeable as well as most effective weapon.

328 


In this fishing it is well to select a swim where the fish are 

actually rising, which they are pretty sure to be if they are there 

at all, and if they appear to be following the bran or gentles 

down the stream the angler should do the same and always 

cast where he sees most rises. Wherever bleak are tolerably 

plentiful a good dish, or a good can full, as the case may be, 

can generally be obtained, and those the finest. Dressed and 

eaten like white-bait and thoroughly browned over a sharp fire 

bleak make a fairly good dish, especially if a squeeze of lemon 

be added. It is a sine qua non, however, that they should be 

eaten straight off the fire, and that they should be well dredged 

with plenty of salt and pepper whilst they are in the process of 

frying. In fact, the latter prescription holds good in all sorts of 

fish-cookery, and is especially true of gudgeon, which cooked in 

the same way, is even better fare, or, as some old writer describes 

him, 'a dish fit to fatten a king.' 

I once knew a great fish epicure who was so devoted to this 

dish that he never went out gudgeon-fishing without taking 

with him in the punt a 'travelling kitchen range,' consisting of 

a small frying pan on a frame over a spirit lamp, and ate his 

gudgeon and sometimes his dace also (scaled, N.B.) as the 

piece de resistance for luncheon. This connoisseur considered 

the dace almost the best fresh water fish for the table. Bleak 

also, he spoke very highly of, and was of opinion that when 

fried just out of water they are actually better than gudgeon. 

Not even my friend's cookery, however, could enable him to 

stomach roach. 

Another enthusiastic writes : 

' 

In a gastronomic point of 

view, the Gobio Jim 'iatilis gives precedence to none: a fry of 

fat gudgeon, eaten piping hot, with a squce/e of lemon juice, is 

a dish " to set before the king," and as superior to anything 

that Greenwich or Blackwall can produce, as Moet's cham- 

pagne is to gooseberry pop.' 

'John Williamson, gent.,' (temp. 1740) who seems to have 

had a keen eye to the good things of this life, writes of the 

gudgeon that he is 'commended for a fish of an excellent


nourishment, easy of digestion, and increasing good blood'. 

adding, 

in fine : 

Though little art the gudgeon may suffice, 

His sport is good, and with the greatest vies ; 

Few lessons will the angler's use supply 

Where he's so ready of himself to die ; 

For if no heats or flashes interpose, 

His prize he'll hold, and yours you cannot lose. 

Even as a cure for desperate diseases, the is gudgeon not 

\vithouthisencomiasts : passim an author who wrote a ' 

History 

of Fishes' in 1772, and who says (p. 113), that he 'is tender and 

delicate, and by many swallowed alive, being thought good for 

a consumption.' ... It is to be presumed, however, that the 

fish to be thus disposed of were not of the same size as the 

four from Uxbridge to which he refers immediately afterwards 

as ' 

weighing a pound ' 

each. 

Galloway, the fisherman of Chertsey, tells, I remember, a 

mighty gudgeon fishers,' who 

good story of two old gentlemen, ' 

' 

were in the habit of betting heavily on their respective 

takes,' 

till at last, the old fellow who almost always won, was discovered 

with a silk casting net stowed away under the boards of his punt ! 

This old gentleman, by the way, lived at Hampton ; and it is 

curious how many H's there are scattered up and down the 

Thames Hampton, Hailiford, Harleyford, Hurley, Henley, 

all beginning with the eighth letter of the alphabet, and all 

redolent of gudgeon-fishing which its votaries maintain to be par 

excellence the sport of the poet and the philosopher. 

The only mode of fishing for gudgeon is on the bottom, 

this being his invariable habitat, and here he feeds on worms, 

insects, larvae, spawn of other fish, and such matters, so that 

when angling it is usual to rake the bed of the river in order 

that the fish may be attracted to the spot by the animalculse, 

blood worms, &c., which are disturbed in the operation. These 

blood worms, often found by thousands on the surface of mud, 

seem to be formed often or twelve connected globes, diminishing 

in size towards the tail. The mouth is the largest part, and

330 


appears to be perpetually wide open, with three little prongs or 

forks protruding. In colour the whole creature is of a bright 

crimson, and its structure, which is always sufficiently curious, 

becomes positively beautiful when placed under the magnifying 

glass. Near Whitehall Stairs the surface of the mud has a deep 

reddish tint, owing to the innumerable quantity of blood worms ; 

and it is the common superstition that this appearance was never 

seen before the decapitation of Charles I. 

Blood worms, however, are impossible, or next to impossible, 

to bait with, from their extreme smallness, and practically the 

best bait for gudgeon is the tail of a small well scoured brandling ; 

the tackle used being the same as that for the roach, but with a 

size smaller hook, say, a No. 2 or 3, and the depth plumbed 

with great accuracy so that the bait may just brush along the 

bottom. It is best to strike as soon as the float is taken under 

water or held steadily down, but not when it is merely disturbed 

by nibblings. No ground bait is commonly used for gudgeonfishing, 

and if there be any which is really of any use it will be 

found quite inferior to the process of raking above recommended. 

A long heavy iron rake, especially suited for the purpose, is 

generally kept by every Thames puntsman in his boat. A gravelly 

bottom with a depth of from 4 to 6 feet of water is the most 

favourable locale, and the best time of the year, summer, and 

that rather late on, as the gudgeon, as well as the bleak, spawns 

in May. 

When gudgeon-fishing it is recommended to put out a 

paternoster for jack and perch, which may both add to the 

basket on its own account, and also keep away, in the most 

effectual manner, intruders who would be otherwise likely to 

' 

spoil sport.' The gudgeon is a very bold biter, and when he 

comes on the feed will give constant work to the fisherman as 

well as to his attendant in taking off the hooked fish and re- 

baiting. Perhaps, primarily owing to its instinctive readiness 

to bite and general simplicity of behaviour, it has many ad- 

mirers amongst the fair sex, who frequently become very skilful 

in its capture. I once had the pleasure of forfeiting a pair of


gloves to a young lady who laid a wager that she would catch 

ten out of a dozen bites, ' 

nibbles included,' and actually did it. 

Notwithstanding, however, this somewhat feminine reputa- 

tion, there is no doubt that for male minds also gudgeon-fishing 

occasionally possesses a peculiar fascination ; and it is mentioned 

as a fact that the clergyman of a parish near Hampton Court, 

who was engaged to be married to a bishop's daughter, lingered 

so long over this sport as to arrive too late for the ceremony, 

whereupon the young lady refused to be united to one who pre- 

ferred his basket to his bride. 1 

I used greatly to enjoy a day's gudgeon-fishing myself in my 

schoolboy days before loftier ambitions had stepped in to throw 

my punt fishing propensities into the shade ; before I had risked 

my neck in a helter skelter rush after a 2o-lb. salmon ; exulted 

in a tussle with that grim cannibal, the pike; or, trout rod in hand, 

strolled my solitary way by the banks of the arrowy Dart 

Shut in, left alone, with myself and perfection of water. 

But at the time I speak of I was a glutton for Thames punt 

fishing, and for gudgeon fishing in particular. I remember my 

enthusiasm effervescing in a semi-jocose article to a sporting 

contemporary. If I reproduce a part of this article here, my 

apology must be that it recalls the red letter days of boyish 

existence, which cannot, alas, be lived over again ; and as I began 

my fishing experiences on the banks of the Thames, so I may 

perhaps not inappropriately conclude this book, the last I shall 

probably ever write on fishing, with a tribute to my Alma Mater. 

'Of all spots and sports, commend me to a good gravelly 

swim on the Thames in July a punt, a rake, a pretty companion 

and a day's gudgeon fishing. 

What can be more jolly ? A fellow has come back regularly 

done up, perhaps, with grind, to spend the " long " at the Grange 

one of 

with the cousins is 

(Julia 

a ward in Chancery, I fancy ?) 

those broad white houses to be found nowhere but on the banks 

of the Thames, with a skirting of pheasant cover or wooded cliff 

1 Jesse's Angler 's Rambles, p. 4.

333 


as a background, and a lawn as smooth and green as the finest 

Paris velvet, sloping down from the drawing-room steps to the 

boathouse. The moment breakfast's over, "Now then come 

" 

someone shouts and out you go through the window 

along girls ! 

or over the balcony a scamper to the boathouse, a vigorous 

shove or two with the punt pole, and in five minutes the ripecks 

are fast, and everything ready in the very perfection of a " pitch " 

not that one out there over the shallows, for the sun will soon 

have done washing his face, and in an hour will blaze up dazzling 

enough for Phaeton himself but the other, under the island 

yonder, and just within the dip of the chestnuts, where you can 

see the ''golden gravel," as Tennyson calls it, as bright as a 

new guinea. 

Splash ! in goes the rake, leaded at the end like a constable's 

staff that it may sink well out, over the swim three minutes' 

vigorous raking another for comfortably shaking down into 

places, and you are about to set to work with a will, when you 

probably discover that Blanche has broken her float, or that 

Julia's hook is off (it was yesterday !) 

. . . But floats are not 

difficult to mend, and there are more hooks than one in the 

world, so everything is soon en regie, and at it you go. 

Ha ! a bite the moment the float touches the water, bob 

souse ! you 

have him so has Julia (Blanche and Charley 

aren't baited yet) two fish in two swims that looks well ; for 

if gudgeon don't come on to bite at first, they often don't do it 

at all. 

" A pair of gloves that I catch the first dozen ? " " Done," 

and done you are, for Julia nobbles twelve unsuspecting 

ôbioncs in as many swims, before you have bagged your fifth, 

and triumphantly informs you that her si/,e is "sixes, sir." 

"Once more! come, double or quits ?" .... 

If you are lucky you possibly win ; but if you are not only 

not lucky, but in love, you lose to a dead certainty. Something 

must be wrong ; you examine your little red worm with an 

unloving and critical eye, and you find that your No. 9 Kendal 

is minus its barb! Well ! that's soon remedied: "Come,

GUDGEON AND BLEAK, 333 

another pair?" but Julia declines with thanks the proffered 

"glove," and suggests that when she accepted it before "your 

hand wasn't in." The little sharper ! Well, so she is sharper 

than you at all events ; and she might have accepted your 

challenge, sir, with the utmost safety if she had chosen to 

bleed you ; for she is one of the best gudgeon-fishers on the 

Thames, and when ladies do take in earnest to catching gudgeon, 

let me tell you they beat the lords of creation into fits. 

" 

Bless 

" 

as a Smithfield butcher once observed to me d fropos 

you ! 

of sticking pigs, " it comes nat'ral to 'em." 

But how's this? The gudgeon have all at once left off 

biting. Half-a-dozen swims without a nibble "give them 

another rake." You do, till your arms ache. But you might 

just as well give them another spade for any effect it produces. 

Stay I see ! My friend, Mr. Perca ftuviatilis, is below, and the 

process of biting, so far as the gudgeon are concerned, is taking 

a passive instead of an active form. Try him with a pater- 

noster ; whilst he stops there nothing will bite, depend upon it, 

you might as well try and tempt a snake-fascinated parroquette 

with a caterpillar ! Ha 

powers ! a big, bullying pike, 

! I have him . . . a John, by all the 

come here to make a breakfast. 

Julia, the landing net quick don't wait till he's done up, but 

pop it under him the moment you get a chance, for whilst he 

can show fight he keeps his tail towards you and his head down, 

with the gut in the corner of his great mouth where he's got no 

teeth ; but as soon as he's beaten, his mouth slews round, and 

the line will be in the breakers in a moment. So bravely 

done ! a six-pounder at the least and in capital condition. 

But what on earth can Charley and Blanche be about all 

this time ? They actually haven't begun yet ! Well, the fact 

is that Blanche and Charley have contrived to get their two 

lines into a most vigorous tangle, and somehow the juxtaposition 

of so many pair of taper fingers 

much expedited matters. 

doesn't seem to have 

But there ! What's the good of talking and making myself

334 


melancholy ? a fellow can't eat his cake and keep it ; 

it's all 

over and done with, and here I am back at my venerable 

Coach's again Homer, Horace, Livy Livy, Horace, Homer 

the old grind 1 Adieu to gudgeon and gudgeon fishing, 

Hurley Bucks, Harleyford Woods, cool breezes, murmuring 

livers, and pretty cousin Julia 

until the next long vacation.' 

Glide gently, thus for ever glide. 

O Thames ! that anglers all may see 

As lovely visions by thy side, 

As now, fair river, come to me. 

Oh, glide, fair stream, for ever so, 

Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, 

Till all our minds for ever flow 

As thy deep waters now are flowing. 

H. C.-P.

ROACH-FISHING AS A FINE ART, 

WITH A FEW WORDS ON THE RUDD. 

To describe roach-fishing as a ' 

Fine Art ' 

may, in the opinion 

of some sportsmen, be deemed an abuse of terms. I can, in 

fancy, see the smile kindly may-be, yet sardonic which flits 

across the countenance of many a reader as he scans the head- 

ing of this chapter. He puts the book down for a moment ; 

knocks the ash off his cigar ; leans back in his chair, and runs 

his eye along the wall, upon which, in the pleasant sanctum of 

the angler, hang his salmon and trout rods. 'Roach-fishing 

a fine art is it ? ' 

he mentally enquires. 

' 

Fly-fishing I know, 

spinning I understand. They are sciences, fine arts if you like, 

but roach-fishing no.' My good sir, pause awhile. Be reasonable. 

Lay yourself open to conviction. Allow yourself to be 

cross-questioned, and admit once for all that your credulity is 

the consequence of what very blunt persons say Dr. Johnson 

would call sheer ignorance, but which I will merely specify 

as defective knowledge upon the subject. Believe me that 

roach-fishing can be elevated, and is often elevated, into a very 

fine art indeed, as I will endeavour to explain before I lay down 

my stylograph. At the same time, to soothe your troubled 

soul, I have no objection in the world to admit that there has 

been an enormous amount of nonsense written about the game 

qualities of the roach, the superlative character of the sport, 

and the consummate skill required to catch the fish. It will be 

sufficient for my purpose to remark, as an ending to this intro- 

ductory paragraph, that for many reasons, roach-fishing may be 

and must be 

fairly included in a catalogue of British sports,

336 


included if such a catalogue would be complete. It is very 

far from being the highest form of the delightful pastime of fishing, 

but it is also very far from being the lowest, and when 

practised by master hands, touches that vague and limitless 

' 

region marked upon the map of estimation as Fine Art' 

The roach is a popular fish. From the frequency with 

which the phrase 'the greatest happiness for the greatest 

number ' 

appears in newspaper articles we are bound to sup- 

pose that it represents a great truth. With regard to angling, 

it must be, in all honesty, applied to the roach (Leuciscus rutHus, 

or red dace). In point of numbers there is no other description 

of British fish that makes such intimate acquaintance with 

the hook. It is the pride and joy of the school-boy. Through 

the successive stages of manhood it stands the friend of half- 

hours of leisure. Old age, debarred from the more moving 

incidents of flood, and field, and forest, sits serenely on the bank, 

and patiently watches the float on its persevering journeys 

down the favourite swim. In the neighbourhood of our large 

towns the jaded worker for small wages finds healthy and ab- 

sorbing recreation after the drudgery of .the day in his evening 

attempts upon the roach. Let the Thames, Ouse, Trent, and 

Lea, summer and winter alike, bear testimony to the vast 

supply of innocent and tranquil enjoyment furnished by this 

humble little white fish. Nor are the causes of the popularity 

of the roach difficult to discover. A few may be enumerated. 

The roach is a perennial amongst fishes. The prey of pre- 

datory pike, perch, trout, and eels, and of certain fish-eating 

birds, it sturdily declines to be annihilated. Other fish may 

succumb to disease and pollution, but the roach, though often 

sorely afflicted by both evils, lingers on long after other species 

have been driven away, or have floated lifeless to the top. It 

is a very hearty breeder, moreover, and according to a trust- 

worthy report, a single specimen has been known to produce 

8 1, 586 eggs. Then, the roach is to be found almost everywhere. 

Unless, for purposes of trout stocking, it has been netted out, 

it may be caught in most English rivers. Large or small, well-

ROACH-FISHING AS A FINE ART. 337 

bred, or degenerated by circumstances into a caricature of the 

type, it haunts our ponds and lakes. A slant of sunlight upon 

the very ditches will reveal it hurrying to cover as you approach. 

Save in the Black Country and in the inky water of manufac- 

turing districts, it thrives in the canals. A summer or two since 

I saw the surface of the Regent's Canal, at College Street, 

Camden Town, alive with roach of six inches long or there- 

abouts. It is found, in a word, not in single spies, but bat- 

talions. 

Not a little of the popularity of the roach must be 

assigned to the associations of summer connected with it. The 

majority of roach anglers are of the fair weather order. Keen 

sportsmen, of that particular degree, get their best fish in the 

winter months, but the dilettanti rank and file of the craft finish 

with October. Notwithstanding 

the Philistine sneer at the 

assertion that the beauties of Nature are a strong attraction 

for the angler, the fact remains. The meadows, woods, birds, 

bees, dragon flies, forget-me-nots, meadowsweet, and even the 

water-vole, and moorhen, enter into the vision which tempts 

the angler to the waterside. Whatever the ordinary bottom- 

angler may do, the roach-fisher who raises the pastime to the 

fine-art stage, least of all, perhaps, abandons himself to the 

glamour of the surroundings, for his attention must not be 

diverted for a moment from the serious occupation in which he 

is engaged. But he is in a minority. The bulk of English 

roach-fishers will assure you that the pleasures of the country 

are of more account to them than gross weight. And rural 

England, even the cockney portion of the Thames is, rail- 

ways and factories notwithstanding, a lovely thing indeed, from 

the June days when roach-fishing commences, onwards to the 

end of the season. A little angling, with a good deal of the 

sweet sights and sounds which it brings, is a boon to tens of 

thousands who ought to be ever grateful to the roach, which is 

their excuse and opportunity. 

Some descriptions of angling, as many of us know too well, 

are very costly in comparison with the results. Roach-fishing, 

II. Z

338 


however, is the most inexpensive. The gentlemen who habi- 

tually patronise fishing from the Thames punt will probably 

dissent from this view, and with not a little reason. But I 

regard them as the luxurious individuals of the tribe who are 

content to pay for other things than mere fishing. The ordi- 

nary roach-fisher requires but little tackle, and that of the 

cheapest character. The rod is the most serious item, though 

a few shillings 

will procure a really serviceable implement. 

Should he use a winch, the simplest form will suffice. Neither 

check nor multiplier is wanted. His line may be carried in an 

envelope. The float, shots, footline, and hooks are bought for 

a few pence. Another point to consider is the small amount 

A day's conscientious fly- 

of labour involved in roach fishing. 

fishing or spinning is downright hard work for strong shoulders. 

The roach-fisher literally takes it easy, sitting upon his basket, 

box, or chair, or if needs be upon the bankside, cheered by 

the thought that if the working of his method becomes mono- 

tonous in the absence of sport a not unusual experience of 

the class it at least does not call for heavy active labour. 

And it may further be mentioned, that the roach-fisher is always 

animated by hope of a double-barrelled kind hope as to direct 

success with the particular fish he has in view, and hope as to 

glorious accidents that may at any moment bring him into 

combat with trout, perch, chub, barbel, dace, bream, or, now 

and then, pike. In rivers where all these are to be found it is 

true our fine art friend as often as not is a victim to his prin- 

ciples, first of which is a tight line. I have seen a two-pound 

trout, and a four-pound bream beautifully killed by a tight line 

and long Carolina cane roach rod, but smashing up is a much 

more common termination of these unequal struggles. Still, 

there are such uncertainties to add a charm to roach-fishing, 

and a very pretty mixed basket sometimes varies the rule of the 

game. 

The habits of the roach to a large extent determine the 

methods of its capture, and no man will obtain a degree entitling 

him to take brevet rank who is not familiar with them.


A learned tome which I once read treated of the brain power 

of fresh-water fishes, and placed the carps, or Cyprinidtz, lowest 

on the list. As the roach is not the quickest witted ol the 

family we may, therefore, to some extent agree with the oldfashioned 

writers who dubbed it the water-sheep. Yet noi so 

very sheepish after all, if by the expression is meant silliness. 

The perch and pike, when thoroughly on the feed, commit 

the most astonishing stupidities. In their primitive state, 

before they have been much worried by the angler, roach 

are, no doubt, easily taken in, and even done for, but once let 

them become indoctrinated into the enemy's plan, as they soon 

will be, and it is very difficult indeed to restore them to that 

feeling of innocent confidence which was their original state. 

You may worry a shoal of perch to-day, or ravage a flock of 

bream to-morrow ; may thin out the dace merrily foraging in a 

running stream, and may yet come again, before a long interval 

has passed, and find them in a liberal frame of mind. Not so 

with roach. With them it is generally a clear case of ' 

once 

bit, twice shy.' At rare times, however, the shyest may be 

surprised, and these occasions are what the artist has to find out 

by careful study and accumulating personal experience. 

Much of the contempt which salmon- and trout-fishers 

entertain towards what we have got to speak of as coarse fish 

arises from early experience of their simplicity. Most of us, I 

suppose, as youngsters most of us, that is to say, who have 

begun the descent from the summit of the life journey either 

caught roach, or witnessed their capture, in quantities. Before 

we were allowed to handle a gun or break into other sporting 

domains, we had free run of some pond or stream from which, 

morn and eve, we were seldom sent empty away. I have often 

compared notes with angling brethren upon this matter. Very 

interesting is it to do so at luncheon-time on a bad day upon a 

well-fished water. With all the improvements in the way of 

appliances, with all the cunning born of years of practice, you 

meet under the clump of elms and confess your disappoint- 

ment. At such time some one is almost certain to casually 

Z 2

340 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE F1SIL 

remark that as a boy, with the rudest of tackle, he scarcely 

ever failed to do something, and occasionally something tre- 

mendous. Those days are now gone, except in remote country 

districts, never to return. All manner of things have happened 

since then. Our entire water system has been altered by 

drainage. The good places have been swept out by poachers, 

or fished to death by hordes of anglers. The grand spirit of 

improvement of which we hear so much has played mischief 

with both land and water sport in many respects, while the 

multiplication of anglers a thousandfold, simultaneously with 

the increase of facilities for travelling, is of itself enough to 

account for the difference between then and now. 

Truly there was little art in those early 'takes.' I can re- 

call with vivid memory the primitive two-jointed rod made by 

a rustic wheelwright, the line of fine whipcord never attached 

to winch, the hooks coarsely whipped to two or three strands 

of horsehair, the clumsy bit of lead employed for sinker, the 

common floa*", half wood and half quill, and withal, the gallant 

strings of roach by such primitive equipments taken. Yet there 

must have been somewhat of skill necessary, for I have recol- 

lection of studying the haunts of the fish, and being generally 

certain where to find them. Very soon I knew that the first 

clause in the agreement must be to keep out of sight and keep 

quiet, doing everything by stealth, and never overdoing anything. 

These precautions come as it were by instinct to the 

sporting nature, and they never come at all toothers who are not 

of the mould, let them be as full of book theory as they choose. 

There were certain primary methods thus acquired which I after- 

wards found in the angling books, and which must always hold 

good in roach- fish ing, comprising in a fashion as they do the 

superstructure upon which all must be raised. The best time 

for roach-fishing, to wit, is early morning and late afternoon 

and evening. White paste made with clean hands from yesterday's 

bread, and worked up to a consistency that asks no 

cotton-wool to keep it upon the hook, is a bait that will take a 

quantity of beating. The angler must keep his shadow from


falling upon the water; drop his bait gently in, the float sliding 

down to its position, without splash or ripple ; never permit the 

line to dangle on the surface ; make sure of his strikes in the 

firm belief that pricked or lost fish alarm the shoal ; and play 

the hooked roach until it may be landed without commotion 

on the top. 

These were among: t the leading doctrines of a boyish 

creed, and leading doctrines they remain. Creeping through 

the dewy grass as soon after daylight as possible, experiments 

were commenced at an alder bush overhanging the little river. 

A bit of paste, pea size, would be dropped into the water. 

This, all the while crouching out of sight, I would anxiously 

watch. Deeper and deeper sank the little pellet in regular 

disappearance. What I watched for was a sharp twitch of the 

white object, followed by its instantaneous disappearance, for 

this indicated not only that the roach were there, but that 

they were on the feed. If the decoy bait was snapped up 

quickly, the float would be adjusted to keep the hook in midwater. 

Three-quarters deep was the best condition of affairs, 

and if there was no twitching of the preliminary paste I 

generally resigned myself to a poor bag, and was seldom dis- 

appointed. When the mill people began work at six o'clock, 

as indicated by a drowsy waterwheel monotone two furlongs 

up, business commenced in real earnest, and it would be a 

very unsuccessful morning that did not give me a couple of 

dozen roach averaging a quarter of a pound each. The moral 

of this personal reminiscence is this : Had I afterwards abandoned 

the practice of roach-fishing, I should probably have 

gone through the world under the impression that the roach 

was a silly sheep to be had for asking by anybody. 

Having looked at that picture, let me invite the reader to 

look on this. Here is a reach of water meandering at speed 

of say two miles an hour through a meadow. We know it to 

be full of large roach. Any ordinary 

cast of the net shall 

bring up a bushel of great fellows, between three-quarters of a 

pound and a pound. Yet, of six or eight anglers who have

342 


the right of fishery, not more than two can boast of anything 

like success, and their method is entitled to be designated the 

fine art of roach- fish ing. The fact is that these fish are edu- 

cated, and rendered habitually suspicious and shy. Once or 

twice, perhaps, in the course of the summer they lose caution, 

and bite ravenously at the baits which they have steadily 

refused for the rest of the season, yielding, as it seems, to a 

caprice which cannot be explained. Otherwise, they must be 

circumvented by sheer skill on the part of the angler, a skill 

that may almost be said at times to partake of the nature of 

inspiration, so impossible is it of acquirement by many imi- 

tators. Knowledge of the habits of the roach, of the peculiari- 

ties of the particular river fished, and of the food incidental 

thereto, is a primary essential as I have already indicated, but 

to this must be added a masterly use of the finest tackle, an 

infinite patience, and a readiness to bring into the service in- 

numerable wiles that shall meet the changing circumstances of 

the hour. 

' 

He's a born roach-fisher' is a saying you sometimes hear ; 

and I am not at all sure that, with some experts, it is not a 

perfectly warrantable expression. To such a man innumerable 

touches of skill come by intuition. But I have generally 

noticed that these 'past masters' in the craft of roach-fishing, 

the fine artists, do not arrive at their stage of excellence by any 

royal road. They have devoted themselves to the study and 

practice of roach-fishing. All the angling propensities they 

have are concentrated upon that one humble branch of the art 

which Walton, with roach-fishing in his mind, no doubt, spoke 

of as the contemplative man's recreation. I am acquainted 

with men, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, somebodies and 

nobodies, who have a passionate attachment to the pursuit. 

The higher kinds of rod-and-line work have no joys for them. 

You may battle with your salmon in a rushing Spey pool, 

craftily take a Test three-pounder with floating dun on ooo 

hook, and be an adept with spinning apparatus for all they 

heed or care : give them their camp-stool and roach rod over


the dark water that moves slowly above a clear bed, and they 

ask no more. The best roach fishermen I have ever met have 

possessed strong concentrated tastes of this nature. 

It is not necessary in this chapter to enter at length into the 

thousand and one instructions which have been written for the 

roach-fisher's guidance. One man has this plan and another 

that. Fishers of every grade sometimes agree to differ, and 

some do not ' 

agree,' but differ all the same, and none more 

perhaps than the knights of the roach. The field of dispute is 

limited, to be sure ; nevertheless, 

I have known fierce contro- 

versies rage respecting a bit of paste, jealousies aroused by 

advocacy of a maggot of too mature an age, and friendships 

of the theories enter- 

endangered through a split shot. Many 

tained on the question are good for nothing mere fancies that 

satisfy nobody, least of all their authors. Therefore I shall say 

nothing as to the respective merits of Thames style, Lea style, 

or Trent style, though, if I did pronounce an opinion, I should 

not place the Lea artists second. It has been the custom, 

because one or two angling writers years ago, with a pardonable 

partiality 

for their own beloved river, pronounced the 

Thames anglers cock of the walk, to give them the premier 

place. For myself I should, taking experts from the three 

rivers, be inclined to bid them toe the line, and shake hands 

on absolutely equal terms. There are anglers from each who 

have elevated roach-fishing to a fine art. 

The commonly accepted principles governing the sport may 

be perhaps most conveniently indicated in an imaginary 

visit to 

a river. The stream which I select has been already suggested 

on a previous page as being full of big shy roach. It actually 

exists, and there are doubtless some readers who will recognise 

it. It will serve our purpose as well as any other, as a peg 

whereon to hang a string of hints. Here then we have a 

meadow with river frontage of about 300 yards. At the upper 

end the water enters from a canal passing at 

with a tributary brook arriving from another. 

one right angle, 

On the meadow 

side the stream is too swift for steady roach-fishing ; across.

344 


the bed has silted up, forming a pronounced shallow. Right 

away down to the end of a meadow, where a weir and tumbling 

bay radically alter the character of the river, the depth is an 

even four feet in the middle, with but slight difference towards 

shore. As it is the keeper's business to see that certain swims 

are cleared out, the fisherman is saved the trouble of prospecting 

up and down with his plummet in search of a favourable place. 

Upon the general character of swims I shall have something to 

say presently, my object at present being to indicate the tackle 

in which it is handled. 

Mr. A. is a consummate roach-fisher ; so is Mr. B. ; and we 

used, and the way 

have them both approaching the water. Both begin by throw- 

ing in ground bait, A. a ball as large as an orange, pitched into 

the centre, B. several balls of walnut size pitched here and 

there. Both of course cast their material well above the station 

upon which the seat will be. Notice the hushed style of their 

procedure. They move as if in a sick room ; by force of habit, 

they stand back into the meadow and put together 

their rods. 

Cautiously stooping, they app:oach to plumb the depth, creating 

a minimum of disturbance in lowering the lead to the bottom. 

Upon this operation A. and B. evidently hold different opinions, 

for the former adjusts his float so that the bait shall dot and 

carry one upon the bottom as it travels, while the latter gives a 

fair two inches of free space. Had they not known that the 

fish were there or thereabouts, they would have done wisely to 

cast in their ground bait two or three hours before they began, 

and in the case of still water, where the stuff should be scattered 

in loose handfuls, and not in balls, ground-baiting overnight 

would have been attended to. But the roach being somewhere 

in the neighbourhood will soon espy the bran particles float- 

ing clown, and will head up to see whether bulk and sample 

correspond. 

Our friends A. and B. have divers tastes as to rods, you 

will also observe. A. uses a 2o-foot cane rod, finely balanced, 

and though delicately tapered, rigid in the strike. This is the 

prime necessity of a roach-rod, and an essential often missed

y 


the maker. You sometimes see a rod that seems to be 

faultless ; 

but at the strike, which is everything in roach-fishing, 

the top, without being actually whippy, vibrates so that the line 

is for an instant beaten down, instead of tightened with a pretty 

sound like that of a harpstring. That instant is fatal. B. has 

a shorter rod, but it is of cane, with the ordinary top of 

approved action. Cross-question these men, and they will 

you 

tell 

that they had much trouble in procuring rods with the 

particular action they required. Though the joints may to the 

eye be precisely the same, there are variations of temper per- 

ceptible only to the artist. Once obtained, the correct thing 

should therefore be treasured. B. however uses running tackle, 

a fine Nottingham line on a plain ebonite winch. He does 

this because there is always the chance of a large chub, and 

he would adopt the tight line, which A. regards as an article of 

faith never to be departed from, if there was wind to bag out 

the slack through the rings. Then, though the two floats are 

shotted down to a third of an inch, the floats are not alike. A. 

has a porcupine, and B. one of those quill combinations which 

admit of the insertion of shots for the purposes of cocking. 

He has three shots only therefore on the footline below the 

float, placed at intervals of six inches. A., who believes in 

hugging the ground, has six or eight shots evenly distributed 

at two-inch intervals. He has reason on his side, I think, in 

explaining that the whole arrangement is kept straighter and 

closer to its work by this method. Most anglers pay too little 

attention to shotting, massing their shots together, and leaving 

a glistening dint or conspicuous gash after the application of 

pliers or teeth. Then as to hooks, A. affects a stoutish wire 

and moderately short shank, insisting that every part of the 

hook should be covered ; B. a thin wire with long shank. But 

the hooks were small (No. 12 Pennell pattern and No. 13 

Carlisle) respectively. A. fishes on without increasing his 

ground bait, and uses paste. B. throws in a nut-sized morsel 

occasionally ahead of his float before renewing the swim, and 

baits with two gentles, getting, as a matter of fact, dace,

346 


medium-sized roach, and being run out eventually with a chub, 

which he would scarcely have killed without a reel line. 

A. meanwhile, by dint of patience and a frugal use of ground- 

bait, gets after a while amongst the three-quarter pound roach, 

and keeps among them for an hour or two. He misses with 

some strikes, mistaking a drag on the bottom for a bite, though 

this is no more than he expects, and his rule is to strike at the 

slightest movement of his float. Should it seem to pause ever 

so faintly in its steady swim, the top of the rod, always about a 

foot from the water, strums upwards as if by an involuntary 

movement, and a fish is hooked. Should it slant slightly, the 

same result ensues. To the unaccustomed eye there has been 

no bite, but it has been plain enough to the artist, as the issue 

indeed is to the roach. 

B. truly enough urges that he is saved endless exertion in 

the course of a day by keeping his bait clear from the bottom, 

and as, thanks to his dace and chub, he can show at the finish 

as heavy a bag as his friend, there is not much to be said. As 

they leave the meadow they discuss the vexed question of gut 

versus hair. A. uses hair, to procure which as he requires it is 

the trouble if not the object of his life. B. declares that, what 

with the nuisance of getting it, and the treachery of the knots, the 

game is not worth the candle. For these reasons I always use 

fine gut, or in very clear water the less desirable, because uncer- 

tain and rapidly destructible, drawn gut. Yet I must confess 

that A., who is the best roach-fisher on the water, and all the 

really crack men I have seen the men who are roach-fishers 

pure and simple, making it a study, and it retaining to the end 

of their days as a passion swear by chestnut hair and tight 

lines. I never heard of a Lea champion who would admit the 

superiority of gut over hair. Of the various explanations 

advanced in favour of hair, which is the bulkier strand, the 

one which in my opinion is most cogent is the power 

it has 

of repelling those globules of water which hang around the 

finest gut. 

The baits for roach are legion. Simple paste, and well-


scoured gentles are the stock lures that will never go out of 

fashion, with small red worms for winter, caddis for early sum- 

mer, wasp grub for late summer and autumn. My friend, Mr. 

Marston showed me a device which should be worth trying for 

paste-fishing two of the smallest hooks brazed together, and 

one eye. No whipping on of gut is required, and a pellet of 

paste no bigger than a pea envelopes the whole. There is no 

rule by which the proper bait to use can be regulated. One 

hour the roach will take one thing, the next another. To-day 

they will bite at any of the familiar baits paste plain or 

coloured, rice, wheat green or boiled, malt, pearl barley, silk- 

weed, gentles, worms, caddis, meal worms, ant eggs, grubs 

miscellaneous, and insects. To-morrow they will touch never 

a one. A ' 

new sensation ' 

announced a couple of years ago. 

in the way of roach-bait was 

It was the fleshy part of the 

banana. I gave it a trial with fair results ; the experiment re- 

peated subsequently and in the same water, and under similar 

conditions failed. Still there is one advantage in banana bait 

which cannot be claimed for worms, gentles or grubsj you may 

eat it if the fish do not. 

As to ground bait, generally too profusely used, the most 

important point is to have it thoroughly mixed. The carelessness 

characterising its compoundment is proverbial ; hence the 

best roach-fishers do not think of entrusting the business to 

other hands than their own. If bran and bread be used and 

there is none much better not a particle of the latter should 

remain unwelded to the bran. The whole secret is in the 

blend, and in the freshness of the material. 

Mr. Pennell, in asking me to write this chapter, sent me a 

few notes upon what he terms ' 

fly-thrown 

bait ' 

for roach and 

rudd, which he thought I might incorporate in it. I think I 

shall do better by letting him speak for himself. He says : 

For attracting both roach and rudd, and especially the latter, in 

ponds, I have sometimes found the following plan to succeed better 

than any of the ordinary modes of float-fishing, and, indeed, I have 

not unfrequently made a basket by this means in places where the

348 


rudd were looked upon as very shy and ' 

uncircumventible.' This 

happened last autumn in a piece of still water belonging to my 

friend, Mr. Wykeham Martin of Leeds Castle, who, if he took up 

fishing with the same energy and success that he has shooting, 

would, no doubt, soon become the best fisherman as he is admittedly 

the best shot in Kent. There were plenty of rudd in the pond, for 

they could be seen swimming and basking, (it was a bright hot 

day,) on the surface. To the every-day temptation of gentles, 

and paste, offered them in the orthodox way, that is, with a float 

and shotted line, the fish appeared to be quite insensible. It seemed 

therefore that as they would not be induced to come to the bait, 

the only chance was to take the bait to them. 

' 

If the mountain 

won't come to Mahomet, &c.' The first difficulty was to get the 

bait.' This was 

' 

ground-bait,' so to speak, 

to become a ' 

floating 

accomplished by tying half a quartern loaf to a string long enough 

and a stone heavy enough to anchor it at the bottom of the pond 

in a favourable position, about ten yards from the bank. By the 

time the rod and line were adjusted, my pihe de resistance had 

attracted a considerable number of intending diners, who were 

quite prepared to receive kindly any fresh plats that might be 

offered them. The tackle, however, had, of course, to be suited to 

the novel sort of 'ground' or rather 'floating' bait, and this is 

what it was : a single-handed fly-rod with a light silk running 

line, and a cast of the very finest trout gut with a No. 2 hook 

of my pattern at the end ; no shot ; and no float, properly so 

called, but instead a piece of cork the size of a large pea about one 

and a half feet above the hook. With this tackle, which I 

cast, of course, overhand, as in fly fishing, I was able to drop 

the bait within a radius of a few inches or feet of the centre of 

attraction, and had soon two or three dozen fine rudd in the basket. 

Another method is to dispense with the cork altogether and 

simply let the 'fly-bait' sink gradually, trusting to some motion of 

the line to indicate a bite, or, failing that, striking gently after 

about a minute, according to the depth of the water. Both these 

plans I have found very killing. The first I published some twenty 

years ago and at ; Slapton Ley -the happy hunting grounds of the 

rudd-fisher I find it is now very generally in use, as well as the 

'fly-thrown bait' without any cork 'indicator.' 

In this manner, and using the floating 'ground bait,' Signor 

Abaurrc, my wife, and myself, caught during the present month 

(Oct. 1885) 178 rudd, the largest weighing l^ Ibs.


The fly-thrown bait (without, of course, any bread-floating 

addition) is a very good method the best I know of catching 

bleak in rivers ; though even in this case it is better to choose a 

spot where the current is not very strong ; and wetted not soaked 

bran thrown in occasionally, will keep the bleak on the feed and 

indicate their whereabouts. 

Roach-fishing as a fine art must, as Mr. PennelPs notes remind 

me, be taken to include rudd and dace. The rudd, in 

my estimation is a handsomer fish than the roach as gold is 

handsomer than silver. And so far as my experience goes he 

which I mean 

is a bolder biter, when he is in the humour. By 

that he is oftener in the humour. On several occasions, in lakes 

where both rudd and roach occurred, 

I have taken three rudd 

to one roach, and in rivers also it has been my experience to 

find the rudd yielding first blood, and to yield longest. The 

rudd is also a freer taker of the artificial fly. Roach will take 

the fly when cleaning after spawning, and when therefore they 

ought not to be taken, and at any time when you can get them 

on the shallows. On a summer evening after a hot day, if you 

can find them lying upon the surface, with a small black or 

red ant, or a gentle whipped out with a fly rod, you should get 

sport. Some years ago in a trout stream from which it was 

desired to clear out the coarse fish I killed over 20 Ibs. of 

roach, from four ounces to half-a-pound, with a March brown. 

would take no other 

Although it was in the middle of June, they 

fly. The fish were amongst the weeds close to the further 

bank where the stream ran slowly, and I did not rise from my 

knee until my basket was full. They were taken with a long 

line down stream, the fly pitched upon the opposite bank and 

allowed to drop into the water. If the fly was riot taken at once 

the whole shoal seemed to follow it out until one of them 

snapped at it boldly. The first fish I hooked and lost put a 

period to the proceedings. Rudd, however, 

will take small 

flies freely in July and August, and upon the Norfolk Broads 

I have had excellent fun with them in the evenings. 

The Dace is the most enterprising member, not only of the

350 


genus LeuciscuS) but of the family Cyprinida. I always class 

him with the fly-taking fishes, though he is more strictly speaking 

a bottom feeder. Many an hour's delightful relaxation do I owe 

that merry little fish, with dry fly and wet fly, up stream and 

down stream. In bottom fishing he may be proceeded for as 

with roach, though gentles and worms suit his palate better than 

paste. He is good enough to roam about so that he may be 

found in swift water, shallow water, deep water and slow water 

alike. He herds amongst the barbel, as every barbel fisher 

discovers ; he rises amongst the trout I have taken him with 

a lob-worm and with a May fly, and when, as has frequently 

happened, he attained the dimensions of half a pound, he has 

rejoiced my heart, as the so-called coarse fishes seldom do. 

In the year 1883 I had a great take in a private water on the 

Lea to which a friend kindly invited me. On a gravelly shallow 

at the tail of a mill pool both dace and roach lay in numbers, 

and the roach on that occasion took the fly 

it was the Thames 

dace fly called I believe the Petersfield fancy, a polyglot hackle 

shod with a shred of white leather as readily as the dace. I 

have lived for many years in hope of catching a pound dace. 

Once I thought I had him, but as it required a penny piece 

(a very dilapidated specimen) to plump down the scale, I per- 

petrated the error of not having him stuffed. It is not likely 

I shall ever get nearer the mark. The largest roach I have 

taken was a shade under 2 Ibs., but I may here put on record, 

as the weight of roach is a subject of frequent dispute, that 

in the summer of 1884 a specimen was brought to the Field 

a well-known London taxidermist to 

office, guaranteed by 

be 3^ Ibs. And from its size it was in all probability quite as 

much. 

Finally and to conclude. Many dodges, only learned by 

observation and experience, are essential to roach fishing of the 

most artistic kind. You may take roach by tight line or running 

tackle ; in clear water and in thick ; by float or fly, gut or hair; 

legering on a clear bottom with the tails of lob-worms, or 

loving and sinking with a maggot or house fly, but let me


repeat no angler can call himself a roach-fisher who does not 

fish with the finest and neatest tackle, keeping quiet and out of 

sight the while ; who is not ready from morning to night to 

and who never admits that he is 

possess his soul in patience, 

beaten, 

' REDSPINNER ' 

(W. SENIOR).

352 


NORFOLK BROAD AND RIVER FISHING. 

THERE can be no doubt that the Norfolk rivers with their 

adjacent Broads present a greater extent of fishing ground for 

coarse fish than any other district in England, and the average 

sport enjoyed on them far exceeds that obtainable on other 

waters. 

Putting the Broads, properly so called, on one side, there 

are at least eighty miles of free fishing water, the takes in which 

are not counted by the pound or by number, but by the stone. 

Yet it is a curious fact that while sport of such a character is 

enjoyed by the native angler and by those visitors who have 

learned the ways of the natives, strangers coming down, how- 

ever skilful anglers they may be, have but indifferent sport. 

This is due chiefly to ignorance of the best places under different 

conditions of wind, weather, and tide, and to the non-observance 

of certain well-defined methods of fishing, which the depth of 

water and strength of current render necessary. In all these 

miles of free fishing the rivers present to the eye much the 

same characteristics broad, placid streams with marshy banks 

and uniform currents so that to one unacquainted with the 

locality one spot looks as good as another. Yet this is not so. 

The depth varies; there is an imperceptible eddy in one part, 

where the fish gather with the tide one way, and which they 

may forsake when the title flows the other way. The bottom 

may in one spot be fairly clean, and ten yards away be very 

foul. A knowledge of the contour of the river bottom is most 

essential to successful angling, and this is knowledge not ob- 

tainable without tne aid of local experience. The appearance

NORFOLK BROAD AND RIVER FISHING. 3^3 

of the banks affords no reliable indication of the depth of the 

water a few feet away. 

The Broads are not so inscrutable, but nevertheless present 

certain characteristics which must be borne in mind. Fishing 

on the actual Broads is a matter of leave. The riparian owners 

lay claim to the exclusive right of fishing even on those Broads 

which, in addition to being navigable, are affected by the rise 

and fall of the tide. Those which have never been used for 

navigation are of course private, and as the navigation on 

others falls into disuse, owing to the growing up and shallowing 

of the waters, the riparians assert their rights. Oulton Broad, 

near Lowestoft, is practically the only one which the public now 

fish without let or hindrance. A good deal of fishing goes on 

in Wroxham Broad, but steps may at any moment be taken to 

put a stop to it. This uncomfortable state of things has grown 

up in consequence of the immense increase in the number of 

anglers of late years. Nevertheless, 

obtain leave to fish many of the Broads, and they are still suffi- 

it is not a difficult matter to 

ciently frequented by the public to be considered as angling 

resorts. 

The Broads are in reality shallow lagoons from ten to four 

hundred acres in extent, with weedy bays and reedy promon- 

tories, having, as a rule, bottoms composed of exceedingly soft 

and deep mud. The rivers are generally deep, being from 

twelve to twenty feet in the channel ; but it is difficult to fix on 

a spot on any of the Broads where there is more than seven 

feet of water, while generally speaking there is but three or four 

feet. Parts of Wroxham and Oulton are deep, and the best 

spots for angling are well known, the deepest water being 

chosen. 

As far as angling (which in Norfolk means bait-fishing, as 

distinguished from pike-fishing) is concerned, the free rivers 

afford quite as good fishing as the private Broads. 

Mention has been made of the tides. Now the fall of the 

Yare from Norwich to the sea twenty-six miles is barely four 

inches to the mile, and the other rivers are similar. The flood- 

II. 

A A

354 


tide is saltfor the first few miles from the sea, gradually becoming 

brackish as it meets the river water, which it drives backward 

with it. For twenty miles at least from the sea there is a 

strong upward current at flood-tide, and a slight current right 

up to Norwich. None of the fresh-water fish pike, roach, and 

bream mind a little taste of the salt water, provided the 

change comes gradually ; and the largest bream are found where 

the water is decidedly brackish, both on the flood and ebb. 

Occasionally, however, a higher tide than usual brings with it a 

more sudden influx of salt water, which, surprising the fish, kills 

a good many, particularly the pike, and drives the others up 

stream and up the dykes into the Broads. Such an influx of 

the ' 

salts,' which happens in a greater or less degree every year, 

for a time. A week or two 

changes the aspect of the fishing 

before the date of writing this (November 1884), the pike were 

being taken in large numbers and of goodly size in the Yare 

between Coldham Hall and Cantley. There came a salt tide, 

which destroyed many, and drove the others away, nobody 

knows where, or perhaps sickened and put them off the feed. 

At all events none have been caught since. 

Then there is sometimes a land flood, which brings bitter 

water, or ' 

mar.-h tea,' off the marshes, and this drives the fish 

into the lower and deeper waters, or into the Broads. A few 

years ago Oulton Broad became crammed with fish, owing to a 

flood on the Waveney, and the sport obtained for a few weeks 

was something extraordinary. 

Thus the angler has got to follow the fish according to the 

exigencies of tides and floods, being guided by the reports 

from the fishing-stations. There is no difficulty as to this, for 

so many anglers are daily out in all parts 

where the fish are rapidly spreads. 

that the news as to 

than a 

Although the number of anglers is tenfold greater 

takes of fish are not much less 

generation back, yet the average 

than formerly, and whilst, owing to the extensive drainage of 

marshes and silting up of broads, the feeding and breeding 

grounds of the fish have largely decreased, the abolition of net-

NORFOLK BROAD AND RIVER FISHING. 355 

ting and suppression of poaching have apparently struck the 

balance. 

The River Yare is free to the public from Norwich down- 

wards. Just below the city, at Trowse Hythe, and Thorpe, 

good sport is often obtainable, particularly among the bream ; 

also with pike, when salt tides have driven them up the river. 

The first fishing-station of importance is Surlingham Ferry (six 

miles from Norwich by the river), in the neighbourhood of 

which are many good roach swims ; but the deep-water places 

are limited, unless you moor in the channel, which is to be 

deprecated, both on account of the hindrance to the navigation, 

and the personal danger to oneself of being run down by one 

of the large sailing barges called wherries. Two miles further 

brings us to Erundall, where there is a railway station. This is 

a favourite resort of anglers, and owing to the extremely sinuous 

' 

course of the river it is always easy to get a good lee ' 

the wind blows from. The meaning 

always 

wherever 

' 

of a lee ' 

is that care is 

taken to moor where the water is sheltered from the wind 

by the bank. This shelter is most desirable, as the river has an 

average width of fifty yards, and a strong wind blowing down or 

across a reach gets up a good sea on the leeward shore. 

For some distance below Brundall there are many shoals, 

and boats look as if they were moored in the middle of the 

river, but they are in reality only on the edge of the channel. 

Buckenham Ferry, ten miles from Norwich, is the next ren- 

dezvous where there is a railway station. From here to Cantley, 

three miles further, the influence of the tide becomes strongly 

felt, and there is good deep water in many places close to the 

banks. From Cantley to Reedham the current becomes stronger 

and the water deeper, so that lines have to be heavily shotted 

for float-fishing, and legering for bream is the most productive 

way of fishing for the large ones. Reedham, which is seventeen 

miles from Norwich, and ten miles from the sea, may be said 

to be the limit of angling on the Yare. 

From Reedham a straight canal three miles long makes a 

short cut to the river Waveney at Haddiscoe, its lowest angling 

A A 2

356 


point, ten miles from the sea. Here, as the tidal current is 

strong, legering is more suitable than float-fishing. 

Somerleyton, two miles further up the river, 

is noted for its 

large bream. A few miles further is a wide dyke or canal 

leading on to Oulton Broad, and both in the dyke and on the 

broad there is good fishing for bream, roach, and pike. From 

Oulton Dyke the Waveney up to Beccles is a splendid river, 

broad, deep, and clear. This river used to be noted for its 

perch, but perch do not seem to be so plentiful in the Broad 

district as they formerly were. 

All the rivers converge and run into the sea through 

Yarmouth Haven, and proceeding up the Bure, locally called 

the North River, we find a tide so strong that there is not much 

fishing for some miles up. In fact the first easily accessible 

fishing-station is at Acle, twelve miles up the river, where good 

catches of bream are often made. Above Acle good fish- 

ing may be got in almost every reach. At the mouth of 

the Thurne is a good spot for pike, and the Thurne River, 

which flows from Hickling Broad, Horsey Mere, and Somerton 

Broad, is a nice clear stream containing plenty of pike, and has 

a fishing length of about six miles. 

Proceeding further up the Thurne, past St Benedict's Abbey, 

we come to the river Ant, a tortuous and canal-like stream, 

leading through Barton Broad to Stalham and North Walsham. 

Continuing up the Bure, and passing South Walsham and 

Ranworth Broads, the fishing on which is private, we come to 

a favourite fishing-station, Horning Ferry ; and from here up 

to Wroxham, some nine miles, is good pike ground. The water 

is shallower and less affected by the tide, also much clearer. 

Many Broads are connected with this portion of the river by 

short dykes, and these Broads serve as spawning-grounds and 

nurseries for the fish, and keep the river constantly replenished. 

Such is a brief sketch of the extent of these happy hunting 

grounds for anglers for coarse fish. For greater details the 

reader is referred to a handbook and chart published by 

Jarrold and Sons, of Xoi'widi.

NORFOLK BROAD AND RIVER FISHING, 357 

The fish frequenting these waters are chiefly pike, bream, 

and roach. Perch are found here and there of large size, and 

are caught whilst spinning for pike, also by paternostering in 

some of the reaches below Wroxham. There is no close season 

in Norfolk, and when perch are spawning they resort in large 

numbers to certain well-known spots, where, sad to say, the 

Norfolk angler goes after them. An old tree partly fallen into 

the river, which was until recently a prominent object just below 

Wroxham Bridge, had always a crowd of perch around it at 

spawning time, and the catches there made would be notable 

ones to chronicle had they not been so unsportsmanlike. On 

some of the Broads, particularly on Oulton, you may get among 

the perch ; but it is not a branch of fishing which has any dis- 

tinctive peculiarities in Norfolk. 

Of the three fish just mentioned the pike deserves first 

place. In private waters in Norfolk (generally known as 

' 

Jordan ' 

in answer to too curious enquirers) the pike is not 

only present in great numbers, but of great weight, and a dozen 

fish from ten to twenty pounds is not an uncommon take, while 

many larger catches are recorded. In the broads and rivers 

the pike are numerous, but not exceptionally large, a seventeen- 

pound pike in a broad and a ten-pound fish in a river being 

considered good. The largest fish taken recently in the open 

river was one caught at Cantiey weighing twenty-four pounds. 

Fish larger than this are well known to exist in several places, 

notably two in the neighbourhood of Horning Ferry. I tried 

hard the other day for one which was always to be seen in a 

hole in a dyke about thirty yards long, ten wide, and twenty 

feet deep. It is known to be at least thirty pounds in weight, 

and I tried it with every imaginable bait up to a two-pound 

jack, and for a whole day, without success. 

Another thirty-pound fish affects a shallow bay in a small 

broad, where he is often seen with a five-pound bream in his 

mouth. There is such a plenitude of bait that the big ones do 

not apparently trouble themselves to seek the angler's. I am 

inclined to think the large fish are not by any means so

358 


plentiful as they were. The owners and hirers of private 

broads are too much addicted to the use of the trimmer, and 

several scores of th^se poaching abominations floating over a 

shallow broad are capable of much mischief, one or more being 

certain to be seen by every feeding fish. When the weeds are 

down the shallowness of the water affords no especial hiding 

or lurking place, and a fish runs through many temptations ere 

arriving at the weight of ten pounds. 

In the rivers pike are numerous enough, and are almost 

always fished for by ' 

' 

trailing the spinning bait. This is elsewhere 

looked upon as unsportsmanlike, but there is excuse for 

it in Norfolk rivers if anywhere. Fishing from the banks is, 

generally speaking, out of the question, owing to their marshy 

and weedy character. A boat is indispensable, and as you 

cannot tell where the fish are within a mile or two, it seems 

most sensible to row in search of them, and this is the mode 

usually practised. The boat is rowed at a very slow pace the 

slower the better, so long as the bait spins effectively along 

to the 

the edge of the deep water or the weeds, according 

season. Thus, in the winter the fish come in the shallow water 

along the reeds at midday, and retire to the deeper water as the 

afternoon advances to a degree depending upon the temperature 

of the day. The clearer the water is the better, at all events in 

the reaches affected by the tide. If it is at all ' 

grey ' 

or thick 

the pike will not feed. 

' 

Clear ' 

is of course a comparative 

term, as, except on the upper waters of the Waveney, it never 

streams. Local 

reaches the crystal clearness of less muddy 

assistance is most desirable even in trailing, as the depth of the 

water varies so much without any surface indication ; and the 

length of line, depth of the bait, and speed, as well as the distance 

from the shore, should vary accordingly. The bait used 

is usually an artificial one, and of artificial baits the time- 

honoured is spoon the favourite. 

When the pike are on the feed a single rod may get from 

six to a score fish running from three to ten pounds by trailing, 

while with any other method of fishing he would not get one.


' 

Even in the winter-time the pike draw out ' 

of the river 

into quiet and secluded dykes, and in these places more sportsmanlike 

methods are followed. Just below Norwich there is a 

good-sized private dyke which is fished regularly about once 

a week. A dozen fish may be taken out in a short time, but 

after a few days' rest these places are supplied from the river, 

and the dyke is again worth fishing. On the North River, also, 

and its tributaries there are many spots, such as the confluence 

of the Thurne with the Bure, where there are always pike, and 

where you may fish all day with live-bait with as much profit as 

rowing about from place to place trailing. 

Pike-fishing on the Broads is carried on differently. Livebaiting 

is most in vogue, and it is considered essential to take 

the bait from a different water to that in which you fish. Every 

endeavour is made to get dace, but these are not so easily 

procurable as roach. As two or three fishermen go together a 

goodly number of bait are necessary, and two and three score 

are taken, the price of the bait being one shilling a score, and 

they are procurable at many places in Norwich, where men 

make a regular trade of catching them. The rods and lines 

used are according to individual taste, but the reels are 

almost always Nottingham wood-reels, chosen rather because 

they wind up quickly than because casting 

from the reel. If provided with a check to be applied when 

necessary it is not found that any difficulty 

is often done 

arises from ' 

over- 

running.' 

The usual plan is to moor about fifty yards from the reeds 

and cast towards them, and as each person has two rods a 

pretty good extent of water is covered all round. Heavy 

baits are used, and very long casts are made. After a cast 

with one rod the other line is drawn slowly in and recast, and 

so on alternately. If the spot is unproductive, another is chosen, 

and so on, working 

round the broad near to the reeds. Pike 

in these waters seem to rove about when on the feed, going con- 

siderable distances, and it frequently happens that the boat is 

never moved from one spot, the pike themselves coming within

360 


range of the lines. The long casts are destructive to the baits ; 

but this is not of much consequence, as baits are cheap. There 

is nothing distinctive in the tackle used. On waters where 

pike are plentiful those under five pounds are returned to the 

\vater, and of the others perhaps only a dozen are retained, it 

not being considered good form to take a tumbril-load away, 

as has been done before now from private waters when the 

fish were on the feed. When fish have to be returned snap- 

hooks are of course essential, but on waters where such restric- 

tions are not observed live-bait gorge-hooks are much used. 

For one thing it is not easy to strike hard with forty yards of 

line out, and the 'bag' of the line possibly under the weeds; 

and for another reason, the fish are more securely hooked. 

When a man has two rods he will perhaps have a gorge-hook 

on one and a snap on the other, and then as likely as not forget 

which is which. 

In Broad fishing it depends upon the sort of day whether 

the fish are in the weedy shallows or in the deeper and more 

open water, and actual trial of both is the only guide. Person- 

ally I have been most generally successful in shallow water, 

often fishing with less than a foot between the bait and the 

float in order to clear the weeds. A rough day is considered 

the best, as on a fine still day the boat is visible so far in the 

shallow water, and any vibration is more easily perceived by the 

pike. The live-baiting is varied by spinning, standing up in 

the boat and casting in the orthodox fashion. I have known a 

spoon thus used to take several fish out of water which had 

before been assiduously but unsuccessfully fished over with 

live bait. There is nothing distinctive about the spinning 

tackle or flight, Norfolk anglers following the lead of others in 

this respect. 

I have never seen any one trolling with the dead gorge- 

bait ; for these waters it has no advantage over live-baiting 

or spinning. 

January and February arc accounted the best months, as 

the weeds are down and the pike have an unimpeded view of


the bait from a considerable distance. Many ardent pike-fishers 

never think of going out until after Christmas. 

I have only once seen the artificial fly used in fishing for pike 

in Norfolk ; but from what I then saw, and my own experience 

on north country tarns, I think that a. suitable fly would be very 

killing. It would be essential to have a fly that would float, and 

then the very broad stretches where the weeds are within two or 

three inches of the top, with interspaces where the pike lie, could 

be fished more easily than by live-baiting or by fishing. My idea 

is to float the fly by means of a cork body, but yet have suffi- 

cient lead weight in it to enable one to cast in the ordinary 

spinning manner, not as in fly-fishing. I feel confident that a 

fluffy, gorgeously attired fly, with a good deal of white and gold 

tinsel showing, would attract the attention of many a pike sur- 

feited with roach and dace. 

In the north of England I used to be very successful with 

goldfish as bait. A warm water pond attached to a manu- 

factory was well stocked with goldfish, which could be caught 

freely with paste, and which made the best of live bait. If one 

could only obtain them in Norfolk they would ensure success. 

The great thing is to show the pike something new. Where 

bait are so plentiful the fish can seldom bs really hungry, but 

their appetites may be tickled by a novelty. A proof of this is 

that whenever I have used the eel-tail bait it has beaten all 

others that is, in clear water. It is hardly brilliant enough to 

attract attention in discoloured water. On Norfolk waters it is 

quite unknown as a bait, but it is undoubtedly a killing one. 

Leaving the fascinating topic of pike-fishing, 

we come to 

what is distinctively known in Norfolk as angling that is, fishing 

for bottom-feeding fish. It is a common notion among the old 

fishermen resident amidst the Broads that, while the pike and the 

eels may belong to the owner of the soil, ' 

angling ' 

is free to all 

on any navigable water. This possibly arose from the fact that 

riparian owners thought the eels and pike of value, butconsidered 

roach and bream as worthless. When drag netting was allowed 

certain persons used to dispose of the tons of roach and bream

362 


so caught for the purposes of food among the poorer classes, the 

waste fish being thrown on the fields for manure or sold to the 

crab-fishers on the coast for bait. With the abolition of dragnetting 

the fish ceased to be a marketable commodity. The 

great majority of anglers do not know what to do with the fish 

they catch when the sport of catching them is over. Too 

often they are thrown away and left to rot on the banks. 

More scrupulous anglers give them to the poor in their parish, 

but I cannot honestly say that the poor relish the gift. I confess 

to having taken somewhat of a prejudice against roach and 

bream fishing because of the inutility of the catch. No doubt, 

however, it has the same excuse for existence as fox-hunting 

that is, it is a healthy exercise which affords a relief from seden- 

tary occupations. 

Both bream and roach inhabit Norfolk rivers in extra- 

reach has its 

ordinary numbers. Notwithstanding that every 

boatload of fishermen, and that as you sail by every one seems 

to be pulling in a fish, there does not appear to be any diminu- 

tion in the quantity, nor does there appear to be any increased 

shyness on the part of the fish. Every season more anglers 

have been out, yet the average of the takes has been higher 

than formerly. Some idea of the abundance of the fish 

may be gathered by 

a visit to one of the shallower Broads at 

'rouding' time that is, when the fish are spawning in the 

spring. At that time the bream crowd into the Broads from 

the rivers in immense numbers. Surlingham and Rockland 

Broads, for example, are for a few days literally seething with 

the fish, which are so busily engaged that they take no notice of 

your boat as you force your way among them. Huge fellows 

of five or six pounds in weight root about in water which is 

hardly deep enough to keep them upright. As soon as they 

have spawned they quickly return to the river or to the deeper 

water, and their place is then taken by the roach ; the latter, 

however, affect the dykes and are found along the grassy margins. 

In Rockland dyke I have taken them out with my hands, and 

with a landing net one might, if so inclined, speedily fill the boat.


There appear to be three varieties of bream here : the true 

bronze-coloured bream, or carp bream, which is most sought 

after, and grows to a large size (I have seen one eleven pounds), 

the ' 

bream flat,' a white, dirty little beast which shows no fight ; 

and a hybrid fish, supposed to be a cross between a bream and 

a roach. 

As up to a certain point the preparations for bream and 

roach fishing are the same, it will be convenient to give one 

description of them, and separate descriptions of the subsequent 

proceedings. The most noticeable part of the outfit of the 

Norfolk angler is the huge ' 

frail,' or flexible basket which is 

intended to hold his catch. He has also a hoop net, which is 

intended to hang over the side of the boat in the water, and 

is to contain the fish and keep them fresh while the fishing 

is going on. Into this they are dropped one by one without 

any merciful knock on the head, and there in a struggling mass 

they suffer slow suffocation until the time comes for the catch to 

be counted and weighed. He has a bundle of rods and a large 

tackle-case, his shabbiest clothing and warmest coats, for he 

has to sit still for many hours. His boat is rough in appear- 

ance, but it is steady and safe, and extremely inexpensive to 

hire a shilling or eighteenpence a day being the riverside 

charge. 

In the boat are two strong mooring-poles about seven- 

teen feet long. The first thing is to fix upon a suitable ' 

the meaning of which has already been explained. 

lee,' 

Then one 

of the mooring-poles is thrust into the mud, and one end of the 

boat tied to it. The boat is then brought parallel 

with the 

bank, and the other mooring-pole is fixed and the boat attached. 

It thus lies parallel with the stream, and from ten to 

thirty feet from the bank, according to the depth of the water. 

Care must be taken not to get in the fairway of the wherries. 

This precaution is so frequently neglected, and fishermen are 

becoming so numerous that they form a serious obstruction to 

the navigation. Now and then a boat is run into, and it is only 

by good luck that no fatal accident has yet happened. The 

wherries are sailing barges of thirty to seventy tons burthen.

364 


They are frequently navigated by only one man, and although the 

watermen are invariably skilful, and considerate towards fisher- 

men, yet it is requisite for them to have the fairway kept open. 

They cannot turn and twist their craft about, but must keep 

their course ; and it is incumbent upon anglers to keep out of 

their way. This is very easily done. The golden rule is never 

to moor off a ' 

scant ' 

A wherry must, with a head wind, 

point. 

go as close hauled as she can and if she is 

; 

turning into a reach 

which is a head one, or ' 

scant ' 

for her, she will go as close as she 

is able to the corner or point, so as to shoot as far as possible 

into the scant reach without tacking. Yet it constantly happens 

that just off that point a boat is moored. Avoid the points and 

you will neither hamper the wherries nor run any risk yourself. 

The mocring-poles go very readily into the mud, but are 

very difficult to draw out again, 

' 

the putty ' 

being extremely 

tenacious. Therefore, do not send them in too vigorously. 

When well moored, the next thing is to plumb the depth, which 

is done very carefully in the usual manner. An apron is spread 

over the knees, a towel or cloth is at hand to wipe off the fishy 

slime from your fingers, and, rod and tackle being ready, the 

business begins. As the water is deep the swims are short and 

the cast frequent. There are usually two anglers in a boat 

sometimes three and they therefore have to cast in unison, or 

lines would get entangled. 

If your pursuit be chiefly after roach, then the following 

local observations will be of use : 

As to choice of locality but little trustworthy data can be 

given. No precise rule, or at all events no discoverable rule, 

governs the movements of the roach at different periods of the 

the summer 

year. Generally speaking, it may be said that during 

they are found throughout the entire length of the rivers where 

the water is fairly fresh and not too brackish ; but the finest 

fish and the greatest number are found between Coldham Hall 

and Cantley on the Yarc, where the water is slightly brackish. 

Large numbers arc also found in the dyke leading from Oulton 

Broad to the Waveney. In the cold weather they retire to the


deeper waters, and are sometimes found in quantities in the deep 

water known as Thorpe Broad, which is at the junction of the 

old river and new cut just below Norwich ; and they gather in 

deep spots on the Bure and other rivers, where they may be 

angled for with success. 

The best period of the year in which to fish for roach here 

catches are often had 

is from July to October ; but good 

throughout the winter in fairly mild weather, and I have even 

seen enthusiastic anglers fishing over the edge of the ice. In 

the summer months the mornings and evenings are the best 

times, and as a rule but few fish are caught during the middle 

of the day. This is especially the case in bright warm weather, 

but on dull days the roach will often bite fairly throughout the 

day. 

The morning up to 11.30, and from three to six or seven in 

the evening, are undoubtedly the best hours in the summer, 

while the middle of the day is best in the winter. 

The best fish are found during the summer in the deepest 

water, in the Yare they should not be fished for at a less depth 

than nine or ten feet, and on the Bure in the deepest spots that 

can be found. In March and April they prefer shallower v, aters. 

The direction of the tide does not of itself appear to affect 

them, except that they always work against it swimming anyhow 

at the slack, and when it has changed swimming head to 

the stream. In some swims the angler gets all his fish on the 

flood-tide, and in other swims on the ebb ; but this probably 

results from certain local formations of the river-bed which 

change the set of the currents and eddies. 

Ground-baiting for roach beforehand is never practised 

on the rivers, although it occasionally is on the Broads. The 

varying currents prevent it being of use in the rivers. The 

angler therefore trusts to keep the fish close to him by a continuous 

ground-baiting during his fishing. For this purpose 

the best ground-bait is composed of bran, bread and boiled 

wheat made up into firm balls about the size of an orange. 

One of these is thrown in occasionally, and, with the addition

366 


of a few grains of boiled wheat scattered about, will usually 

suffice to keep a good quantity of fish about the boat. Another 

ground-bait is barley meal and flour, using a stiff paste made 

of the same mixture to bait the hook with. Cast the ground- 

bait in close to the boat, as it is sure to roll down the slope 

further into the stream. The distance up or down depends of 

course upon the strength of the tide. During the summer the 

most killing hook-baits are well boiled wheat and pure bread 

worked cleanly into a stiff paste, either left white or coloured 

red. In such clear waters as the Waveney and the upper 

waters of the Bure white paste is the best, but on the Yare the 

red always kills the best fish. In the autumn use gentles, and 

later on brandlings and gentles, or, better still, small red ' 

blood ' 

worms. Many other baits are used with occasional great suc- 

cess, but the above are by far the most generally serviceable. 

The rod in general use is a light stiff cane one from fifteen 

to eighteen feet in length, though for running tackle a shorter 

rod will do. Running tackle is, however, seldom used, except 

on very shallow streams, where it is necessary to fish at a dis- 

tance from the boat. It is a moot point whether running tackle 

has any advantage over the tight line, a little longer than the 

rod, which it is the usual practice to have. Some experienced 

anglers aver that for such deep strong waters as those between 

Coldham Hall and Reedham running tackle is decidedly to be 

preferred, while for the slower waters of the Bure and the upper 

reaches of the Yare it has no advantages worth naming. It 

therefore appears 

to be a matter of choice which should be 

used. The line which is fancied is a light plaited silk, with six 

feet of moderately stout gut and three feet of fine-drawn stained 

well-shotted line of this kind has 

gut attached to it. A light, 

many advantages, especially on a windy day. The float is a 

quill one, varying in size according to the depth of water, 

strength of tide, and wind. For deep swift waters a large 

pelican or swan quill is used ; for slower and shallower waters 

the finest porcupine quiil. 

The plan which has been in vogue 

with the Norwich school of anglers for many years past 

is to


attach the float to the line by the lower end only. It is claimed 

that this is decidedly the best, and that it admits of much 

greater neatness and accuracy in striking a fish than when the 

float is attached by the upper end as well as the lower. No. 9 

hooks are used when the fish are of fair size, at other times 

Nos. 10 and 12. The hooks known as 'crystal' hooks are con- 

sidered excellent for roach-fishing. 

In the deep swift waters the line is heavily shotted, the float 

being of a corresponding size. About twenty medium-sized 

shot may be placed in a space of about a foot, the bottom one 

not nearer than about three feet from the hook, with just one 

shot on the length next to the hook. This arrangement ensures 

the bait being carried swiftly to the bottom and being kept 

steady, very important items in roach-fishing. It is somewhat 

difficult to detect the first symptoms of a bite when the water is 

at all rough. When good roach are on the feed the float is 

first affected by a slight tremulous movement, and almost 

immediately settles down, generally in a slanting direction ; 

the moment to strike is just as the settling down commences 

at ' 

half the first dip,' as an old angler once said to me. It 

requires a large amount of practice and some keen observation 

before an angler becomes expert in this, and it is in this that 

visitors generally fail, especially if the water is rough. 

A friend of mine was one day pulling in roach as fast as he 

could bait his hook and goodly roach, too while a stranger in 

a boat close by had not caught one. At last the stranger asked 

leave to moor his boat to my friend's and fish his swim with him. 

This was acceded to, but the stranger still could not catch a 

fish. Yet he had plenty of bites, but in the rough water he 

could not discern them. 

Sudden perky bites indicate small fish, and these are often 

the most difficult to catch. In float-fishing for roach the bait 

should be just touching the bottom. A good plan adopted by 

some is to fish with two hooks, the lower one dragging on the 

bottom and the upper one three or four inches clear of it. 

This is an advantage in a fast stream, as it retards the onward

368 


motion of the float ; the bait is more easily taken and the 

swims are not passed so rapidly. When the wind is strong and 

the water very rough it is difficult to fish, or even to detect a 

bite. This is very tantalising, and not unfrequently happens 

through a shift in the wind when you are in a capital swim. 

The remedy for this is to put on a nice light leger with three 

hooks, and with which excellent sport may sometimes be had 

when it would be impossible to fish in any other way. 

Turning to the bream, which is after all the mainstay of the 

Norfolk angler, we find it uncertain in its movements. In the 

summer and autumn it affects the deeper and stronger waters 

of the lower reaches on the Yare it is then principally found 

between Langley Dyke and Reedham and in the winter and 

spring it prefers the shallower waters of the upper reaches, and 

is often found in good quantity in the vicinity of Thorpe Broad, 

and about Carrow and Trowse Hyihe, immediately below the 

city of Norwich. On the Bure the bream appear to congregate 

in the Broads, and make their appearance about the end of 

May in the river. The best months to fish for them are July, 

August, and September, and in warm weather the best time is 

morning and evening. Commence with the first streak of dawn 

if you wish to have good sport, and you can then afford to go to 

sleep during the day. A friend assures me that he has had 

capital sport by moonlight. The deepest waters and quietest 

eddies are as a rule the best, but large quantities of fine bream 

are caught in the Bure at VVroxham in not more than four feet 

and a hall of water. Of course the bait must just touch the 

bottom as it floats down stream. The fish bite best from about 

half an hour before high water to half an hour after, and flood- 

tide is preferred to the ebb. They are also supposed to bite 

better during the wane of the moon. For ground-bait use boiled 

maize, barley, or wheat ; barley meal made into balls, chopped 

worms, and boiled rice. The latter and grains are found very 

attractive on the Bure. If there is a fair opportunity of doing 

so, and the stream is not too strong, places are baited overnight, 

and this is very successful on the Broads. The hook should be


No. 7 or 8, and lobworms and brandlings are the best bait, 

although red paste is found killing on the Bure. A brandling 

with a gentle placed on the point of the hook will sometimes 

be taken readily when no other bait would be touched. In the 

deep, swift waters at Cantley, Keedham, and Somerleyton leger 

with success. 

fishing is the only method which can be practised 

The best bait is the tail of a lobworm, and three or four rods 

be used from one boat at the same time. The rod should 

may 

be a stiff and strong one, with a good top joint, and a salmon-gut 

foot-line is often used when among the big ones. In float-fishing 

for bream it is necessary that the bait should drag the bottom, 

therefore the bulk of the shot should be placed nearer the hook. 

The float must be long and powerful, according to the water. 

As the bream bites more slowly and certainly than the roach, 

it is immaterial how the float is fastened to the line, and many 

prefer attaching it at the top and bottom in the usual way. A 

bream-bite affects the float with a slight bobbing motion for a 

few seconds, then moving it off and sliding it down slantingly. 

Strike as he runs off with the bait, or the float is about to dis- 

appear and you are sure of him. In legering 

it is not advis- 

able to strike too quickly. Be sure to have the ' 

entlett ' 

weight heavy enough, as upon that depends much of your suc- 

cess. In all other respects the remarks respecting roach-fishing 

are applicable to bream, but bream are rarely taken in any 

quantity when the water is very clear. 

Both bream and roach are affected by wind and weather. A 

south-west or north-west wind is the most favourable, particularly 

when the water is ' 

grey,' or thick. Capital sport has been 

had with a moderate east wind, but a strong wind from that 

quarter is fatal to success. Rain increases the chance of sport, 

but too thick water stops it. 

In shallow water it is advisable to keep as quiet as possible 

in the boat. In deep water loud talking or laughter does not 

appear to frighten the fish, but knocking, or any disturbance 

which communicates a vibration to the water, is decidedly 

objectionable and causes a great interruption to the fishing. 

II. B B 

or

370 


For this reason it is a good plan to wear indiarubber-soled shoes 

or slippers in the boat. 

Meeting three well-known anglers I asked them to give me 

particulars of their best catches of bream and roach. No. i 

said : 

' 

I have done very little roach-fishing, but my best catch 

was 5 stone 10 pounds. My greatest catch of bream was 

132 bream, weighing 212 pounds; but I have had several 

catches since of 112 to 140 pounds.' 

No. 2 said : 

' As to roach, my own experience runs up to five 

stone by two rods between 10 and 4. Of bream I have caught 

with a friend six stone between 4 and 7 A.M.; but I know of 

three friends who once caught twenty-three stone on one of the 

Broads.' 

No. 3 said of roach: 'I have had some very fine catches, 

principally 

in the Yare. On one occasion at Buckenham with 

a friend, we caught six stone between 2.30 and 7 P.M. ; another 

time upwards of five stone in the same space of time, and 

numerous catches of from two to four stone in an after- 

noon's fishing. Also more than a bushel by measure one 

afternoon with a friend in Oulton Dyke. As to bream, 

caught, in company with a friend, seventeen stone in one day on 

Wroxham Broad, and with only one rod each. I have heard 

I have 

of many catches from time to time of from four to twelve stone.' 

(Stone=i4 pounds.) 

The above experiences may be taken as typical among the 

native anglers; but the great majority of visitors are not by any 

means so successful. On my asking No. 3 angler why this was 

so, he replied, ' 

Through ignorance of the general requirements 

of tackle suitable for fishing in our waters ; also of the modus 

operandi, one of the chief points being a want of knowledge of 

the right depth at which to fish. For instance, I have on 

several occasions found strangers fishing on the Yare in twelve 

or fourteen feet of water with their baits only four or five feet 

below the surface.' 

Of other coarse fish inhabiting the rivers and Broads the 

rudd is the gamest, and is found in some of the Broads in great


numbers and of large size. The dace is increasing in numbers 

but as yet is not sufficiently numerous to be specially fished for. 

Tench are numerous and large in certain localities, but are 

rarely taken with bait. The same may be said of carp. Eels 

abound, and the silver-bellied species are caught in immense 

numbers in fixed 'eel sets,' while descending to the sea in 

autumn. Chub are, I believe, unknown in the Broad district, 

the staple fish of which are bream, roach, and pike. 

The pleasantest mode of access to the various fishingstations 

is undoubtedly by boat, that is by having a craft which 

you can make your floating home for as long as it pleases you. 

Craft of various sizes and rigs are easily to be obtained. Thus 

at Wroxham Mr. Loynes has a number of una-rigged boats, 

each having an excellent tent to fit over the open boat and 

transform it into a roomy cabin impervious 

to rain. He has 

also larger boats of the same rig up to ten tons, having a proper 

wooden cabin and fitted with many ingenious contrivances to 

economise space and add to one's comfort. Mr. Loynes' prices 

for the hire of these boats are reasonable, and a pleasant and 

economical holiday can be spent by his aid. River yachts of 

the ordinary type, cutter or sloop rigged, may also be hired, but 

as owners are constantly changing, it is of little use giving names. 

At the present time Bullen of Oulton always has yachts on hire, 

and the Secretary of the Yare Sailing Club, Norwich, usually 

of craft to let. An advertisement in the local 

keeps a register 

papers would always bring answers. Lately a number of the 

ordinary sailing wherries have been converted into pleasure 

craft, and most comfortable and roomy house-boats they make, 

and for a luxurious fishing excursion nothing could be more 

suitable. The hirer could fish early and take a sail for a few 

hours in the middle of the day. He could moor at his fishing 

ground, rise at five and fish until ten, have his second breakfast 

(his first should be taken immediately on rising), sail until two, 

lunch ; and loiter, read, or fish until dusk ; enjoy his dinner or 

supper, whichever he may choose to call it, and go early to bed. 

The hire of a wherry varies frum six to eight guineas a week ;

372 


this includes the wages of the men but not their board, which 

you have to provide. The accommodation consists of a saloon, 

bedroom, and lavatory, with fore and aft cabins for the men. 

The saloon, of course, becomes a bedroom at night. The 

small yachts have simply a cabin, and forepeak for the man, 

and the larger ones have a lavatory in addition. Their hire 

varies from four to six guineas a week, including man. 

If, however, the angler does not care for a floating home, 

but prefers to take his ease at his inn, there are several good 

places where he can do so. It will be convenient to follow the 

lines of railway in our enumeration of these. The lines to 

Yarmouth and Lowestoft skirt the Yare and Waveney in a very 

convenient manner. Starting from Norwich and alighting at 

Brundall Station, you find within a stone's throw lodgings, boats, 

bait, and yachts at Flowers' boating station. This is not, how- 

ever, an inn, as it is not licensed. Coldham Hall Inn is half 

a mile lower down the river, and proceeding a mile further 

across country you cut off the loop of river which encloses 

Surlingham Broad and find yourself at Surlingham Ferry Inn. 

At both the last-named inns fair accommodation may be had. 

The next railway station is Buckenham, and the inn at Buckenham 

Ferry is generally the most favoured by anglers on the 

Yare. The next station is Cantley, and the ' Red House ' 

is a 

comfortable inn enough and is much frequented by anglers. 

Below Reedham the inn accommodation is limited, and from 

here to Oulton there is no place where accommodation can 

be relied upon, although quarters may be had at the Bell Inn, 

St. Olaves, near Iladdiscoe Station, Irum which place Fritton 

Decoy, a large lake lying between Yai mouth and Lowestoft, 

may be fished. 

At Oulton there are two good inns, the chief being the 

Wherry Hotel, kept by Mason, and the other the Commodore. 

The following tariff of charges at the Wherry Hotel will serve as a 

guide to the general 

cost of inn accommodation in the district : 

Bedroom and sitting-room with spacious balcony overlooking 

the Broad, 2/. per week ; a more retired sitting-room with


equally good bedroom, $os. per week ; a single bedroom and 

use of the public sitting-rooms, 145". per week. Breakfast, 

from is. 6d. to 2S. ; plain dinner, with joint and pastry, 2S. 6d. 

Fish and poultry extra. Boats, zs. per day. Full bait, is. 

Man, 4-r. The season lasts from June to the end of October. 

Out of the season the terms are somewhat easier. 

On the Bure there are two good inns at Acle, the King's 

but the best fishing station, especially for 

Head, and Queen's ; 

pike, is at Horning Ferry. At the Ferry Hotel, Mr. Thompson, 

the landlord, is a thorough sportsman. The nearest station 

is Wroxham, four miles away, and Thompson will meet the 

train with a conveyance upon being written to beforehand. 

At Wroxham there is the King's Head, kept by Jimpson, and 

lodgings are obtainable in the neighbourhood. On the Thurne 

there are two small inns, the Falgate and the Waterman's Arms 

at Potter Heigham ; and at Stalham, which commands Barton 

Broad and the river Ant, are two good inns, the Swan and the 

Maid's Head. Potter Heigham and Stalham are stations on 

the North Norfolk Railway, which runs from Yarmouth across 

to North Walsham, on the Norwich, Wroxham and Cromer line. 

Ormesby and Martham stations on the same railway command 

Ormesby Broad, where the Eel's Foot is the inn. 

I am desired to suggest a route for a fortnight's fishing, but 

this is a suggestion most difficult to comply with. As I have 

already explained, the whereabouts of the fish depends much 

upon the tides, weather, and time of year. Supposing, however, 

one had a fortnight at one's disposal, I should recommend 

that a third of it be spent on the Bure, say at Horning Ferry ; 

a third at Oulton Broad, with an excursion to Somerleyton ; 

and a third on the Yare, say at Buckenham or Cantley. 

. . . 

But if the angler selects any place I have alluded to as a fishing 

station, the name of which may take his fancy, he will do quite 

as well as if he followed any set route. There is absolutely no 

choice, and if he determines the order of his going by the 

he will find the selection as satis- 

simple process of tossing up 

factory as he could wish. It often happens that an angler

374 


going down to a well-known locality on the Yare or Bure for 

a day's bream- fishing, finds that these fish are not to be had 

at the place expected, but that roach, rudd, &c., are there in 

goodly quantity, whilst, on the other hand, anglers 

for roach 

will sometimes be surprised with a fine catch of bream. In- 

stances of this kind are more frequent on the Yare between 

Buckenham Ferry and Hardley Cross, and on the Bure and 

broads below Wroxham. It is, therefore, advisable when 

fishing for bream in these localities, to be prepared with some 

suitable tackle and bait for roach, and vice versa. 

I append a list of what are considered to be the requisites 

for a day's fishing on the Yare, or lower reaches of the Bure, 

arranged with a due provision 

for such accidents as will occa- 

sionally upset the equanimity of even the most gentle disciple 

of the gentle art, and which, if unprovided for, will sometimes 

seriously diminish the sport and pleasure of a very promising 

day. 

TacJde &f. 

Rods (2). 

Lines on reels or attached to gut ready for use. 

Floats, 2 or 3, quill. 

Gut, shotted ready for use. and a few lengths each of stout, 

medium, and fine-drawn, stained of a light brown colour. 

Hooks, about a do/en of each, Nos. 7, 8, p, and 10. Smaller 

sizes on fine-drawn gut. 

Shot, an ounce or so of medium and small-sized. 

Plummets (2). 

Landing 

Disgorge r. 

net and stick. 

Pliers, small steel. 

Store net to hang outside boat for putting fish in. 

Shore line, about a dozen yards of good strong line witn u 

small anchor or an iron pin, with an eye, about rS inches 

long, attached. Indispensable in the lower reaches of the 

Yare and Bure in windy weather, and without which it 

would often be impossible to moor the boat.


Baits &c. 

Ground bait (see Roach and Bream). 

Worms, brandling, with a few lobs. 

Gentles, in tin (very secure) with bran or meal. 

Paste, red, well worked and evenly coloured. 

white, 

Wheat, well-boiled, for baiting hook and occasional ground 

bait. 

Bread for making fresh paste, 

Red lead for colouring. 

c. 

Not forgetting, if the weather threatens rain, a good-sized 

umbrella or a waterproof coat. 

A creel, of course, is very handy for carrying such small 

articles as reels, winders, floats, &c., and for hooks and gut 

I know of nothing better than a fair-sized fly book, whilst for 

ground bait and bringing home fish, a good-sized frail basket 

with a strap or two to pass round it is about the most useful. 

The quantity of bait required for a day's fishing by a single 

person may be reckoned up 

as follows : 

Wheat, about 2 Ibs. ; this when well-boiled will make about 

4 pints. 

Worms 1 as many of each as may be had for a few pence, say 

Gentles / 6d. worms and 3^. gentles. 

Ground bait, about 20 balls, each the size of a large orange. 

Paste, red and white, each ball about the size of a small orange. 

G. CHRISTOPHER DAVIES.

376 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE 775/7. 

THE CULTIVATION OF 'COARSE FISIi: 

WITH A FEW NOTES ON ACCLIMATISATION. 

[I am indebted to the courtesy of the Marquis of Exeter, 

and of Mr. R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette for 

the following highly interesting and practical notes on the 

cultivation and acclimatisation of coarse fish l 

notably of the 

Black Bass, subjects in regard to which too little attention has 

been hitherto shown by the owners of ponds, lakes, canals, and 

other waters, unsuited to Salmon or Trout. 

It is probable that many of such waters, if properly stocked 

and judiciously farmed, might prove a success from a market 

or commercial point of view ; but in any case, as Mr. Marston 

truly points out in the essay which here follows, to do something 

for the healthy and wholesome recreation of the toiling thousands 

of our mills and factories should be in itself an object well 

worthy of the philanthropist and statesman. H. C.-P.] 

SOME anglers affect to look down upon 

coarse fish and the 

sport they afford. I confess I prefer fly-fishing for salmon, 

trout, and grayling, but that is not always obtainable, and then 

I am content with the next best fishing to be had, whether it 

be for pike, barbel, perch, chub, or roach, &c. 

An amazing increase in the number of anglers has taken 

place within the last few years. This increase has been large 

1 Lord Exetrr's very successful experiments at Burjjhley House embrace 

SiilnwniJu: as well as Coarse tish.

THE CULTIVATION OF COARSE FISH. 377 

among salmon, trout, and grayling fishers ; it has been far 

greater among those who, not having the means or opportunity 

of fishing for the Salmonidce, give their attention to our other 

freshwater species. A few years ago the angling clubs of London 

and the provinces could be counted by the dozen, now they 

number many hundreds with many thousands of members. 

But, while anglers have been increasing in this wonderful man- 

ner, the fish have been most certainly decreasing. The cry 

from the clubs is : How can we get fish ? 

Something must be done for these thousands upon thousands 

of anglers, for without fish their recreation is gone, and 

that they should be encouraged will be admitted by every one 

who gives the matter a moment's reflection. The larger portion 

of the coarse-fish anglers are working men and youths, me- 

chanics, artizans, miners toilers in our mills and factories in 

the great centres of industry men to whom every inducement 

should be held out to attract them into fresh air and scenes in 

their spare time. How, then, is the decrease in those fish, in 

the capture of which they take such delight, to be stopped ? 

and how can the thousands of miles of water which might yield 

them sport be replenished ? 

That these questions need answering at all proves that, in 

this country at least, very little has been done in the direction 

of cultivation of coarse fish, though, as a matter of fact, in the 

case of most of them it presents far less difficulty and expense 

than is attendant on the breeding of the Salmonidcs. 

The first thing to be recognised is that, consequent on the 

great difference in the modes of spawning of the SalmonidcK 

and coarse fish, a widely different method must be adopted. 

Salmon, trout, and grayling eggs are non-adhesive, and each 

egg can thus be manipulated separately they take months to 

hatch out. The eggs of the coarse fish are adhesive, making 

their manipulation extremely difficult so much so, that while 

ninety-five per cent, of salmon and trout eggs can be hatched 

out, those who have attempted to treat coarse fish eggs in the 

same way have rarely succeeded in rearing even five per cent.

378 


The eggs of the coarse fish hatch out in a very short time, 

a week or ten days being the average time required. If, then, 

we had to look to what is called artificial breeding to enable 

us to increase our coarse fish, the prospect would not be an 

encouraging one. 

But, fortunately perhaps, artificial breeding is not necessary 

in the case of coarse fish ; all we need do is to give nature a 

certain amount of aid, and she will do the rest for us. We 

must place the parent fish in suitable places for spawning, and 

then protect the eggs until the fry hatch out. 

It is not only difficult, however, to manipulate the eggs in 

troughs and trays, but the difficulty of rearing the young fry is 

even greater still. They are hatched out as perfect fish, almost 

at once requiring extraneous food, and they are so extremely 

small that to feed them is a difficult matter. They appear to 

require that as soon as they leave the egg they should be able 

to seek their own sustenance on the almost invisible animalculoe 

in their native waters. 1 

present 

The diagram represents what is known in Sweden as Lund's 

hatching-box. It was invented more than a hundred years ago 

by a Mr. Lund, of Linkoping. The Swedish inspector kindly 

furnished me with information about this box, which is in 

general use in Sweden. He says : 'Replying to your 

letter of 

the 25th of February, 1882, in which you request me to give you 

some particulars respecting Lund's hatching-box for the propa- 

gation of summer-spawning fish, I herewith hasten to give you 

all the information I can. Lund's apparatus is remarkable on 

account of its being, for aught I know, the first attempt in 

Europe to promote the propagation 

of the above-mentioned 

1 The umbilical sac, on the contents of which the trout alevin exists for six 

weeks, lasts the alevin of the coarse fish but a day or two, and unless the young 

fish arc fed they will die hence ; the difficulty of rearing them in confinement. 

Mr. Kelson, of Oxford, last year made the valuable discovery that the animalcule 

bred in water containing decayed vegetable matter (like that in which cut 

flowers have been kept some time') are eagerly devout ed by the young fry. 

I 

think it is difficult to over-rate the value of this discovery to the breeder of 

coarse fish. R. B. M.


fish with human assistance. As you rightly suppose, the box 

is to be placed in shallow water near the bank, so that the 

water does not flow over it. Lund has not given any dimen- 

sions for his box, which may be of any 

size. The sides are 

hinged, so that they can be let down, and they are perforated 

with numerous small holes, so that the water can circulate 

through. The inside should be charred by fire to preserve 

LUND'S HATCHING-BOX 

it. The bottom of the box and the sides are lined with fir 

branches. As you will see from the sketch I send you, the box 

should stand on blocks, so as to be raised a little from the bed 

of the water. With some modifications for instance, it is not 

necessary to have the sides hinged Lund's box has been 

adopted here in Sweden with success, and, in my opinion, for 

the hatching of perch, it is the most practical that has yet been 

invented. In a box of this kind, six feet square, and with sides 

two feet high, we place fifty female and from twenty to thirty 

male fish. These fish must be placed in the hatching-box as

380 


near their spawning time as possible, and are taken out again 

as soon as the spawning is finished. The fish deposit the spawn 

on the branches. It is of great importance that the sides be 

well perforated, to ensure free circulation of the water. We use 

these boxes chiefly for perch, but they can also be used, with 

some modifications, for other fish.' 

It is an easy matter to transport spawn which has been 

obtained in this way to almost any distance, 

as it adheres to 

the boughs ; so that you can either let the fry develop in the 

box, and then go free in the water you desire to stock, or you 

can carry the fertilised spawn to some place, perhaps a hundred 

miles away, and then place it in a similar box in the water you 

desire to stock. In a week or ten days' time the fry will hatch 

out in countless numbers, and must then be liberated and 

allowed to begin their fight for life alone. In the Swedish ex- 

hibit in the Fisheries Exhibition, some models of Lund's box 

were displayed. These models were exhibited in the Berlin 

International Fisheries Exhibition, and are thus referred to, in 

the German Official Report on that Exhibition, by Dr. Haack, 

director of the great fish-breeding establishment at Huningue. 

' 

In the 

In dealing with the Swedish exhibit he says : 

Swedish exhibit there were two insignificant-looking models, 

which were quite overlooked by the majority of visitors, but 

which were of the very greatest interest to every thinking pisci- 

culturist These models, in spite of their simplicity and insig- 

nificance, show us the way \ve, in future, most simply, easily, 

and inexpensively may carry on the propagation of our summer- 

spawning fish to any extent.' He then describes the manner in 

which the box is used, and refers to its advantages as follows : 

' As will be evident to every one, the eggs which have been 

deposited and impregnated in the box develop in a perfectly 

natural manner . . . air, light, and sun are able to exert their 

influences on the eggs in exactly the same way as if they had 

been deposited on water-plants in the open water in the ordinary 

way. Wind and waves can in like manner exert their benefi- 

cial influence on the eggs, which at the same time are protected


from the violence of the storm, from which cause alone millions 

of eggs are frequently destroyed in the open water. The sides 

of the box and the branches effectually prevent their destruction.' 

Further, the numberless enemies of the egg are shut out, for 

by placing a piece of wire netting over the top, the ravages of 

swans, ducks, and wild fowl those great destroyers of spawn 

are provided against. When I described Lund's box to a 

meeting of anglers at the Society of Arts Room in 1882, its 

manifest advantages for coarse fish culture were fully appreciated, 

and a society was formed with the object of renting waters and 

stocking them with fish, to experiment with Lund's box. Six 

boxes were made and used, and I think I may say that in spite 

of some errors inseparable from a first experiment of this kind, 

they proved fairly successful. Spawn in large quantities was 

deposited in some of the boxes, and large quantities of fry were 

afterwards observed in and around them. The only difficulty 

experienced was in obtaining the parent fish. From what I have 

seen of its practical working, I am perfectly assured that, provided 

you can get an adequate stock of parent fish, the Lund box is 

a most admirable contrivance for obtaining any quantity of fry. 

When obtaining your parent fish you will find that by far the 

larger proportion of them are females, in fact you will often 

experience difficulty in getting any male fish ; remember, too, 

that the males are, as a rule, much smaller than the females, 

and that, therefore, even the smallest, say even of three inches 

length, should not be rejected. 

These boxes have since been most successfully tried on the 

Thames, the Trent, and the Lea ; and on the Kennet Mr. 

Frank Gosden, pisciculturist to the Duke of Wellington, now 

breeds millions of perch fry every year to serve as food for his 

young trout. The dimensions given by the Swedish Fisheries 

Inspector are too large, 

it is better to have them about half 

the width. It is also a good plan to have a door in the side to 

let out the parent fish after they have spawned.

382 


THE BREEDING-HURDLE. 

Another, and in some respects even more simple contrivance 

for breeding these fish, is the breeding-hurdle. It consists of 

an ordinary hurdle, on which branches have been intertwined ; 

shallow undisturbed 

it is sunk in a pond, lake, or stream, in any 

spot, and the fish find it a convenient place on which to cast 

their spawn, which can then be taken out and transferred to 

other waters, or left to hatch out. It is chiefly advantageous 

where natural spawning places are deficient, and is used to a 

considerable extent in France and Sweden. 

POND CULTIVATION. 

Where some primary expense is not a matter of consideration, 

the pond system, which is carried on to such an enormous 

extent on the Continent, is the best and most satisfactory 

of all. 

It is the intention of the National Fish Culture Association 

to establish a coarse fish farm in connection with their fish 

culture establishment at South Kensington, for the purpose of 

hatching and rearing fry of all kinds in large quantities, for 

distribution to angling clubs and private individuals requiring 

these fish. 1 

The ponds, and the amount of water passing through them, 

should of course be adapted to the nature of the fish to he 

reared in them, and only one kind of fish, or fish similar in 

their habits, should be bred in a pond. As an instance of 

what may be accomplished with coarse fish in this way, I may 

mention that last spring Herr Max von dem Borne, the wellknown 

German pisciculturist, placed about five hundred carp 

(spawners and milters) in one of his ponds, and in the autumn, 

1 The Association has taken the Delaford Fishery on the Colne, near \Yest 

Drayton, and under the energetic sup -i vision of the secretary, 

Chambers, a perfect sjstem of ponds is being made. R. B. M. 

Mr. \V. Oldhain

THE CULTIVATION OF COARSE FISIL 383 

when he drew the water off before a large company he had 

invited to witness the result, more than eighty thousand fine 

young carp were found. 

I have referred to the difficulty experienced in obtaining 

parent fish for breeding purposes ; there are hundreds of 

streams and other waters in this country which contain coarse 

fish, which are considered by the proprietors of these waters 

as, I was going to say, vermin ; at any rate, they do all they 

can to get rid of them, to make room for their trout and gray- 

ling. The National Fish Culture Association would find this 

a most profitable field to work. I am perfectly certain that the 

proprietors of trout and grayling fisheries would be only too 

glad to give the society all the coarse fish they 

could catch in 

their waters, and the very finest pike, perch, chub, roach, &c., 

are those which are bred in a trout stream. The expense of 

netting and fish -carriers would not be great. I am led to make 

this suggestion because, when on a trout-fishing excursion, 

I have often thought how welcome these shoals of despised 

coarse fish would be if transported to some of the depleted 

waters around London and other large towns. 

Having described the methods in which coarse fish culture 

may be carried on, I will now give a brief general account of 

the natural conditions under which some of these fish breed 

to give a complete list would occupy too much space. In 

coarse fish culture the more closely we follow the conditions 

laid down by nature, the more likely are we to meet with 

success. Being fully aware of the scantiness of our knowledge 

respecting the breeding of many of our coarse fish, I wish to 

disclaim any pretension to complete accuracy in what I state 

respecting this matter. I have got my information, such as it 

is, partly from personal observation, and partly from foreign 

works which refer to the subject.

384 


SPAWNING TIMES OF COARSE FISH. 

Nature ofplaces they choose, and time it requires the young to 

hatch out. 

The Pike spawns in February and March ; 

the eggs, which 

are small, hatch in from fourteen to twenty- one days, and are 

deposited on mud, rushes, sedges, and other water plants in 

shallow quiet bays and ditches. As in the case of perch, the 

female fish are usually more numerous and larger than the 

males. 

The Perch spawns from March to May ; the eggs, which 

hang together in bands like rows of beads on a coral necklace, 

are very small at first, but gradually swell, and the young fish 

escape in from ten to twenty days according to the temperature 

of the water. The eggs are deposited on water plants and 

submerged boughs, and are then fertilised by the milt of the 

male fish. 

The Loach spawns from May to July ; 

the eggs, which are 

deposited on gravel in running water, hatch out in about eight 

days. 1 

The Carp spawns in May and June ; 

the eggs are deposited 

on water plants, and hatched out in from fourteen to twenty 

days. There are three kinds of carp : the common carp (of 

which ichthyologists find three distinct species in England), 

covered with large scales ; the mirror carp, which has one 

row of very large scales along the back, and another along the 

side, the rest of its body being covered with a leather-like skin 

free from scales ; and the leather carp in which scales are 

entirely absent. Specimens of the two last-named fish, which 

are not common in England, can be seen in the aquarium ot 

the National Fish Culture Association at South Kensington. 

The food of the carp consists chiefly of the larva: of water 

insects, worms, sprouts of water plants, and decaying vegetable 

1 One German writer states tli.it tlic eggs are deposited on water plants, 

ami on tlat thallovvs.


matter. Kitchen refuse forms very fattening food for carp. 

To rear carp with the greatest success the parent fish should 

be placed in a suitable pond 

in which there are no other 

fish ; after spawning the parent fish should be netted out, 

and in the autumn, under suitable conditions, there will be 

an immense crop of young carp 

from two to three inches in 

length. The carp is a powerful fish affording great sport to 

the angler, and its cultivation might be most profitably carried 

on in England, as the Jews will always give a high price for live 

carp. In fact, before the advent of Protestantism in England 

fish stews for the natural propagation of carp and other fish 

were very common. It is the custom in Germany to drain a 

pond every third year or so, let it dry, and plant 

ground ; a heavy crop is the result, and the water being turned 

oats in the 

in again, the fish thrive wonderfully. 

The Tench is another powerful and handsome pond fish 

which would well repay cultivation. It prefers stagnant and 

weedy waters. Like the carp 

and eel it buries itself in the mud 

in the cold months. Its food consists of larvae, water plants, 

and worms. Like carp and all other muddy-flavoured fish, it 

eats well, and loses the muddy flavour if kept for a time in clear 

running water. If. spawns from May to July on water plants, 

and the young fish hatch out in a week or ten days. The 

golden tench can also be easily bred in ponds. 

The Gudgeon, Minnow, and Bullhead spawn from May to 

July, selecting very shallow streams, and depositing their eggs 

on the gravel and stones. These fish all form admirable food 

for SalinonidcE, and can be easily cultivated in any small clear 

stream. The male bullhead makes a sort of nest in the sand 

under stones, and, like the stickleback, drives away every 

intruder. 

The Roach, Ritdd, and Bream spawn in May or early in 

June on water weeds ; the eggs hatch out in a week or ten days. 

The Chub spawns at the end of April or beginning of May, 

on shallow sandy or gravelly places, and the eggs hatch out in 

a very short time. 

II. C C

386 


The Barbel spawns in May and June on stones and gravel, 

in a sharp stream from one to three or more feet deep ; the 

eggs hatch out in a week or ten days. 

The Dace spawns in March or the beginning of April, also 

in sharp shallow streams. 

The Pope or Ruffe, so esteemed as a table fish on the Continent, 

spawns in March and April, when it seeks the mouths of 

small streams to deposit its spawn on weeds and rushes. 

Note. It must be remembered that fish spawn earlier in 

mild open seasons than they do in cold seasons ; in fact, a late 

cold spring will keep the fish back for weeks, or even in some 

cases for months. 

ACCLIMATISATION OF FOREIGN FISHES. 

We get such fine sea fish delivered at such a cheap rate, even 

in our most inland districts, that it is not likely it will ever pay 

to cultivate coarse fish for the market to any great extent 

although the Jews would always take a certain amount. But this 

work considers fish chiefly from an angler's point of view, and 

the question is, what foreign coarse fish are worth introducing ? 

There are only two that I should care to see introduced, viz., 

the pike-perch and the black bass, and they should only be trial 

in such u

FISH ACCLIMATISATION. 387 

men who had subscribed towards the expenses of getting them 

over. Having for some years past strongly advocated the intro- 

duction of this fine game and food fish into suitable English 

waters, I was, in common with others interested in this fish, 

extremely sorry to see, from the reports in the papers, that 

Mr. Goode, the United States Commissioner, had 'warned 

English anglers against the black bass.' I felt convinced that 

Mr. Goode did not intend to warn us against the introduction 

of this fish into any of our waters, but only such as were suit- 

able for Salmonidcs. Knowing that an expression of opinion 

on this matter from so high an authority would have very great 

weight in this country, I wrote to Mr. Goode to ask him if he 

intended his remarks to apply to the introduction of the fish 

generally. His reply was exactly what I expected it would be ; 

and I have very great pleasure in giving it, because it will do 

far more to remove any prejudice against the introduction of 

the black bass into suitable English waters than anything I can 

say. 

Mr. Goode says : 

Dear Mr. Marston, I am much annoyed with myself chiefly, 

for I ought to have expressed myself more explicitly that my 

remarks upon the black bass were so misinterpreted. I was 

speaking solely in reference to planting black bass in salmon 

streams, and in comment upon Sir James Gibson Maitland's paper 

upon the culture of Salmonidce, The entire drift of my remarks 

was to the effect that the black bass is a fish with which public 

fish-culture had nothing to do, being purely an angler's fish, and 

not one which professional fishermen can take in large quantities 

for the supply of the public markets. As an angler's fish I believe 

the black bass to be superior in every respect to any fish you have 

in Great Britain outside the salmon family, and I believe that its 

introduction into streams where pike, perch, roach, and bream are 

now the principal occupants, can do no possible harm, and would 

probably be a benefit to all anglers. It is also well suited for large 

ponds and small lakes, where there is an abundant supply of 

' 

coarse fish,' which a school of them will soon convert into fish by 

no means ' 

' 

coarse.' If you will kindly refer to my Game Fishes 

of the United States,' p. 12, you will find that my views as to the 

value of the black bass in my own country are already on record, 

c c 2

388 


and I can see no reason why this fish should not be equally valuable 

in Great Britain. I quote from my own essay as follows : 

' 

Fish culturists have made many efforts to hatch the eggs of 

the black bass, but have never succeeded. . . . This failure is the 

less to be regretted since young bass may easily be transported 

from place to place in barrels of cool water, and when once introduced 

they soon multiply, if protected, to any desired number 

The first experiment in their transportation seems to have been 

that of Mr. S. T. Tisdale, of East Wareham, Massachusetts, who, 

in 1850, carried twenty-seven Large-mouths from Saratoga Lake, 

N.Y., to Agawam, Mass. The custom of stocking streams soon 

became popular, and, through private enterprise and the labour of 

State commissioners, nearly every available body of water in New 

England and the United States has been filled with these fish, and 

in 1877 they were successfully carried to the Pacific coast. This 

movement has not met with universal approval, for by the ill-advised 

enthusiasm of some of its advocates a number of trout and bream 

have been destroyed, and complaints are heard that the fisheries 

of certain rivers have been injured. The general results, however, 

have been very beneficial. The black bass will never become the 

food of the millions, as may be judged from the fact that New 

York market receives probably less than 60,000 Ibs. annually 

; yet 

hundreds of waters are now stocked with them in sufficient num- 

bers to afford pleasant sport and considerable quantities of excel- 

lent food. "Valued as the brook-trout is for its game qualities/' 

writes Mr. Hallock, "widely distributed as it is, and much extolled 

in song as it has been, the black bass has a wider range, and being 

common to both cold and warm waters, and to northern and 

southern climes, seems destined to become the leading game fish 

of America, and to take the place of the wild brook-trout, which 

vanishes like the aborigines before civilisation and settlements. 

I shall be very glad, then, if you will quote this letter as fully as 

your space will allow, in justice to the black bass and its advocates, 

as well as to myself. 

I am, yours truly, 

G. BROWX GOODK, 

' ' 

Cominissiotier. 

As an enthusiastic angler for all kinds of fish, I should be 

the last to advocate the introduction of a fish which would 

spoil our sport. The Mack bass will take any kind of bait


freely, affords superb sport, and thrives best in just those waters 

which are not suited to trout and salmon, viz., ponds, lakes, and 

slow, deep streams. 

I have taken this fish both with fly and worm, and I am 

convinced that weight for weight it has as much fight in it as 

any fish. If you use a fly, it should be a gaudy one, and the 

best plan is to sink it under water an inch or two, and draw it 

along. 

As regards the pike-perch, I confess I have some doubt', 

he is rather too voracious ; still he cannot be worse than the 

pike in this respect, and he is certainly a more ' 

game ' 

fish, and 

better eating. 

The question of acclimatisation of foreign Salmonidce. is 

doubtless touched upon in the chapter on that subject, but I 

am firmly of the opinion that no foreign waters can give us 

better fish of this kind than our own. The American Salmo 

fontinalis, or brook-trout, has been introduced freely into this 

country, but it has proved an utter failure, except when kept in 

confinement in ponds supplied by streams, and deep cold lakes. 

It is not a trout at all, but a true char. Placed in our rivers it 

will not breed, it rarely rises to the fly, and it gradually dis- 

appears in fact, it is in no sense equal to our own Salmo fario, 

or common trout, than which I do not believe there is a better 

trout in the world. 

R. B. MARSTON. 

[In the above verdict it is probable that most fishermen and 

owners of angling waters will concur ; and having thus been 

introduced by 

Mr. Marston to the Black Bass as the one 

foreign species which, under certain conditions, it is highly 

desirable we should attempt to acclimatise, I am glad to be 

able to supplement the information by the following notes on 

the practical cultivation of the fish, which have been most 

obligingly placed at my disposal for the present volume by 

the Marquis of Exeter, President of the National Fish Culture 

Association. H. C.-P.]

390 


THE REARING OF BLACK BASS 

AND OTHER PISCICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS AT BURGHLEY 

HOUSE. 

I have compiled the following notes on the rearing of Black 

Bass and my other experiments in pisciculture at Burghley, in 

compliance with a request made to me by Mr. Cholmondeley- 

Pennell, who thought that the experience obtained of practical 

fish hatching and rearing during the last twenty years might be 

of interest to fishermen and fishery owners. 

Should they be so, I shall be pleased. I would premise, 

however, that my observations are offered rather as rough notes 

jotted clown from time to time than as a finished or elaborate 

essay. 

Some twelve or fourteen years ago, Frank Buckland, with 

whom I had been on terms of friendship for many years, came 

down to pay me a visit at Burghley, and he brought with him 

about two hundred trout ova in a pickle-bottle. The bottle 

containing the ova was hung to a tap over a sink in the 

Andromeda Hall on the west side of the house, and the water 

was allowed to trickle into it for about a month or five weeks, 

when the young trout began to hatch out. The water, though 

very pure, is exceedingly hard and cold, but the young fish 

appeared to do very fairly well. 

This was my first successful effort at pisciculture, previous 

attempts having all resulted in failures. 

Of course many of the fish hatched in the pickle-bottle died, 

but some were strong enough to resist all evils arising from my 

ignorance and mismanagement, and grew into healthy yearling


trout which were turned into a small pond in the park, where 

they lived for many years. 

After this I set up a small breeding 

establishment, consisting of slate-boxes arranged 

in staircase 

form, one above the other, with water laid on to run through 

them from top to bottom, over a bed of gravel. Buckland had 

introduced me to a Swiss-German Professor (De Vouga) who 

lived at Neufchatel, and he for several years supplied me with 

large quantities of ova from his piscicultural 

establishment in 

Switzerland, and these I hatched and brought up in considerable 

numbers, turning the fish, as they grew strong enough to take care 

of themselves, into ponds in Burghley Park, and into a small lake 

a mile and a half from the house, named Whitewater. 

All these trout (principally Salmo ferox] were hatched on the 

old system upon gravel, which I found to be very troublesome, 

and having discovered on trial that the ova hatched as well on 

the bare slate of the hatching-boxes, and required less cleansing 

and attention, the gravel was discarded altogether. My valet 

Deane (now Steward of the Conservative Club), whom I had 

taught how to attend to the fish-cultural establishment during 

my absence from home, suggested trying perforated zinc trays 

for holding the ova, so that they could be readily moved when the 

boxes required cleaning or the ova to be transferred to other 

water-runs in the conservatory where I hatched my fish. 

These trays I found to answer admirably, and the following 

year hatched some sixty or eighty thousand ova sent me from 

America by Sir Edward Thornton, who kindly obtained them 

from the United States Government Fish Cultural Establish- 

ment. 

I here insert a letter to Mr. Frank Buckland, from Land 

and Water, 1874, with Deane's observations and notes on the 

treatment of trout ova ; also a letter from Deane answering 

some enquiries I had made to him the other day. 

Fish Breeding at Biirghley House, 1874. 

Dear Buckland, You will be glad to hear that I have just 

received a good remittance of ova from Mr. Robert Roosvclt, New

392 


York, through the kindness of Sir Edward Thornton. The ova 

have arrived in first-rate order, and are safely deposited in my 

breeding-boxes. Four boxes contain the ova of the Corcgonus 

albus (white-fish), four of Salmo amethystus (salmon-trout), and 

four of Sahno fontixalis. The ova of the white-fish seem to travel 

the least well of the three kinds, as there are many dead amongst 

order. I 

them, while the other two sorts have arrived in perfect 

Black Bass' sent over but am afraid of them, as 

could have some ' 

Mr. Roosvelt says that ' 

the Black Bass (Grystes uigricans) is a 

fighting American, and will swallow every British fish in your lakes. 

It is our champion fish, and it can whip all creation of the fish 

race.' After this description, I think that you will advise me to 

have nothing to do with such a devil, if I want to get up trout and 

Salmo fontinalis in my ponds. The fish hatched from eggs sent 

me by Sir Edward Thornton last year are doing very well, and are 

growing rapidly. They are principally salmon, white and big lake 

trout, with a few white-fish. I hatched a good number of the 

latter, but, unfortunately, lost most of them, through their escaping 

down the waste-pipe of the lower large tank. I had a guard of 

zinc : but the little white-fish seem to work themselves 

perforated 

through everything, and they got away, despite all my care and 

that of my servant, who is a very good hand at fish-hatching. The 

trout appear to grow rapidly ; 

I have taken out several over one 

and two pounds weight this summer, while shifting my fish from 

one pond to another ; and one trout was nearly three pounds in 

weight. These fish had only been hatched a year, or a year and 

a half at most. 1 

Amongst them, I took out about one dozen very 

pretty fish, as bright as salmon, but different in form. They are 

broader than salmon, flatter in the sides, and the head is of a dif- 

ferent form from either the above-mentioned fish or the trout. 

The scales were like salmon scales but rather coarser. I am sorry 

now that I did not take fuller particulars of the fish before turning 

them into the ponds, and I cannot get at them now. Not having 

seen a full-grown American white-fish, I am unable to say if these 

fish are the same but not ; having had any white-fish spawn sent 

me the year before last, I do not think that my friends can be the 

Coregonus albus. Anyhow they are very handsome fish, and they 

came in the ova from the other side of the Atlantic, and were 

hatched in my boxes here. 

I have no new discoveries to tell you of, but soon hope to find 

1 This must be an error, and must mean two or three years.


that the instructions you gave me in fish-hatching a few years ago 

will result in my having a large part of the lake at Burghley full 

of fine trout of various species. I have lately dammed off the part 

above the bridge, and after taking a crop of oats and seeds off, am 

now gravelling the bottom, after clearing out the mud. 

Enclosed I send you the observations made by my valet (Deane), 

of the ova sent me from various 

while attending to the hatching 

parts. 1 The ova from Switzerland generally turn out well ; but the 

sender should be more careful about the packing of the ova, which 

are often sent in too crowded a state. 

1 

Truly yours, 

EXETER. 

Burghley House. 

December gth, 1873. Arrived at Burghley per ' Cuba ' 

from New York : 

Salmon-trout, brook-trout, and white-fish. The latter were mostly all dead, 

and very much clotted together. I think, perhaps, they were too thickly 

packed. The salmon-trout were much better, aad the brook-trout stood the 

journey very welL Placed the ova in the boxes. 

SALMON-TROUT. 

I5th. Ova commenced to hatch. Very few dead eggs among brook-trout. 

Most of the white-fish eggs dead. 

2ist. A good number of the salmon-trout hatched out. 

28th. Most of the salmon-trout hatched. No brook-trout hatched. Eggs 

looking well, very few dead. 

WHITE-FISH. Not a good one to be seen. 

Observations on the Trealment of Trout Ova. 

The temperature of the water for the trout eggs should be from 40 to 45. 

Anything above 50 is weakening ; it will hatch them out sooner, but will increase 

the number of deaths. 

The eggs from America are packed much better than those from Switzer- 

land, and arrive in better condition, though they must be a longer time on the 

journey. 

In placing the eggs in the troughs, equally distribute them over the gravel 

with a feather and it is ; better, if possible, not to let them touch each other, 

as the bad ones soon contaminate the good, and they adhere to each olher. 

The white eggs, or dead ones, should be taken out every morning. When I 

have missed a morning from want of time, I find more than double the number 

of dead eggs the next morning. 

When they begin to come out of their shell, increase the supply of water. 

At first I used to have perforated zinc over the outflow of the troughs, to pre- 

vent the trout passing down into the lower troughs ; but the zinc soon gets 

stopped up by the little things being drawn against it. Then the water flows 

over, taking with it the best fish. Let them have a free passage from the top 

trough to the bottom one. Do not put any eggs in the lower trough ; then it

394 

PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISIL 

To the Marquis of Exeter. 

The Conservative Club, 

25385- 

My Lord, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of 

your Lordship's letter of to-day's date, and beg to inclose herewith 

the extract from Land and IVafer, upon the ' 

Fish Breeding at 

Burghley House,' in which I found very much interest and pleasure, 

and was very sorry indeed when I had to give it up. 

The perforated zinc linings to the troughs or trays were entirely 

my own idea, and they were made by Mr. Tillett, an ironmonger 

in Stamford. There were three principal reasons which led me 

to try the perforated tray ; firstly, the necessity of doing some- 

thing to cleanse the gravel which used to get such a quantity of 

sediment accumulated during the Hatching, and more especially 

the food not eaten would lie 

during the feeding of the young fry ; 

among the gravel until it was bad, and a fungus would soon grow 

upon it, and would soon cling to any gravel, egg, or sickly little 

fish that happened to be near it, so that when I used to take it up, 

with the little pincers I had for the purpose, a whole bunch of 

will be ready for the older fish as they come down, and ready to turn out into 

the brook or pond, when ihe umbilical sac 

bottom trough. 

is absorbed. Have a rose in the 

When they were kept in troughs, and fed for several months, very few were 

reared ; the percentage of deaths (from gill fever) being so large. But since I 

have turned them out as soon as they begin to feed, I have been more successful 

with them, and therefore should always turn them out if I had a brook or 

pond to turn them into, on the absorption of the navel-bag. Such plaecs 

should be selected when the water is rather shallow, and not accessible to 

larger fish, and where there is a gravelly bottom, and with bushes or trees on 

the banks, which not only afford shade, but also attract numerous insects which 

are desirable for the fish. 

In some of the ponds the fish reqtiire feeding ns soon as they are turned in. 

Fish roe suspended in the water by a piece of string they are very fond of, and 

very soon leave nothing but the skin. The very small red worm is also good 

for them ; they do not olrect to curds, and the flesh of frogs boiled and grated. 

My Midsummer they are large enough to take small maggots, of which they 

seem very fond. They feed best at c.irly morn, and I alw.iys feed them at a 

given spot, and they are mostly on the look out. In our pond 

I have some two 

or three years old (the Amerirun salmon-trout and the Swi-s great lake trout I, 

and tiicie are some %ery line Iish among them, between two and three pounds 

c:uh. In the summer 1 put a few hundred rn.nnows in, and I now feed them 

about twice a week with beef and biscuits, and they come at it with a ru.-h 

delightful to behold. 

GKORGE DEANE.


clotted matter had accumulated in the gravel and scarcely seen ; 

and which I felt must be veiy injurious to the whole fry, and I 

think was a great cause of the gill fever which used, for the first 

few years, to carry off so many of the young fry. Secondly, I 

wanted to allow the water to flow beneath as well as above both 

the ova and the fry. And thirdly, I wanted a better method 

in shifting the fry from one trough to another, while I cleansed it 

out thoroughly and let in fresh water, which the perforated trays 

enable me to do so quickly and without the least injury to the fry. 

The first tray I had made answered very well, and your Lordship 

approved of it and gave me permission to order Mr. Tillett to make 

eight more, suggesting that the next should be made in a white 

metal, which would be purer than the zinc. 

When I received your Lordship's first letter I could not recollect 

the year I had the first one made, so wired to Mr. Tillett to give 

me the date on which he made me the first trough. His answer I 

inclose. 1 

I was very much interested and got some useful hints on my 

visit to Huningue, in Lorraine, to which your Lordship so very 

kindly sent me, there they hatched out the ova on glass rods, just 

in a wooden frame about two inches from the bottom of trough, the 

glass rods the thickness of a slate pencil, and far enough apart to 

support the eggs without touching each other, and as the young 

fry began to hatch out they would soon riddle off on to the bottom 

of the trough, but there was no gravel, as soon as they began to 

feed they were turned out into small streams in the grounds 

beautifully arranged and adapted for them. 

I think that it must have been after my visit there that I advised 

your Lordship to allow me to do away with the gravel in the 

troughs. 

I have the honour to be, my Lord, 

Your Lordship's most obedient and humble Servant, 

GEORGE DEANE. 

March, 1885. 

1 Sir, I made one perforated zinc tray on the Thirtieth of October, 1873, 

and eight more trays January the Nineteenth, and eighteen tin metal trays 

June 1876. 

T. TILLETT, 

Ironmonger and Plumber, 

Mr. George Deane. Stamford,

396 


Afterwards I continued to receive consignments of ova of 

Salmo ferox, Salmo fontinalis> and of other kinds of trout, from 

the American and Canadian Government establishments until 

five years ago, when, under the supervision of my new pisci- 

culturist, Mr. Walter Silk, who came to me in December, 1876, 

on the recommendation of Frank Buckland, I had succeeded 

in rearing so many fish, and in having so many of a large size 

from which to obtain ova, that my fish-breeding establishment 

became self-supporting. 

Under the able management of Mr. Silk, who had had 

several years' experience at a large fish-hatching and rearing 

establishment in America, improvements were introduced both 

into the hatching and rearing boxes (these obtained the medal 

and first prize at the International Fisheries Exhibition, South 

Kensington, in 1883), and in the feeding of the young fish, 

so that the Burghley fish-culture establishment has progressed 

immensely, and, as before mentioned, is quite self-supporting. 

I have from sixty to seventy female and twenty male fish, all 

hatched and reared at Burghley, varying between Ib. and 

7 Ibs. in weight, which are kept in a pond and fed morning 

and evening through the year, so that the smaller fish are 

never in danger of being eaten by the larger ones. About 

the end of October each year the female fish are full of spawn, 

and ready to deposit their ova, the males being full of milt. 

The water is run off, so that the trout can be removed with- 

out injury, the ova is pressed from the females into basins, 

and then the milt from the male trout into the same basins. 

The milt and ova are then gently stirred together to impregnate 

the latter. After the ova has settled again at the bottom 

of the basins, the water is drained off, and the ova is poured 

out into trays made for the purpose, and taken away to the 

conservatory at Bunjiley to be laid on the '/.'me trays in 

the hatching-boxes. I may mention that these hatching-boxes 

are quite different from any I formerly used. They are an 

invention of Silk's. Each box is about twenty or twenty-five 

feet long, and a foot and a half wide. The water enters at


one end and runs through a system of perforated pipes under- 

neath the zinc trays which contain the ova, passing out by 

waste-pipes for carrying off the surplus water. These boxes 

are all on a level, the old staircase arrangement having been 

long ago discarded. Under Silk's system the loss of" ova during 

the hatching process has been reduced to a minimum. I think 

now, as a rule, we hatch something like 85,000 to 90,000 out 

of 100,000 ova, and the losses in the feeding-boxes are much 

less in proportion. Having been obliged to dry and clean out my 

trout lake fourteen months ago in consequence of an irruption 

of pike and perch, I have this year been able to turn in nearly 

120,000 of 1884 fry, from which next year I hope for great 

results, as they will have become yearlings of about three inches 

or more in length. Silk has obtained prizes at the Norwich 

and the Fisheries exhibitions for both his hatching and feeding 

boxes. Through the kindness of some of my friends, the 

late Frank Popham of Littiecote, the late Lord Chesham and 

others, in allowing me to send down to their rivers at the 

spawning season, I have been enabled to hatch Kennet and 

Rickmansworth trout, and have now crosses of various kinds 

of trout in the different ponds at Burghley. I must also 

thank Mr. Popham and Lord Chesham fpr allowing me to 

continue occasionally to send down to their rivers for trout 

ova, and I am glad to know that the fry hatched at Burghley, 

which I sent back to the Kennet, seem to do better than fry 

hatched in that river in the natural way. 

The best cross for the Burghley waters appears to be that 

between the American and the Kennet trout, as the fish grow 

rapidly and seem to do better than the others in every way. 

With regard to the American Black Bass, Frank Buckland 

was very anxious to introduce it into this country, and spoke 

and wrote to me several times on the subject, urging me to 

make the experiment. He succeeded through a friend in getting 

a few of the fish over, but the cost was too great, and the risks 

to be run too numerous, to encourage him to repeat the experiment, 

and I believe that all this small lot of Black Bass died

393 


after having been a few months in England. An idea of the 

cost of bringing Black Bass to England may be formed if I 

mention that Buckland offered me some of his fish (as he said 

very cheap) at thirty shillings a brace. These fish were not more 

than three or four inches long. As Buckland still wished me 

to try what I could do, I consulted Silk, and as we knew how 

useless it would be to try to get the spawn of the Black Bass 

over here with any chance of its arriving in a hatchable state 

(Black Bass spawn in June and July, when the weather is 

too hot for bringing ova from America, independent of other 

reasons), Silk suggested that he should make some tanks on a 

particular plan, and go over to America to 

do towards getting a number of fry over. 

see what he could 

He started at the 

end of September, 1879, ar>d managed to bring back to Burghley 

about six or eight hundred fry averaging between three and six 

inches long. Of these, six hundred were turned into Whitewater, 

where they have thriven wonderfully, both in size and numbers. 

Silk has since made several successful excursions, bringing 

over for myself and friends considerable numbers of the small 

and large mouthed Black Bass. This year he has been unfor- 

tunate, owing to the ship having been caught in a heavy gale 

of wind, lasting f@r many days, 

so that the unfortunate fish 

were nearly all lost by being rolled out of the ship through 

the scuppers, or having their noses broken against the sides of 

the tanks. 

My several importations of Black Bass into this country 

have been distributed amongst various lakes and ponds in 

England, including Sandringham, Rushden, Whitewater, and the 

rivers Welland and Xenc. In Scotland the Duke of Argyll has 

turned into one of his lakes in Mull a considerable number of 

Black Bass which Silk brought over for him last year, and 

where they seem, from a specimen caught in a net, to have 

thriven very rapidly. I believe that the Black Bass will be a 

very valuable addition to all hikes, ponds, and rivers, where 

pike and perch abound, and where trout and salmon do not 

exist, as it is a very game fish when taken with either fly,


minnow, or worm, and fights to the last. There are none in 

Whitewater larger than three pounds in weight, but the Black 

Bass is said to attain a weight of ten or twelve pounds when the 

water and food suit him. He is an excellent fish for the table, 

with few bones, and flesh more like a whiting in taste than a 

freshwater fish. 

I cannot, perhaps, better conclude these notes than by 

appending a short history of the Black Bass that I wrote for 

the Fish Culture Association, and also a letter of my pisciculturist, 

Mr. Walter Silk, on the subject of his breeding and 

feeding boxes, which I asked him to compile for rue. 

EXETER. 

Burghley House : April 16, 1884. 

Dear Mr. Chambers, I have done the best I can to write 

you a description of the Black Bass, to which I have appended 

a sketch of the small-mouthed Black Bass (Micropterus dolomica, 

or Micropterus Lacepede\ La Perdie du Canada. 

Scales moderate, in about sixty-five oblique rows between 

the head and caudal, and eight longitudinal ones between the 

back and lateral line, decreasing towards the nape, but more 

towards the throat. Head moderate in size, rather flat between 

the orbits. Mouth large, with underjaw projecting. Angle of 

mouth anterior to posterior border of the eye. Front dorsal fin 

has the spines decreasing slowly in length each way from the 

middle spine. These spines are very sharp. The anterior 

dorsal fin has about thirteen or fourteen soft rays. There are 

eight fins in all, viz. two dorsal, two pectoral, two ventral, one 

anal, and one caudal. The pectoral fins have sixteen soft rays, 

the anal has one or two sharp spines and eleven or twelve soft 

rays. The tail has seventeen or eighteen soft rays. The colour 

of this fish in the younger species is greenish- black or dark 

olive-green, darker on back, and shading to yellowish-white on 

belly and under side of lower jaw ; more or less spotted when 

young, or marked with a number of dark blotches arranged in

400 


a regular line from the shoulder to the caudal. Head dark at 

the top, whitish from under the eye, and on the lower half 

of jaw. These oblique irregular stripes run horizontally upon 

the cheeks. Upper fins dusky, lower fins of a yellowish-white. 

The stripes on the body gradually disappear as the fish grows 

older (though black spots remain upon the scales, looking like 

fine lines or stripes), leaving the fish's general colour to be a 

kind of dark olive-green, dark at the top, lighter, a kind of bright 

bronze green, in the middle of the sides, and pale olive soften- 

ing down to yellowish-white in the lower parts of the belly. 

The Bass which I have endeavoured (very feebly) to represent 

in the drawing is Micropterus dolomica or Laccpede (the small- 

mouthed Black), the other true kind of Black Bass, viz. the 

large-mouthed Black Bass (Aficropterus salmonidas), is quickly 

distinguished from the former by 

its enormous mouth as 

compared with the smaller fish, and from its colour generally 

being lighter in tint. 

Both the large and small mouthed Black Bass are natives 

of Canada and the United States, and are found in most of 

the rivers and lakes of those two countries. These fish are 

very voracious, and will eat almost anything. A worm, a fly, 

a minnow, any fish not too large for him to swallow, liver, or 

frogs, all seem to be acceptable 

to the Black Bass. He is an 

excellent sporting fish when hooked, fighting most vigorously 

and requiring good tackle to land him when of a large size, 

and as the Black Bass is an exceedingly good fish to eat, 

tasting more like a whiting than anything else, I am sure that 

its introduction into the lakes, ponds, and rivers of those 

parts of the United Kingdom where pike, perch, and other 

common fish are indigenous, and where trout or salmon do not 

exist, will be most advantageous in all ways. I do not recommend 

anyone who is fortunate enough to have good trout or salmon 

fishing in his district or neighbourhood to import Black Bass, but 

where only common fish abound, I believe that our friend from 

the other side of the Atlantic will be found a valuable addition 

both for sport and for the dinner-table. The Black Bass is said to


attain to the weight of ten pounds and over but I have nevei 

seen any larger than four or five pounds, and these were stuffed 

specimens from Canada. In my own water near Burghley, I 

do not think that I have any larger than 2\ Ibs. in weight, but the 

Black Bass have only been introduced into the lake some three 

years ago, though they are thriving well and have multiplied 

exceedingly. 

The Black Bass spawns towards the end of May and during 

June as a rule, but I believe that this greatly depends upon the 

climate and the temperature of the water. The female deposits 

the ova at the bottom of the nest, which she has prepared by 

scooping out a hole in the gravel or mud in the bed of the lake, 

pond, or river. These nests are nearly circular in form, varying, 

according to the size of the fish, from one to two or three feet 

in diameter. 'The female lies on her side, and the male fish 

with his mouth presses out the ova by a series of what looks 

like " bites " 

along her belly. The male then ejects the milt over 

the ova from time to time, and the spawning process lasts for 

two or three days.' l The parent fish take the greatest care 

of the ova, and of their young when hatched, by swimming 

round the nests and keeping off all intruders, or anything 

which is likely to injure the young brood. When the young 

Black Bass are able to swim, one of the parent fish accom- 

panies them. I have seen on a hot still day at Whitewater 

the old bass swimming leisurely 

about near the surface 

of the water, surrounded by her family of young bass, lead- 

ing them in the same way that an old hen on land goes 

about with her chickens. The Bass in the winter-time appear 

to like lying at the bottom of the deepest parts of a pond or 

stream, and are therefore at that time of year very difficult to 

see, but as the warm weather comes on they begin to move 

about (mostly in shoals), when they will rise to a fly, or take a 

worm, minnow, or artificial bait freely. I think that the Black 

1 This I have taken from Major Arnold's Report, September 21, iSSi, 

United States Fish Commission, as I have never seen the spawning process 

myself. 

II. D D

4o2 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 

Bass prefers moderately still water to fast-running streams, as 

it is not migratory. In ponds which are confined, plenty of 

food in the shape of minnows, small fish of any sort, frogs, 

liver and Crustacea should be supplied to the Black Bass, or 

they will eat up each other, and the owner of the pond will 

find in a short time his stock reduced to about half-a-dozen or 

so of large old bass, who will (particularly if males) fight it out 

with each other till one has the whole pond to himself. 

I have done my best to describe the Black Bass as correctly 

as possible, but no doubt some of my observations are liable to 

correction. 

W. Oldham Chambers, Esq. 

Secretary to the 

National Fish Culture Association. 

Yours very truly, 

EXETLR. 

Reportfrom Mr. Walter Silk to the Rfarquis of Exeter. 

My Lord, As you desire, I have prepared the following 

account of the different methods cf hatching the ova of 

SalmonidtK) their origin, advantages and disadvantages. 

There are six methods of hatching the ova of Salmonida : 

the first five present more or less difficulties, which have led me 

to abandon them, and to make experiments suggested by my 

own experiences ; these have resulted in the adoption of the 

present hatching-box now in use at Burghley House. 

The first method used by Jacobi, a German, in 1763, was 

to place in wooden boxes, having wickcrwork ends (the bottoms 

being covered with sand), any ova that might be obtained out 

of the gravel in brooks, where the trout had spawned. This 

sand was found to be tuo compact in its nature. Dom Peri- 

choud, following in Jacobi's footsteps, 

first discovered the fact 

that the ova could be expressed from the female fish, and arti- 

ficially fecundated by using the milt of the male. He covered 

the ova with gravel instead of sand, and this was found to answer


much better, but it had one serious drawback, as when any of 

the ova died they got covered with a fungous growth called 

Byssus, which communicated itself to all the healthy ova in its 

vicinity, thereby causing their death. The next step was to 

place the ova on the surface of the gravel. This was found to 

answer much better, but it had another drawback. It was 

found that dirt, the shells of the ova when the fry hatched out, 

dead fish, and Byssus, filled up more or less all the spaces in 

the gravel, making it very difficult to clean out, and causing 

serious mortality amongst the young fry. Another experiment 

was to remove the gravel and hatch the ova on the bare bottom 

of the trough or box. This was a further improvement, but it 

appeared that the ova having to lie on this surface from 50 

to 100 days, according to the temperature of the water, some of 

them stuck there and died. The next step in advance was the 

invention of the grille. 

This was first used at Huningue about 

1840. Livingstone Stone, of the United States, adopted this 

principle ; Farnaby then brought it to this country, 

and used 

it at the Troutdale Fish Breeding Establishment, Keswick, 

Cumberland, and it has also been adopted by others in Scot- 

land, though it has some very serious defects. The first is the 

loss of space taken up by the frame which the glass bars rest 

in ; the next is that dirt accumulates under the grille whilst 

the ova are hatching, so that when the fry burst the envelopes, 

and drop through the bars, everything goes with them. The 

consequence of this is that the space under the grille 

is filled 

with living and dead fish, the envelopes that came off the eggs, 

and the dirt that has accumulated during the hatching process. 

Another fault is the loss of a number of fry by getting under 

the frame of the grille. Of course all the ova do not hatch 

at the same time, so those that hatch first drop down through 

the bars of the grille to get out of the dirt and hide themselves ; 

they get under the pieces of wood that form the sides and ends 

of the grille. Those that get in there first are all right for a 

time, but soon others keep hatching out and force themselves 

into this space behind the others, and so smother those farthest

404 


in. Another serious objection is the manner in which the 

water escapes from the hatching apparatus, but of this I will 

speak hereafter. The next method is Major T. B. Ferguson's 

glass jars, the water coming in at the bottom. These are a 

decided improvement on the grille ; they are cleaner, and the 

envelopes that come off the eggs can easily be taken out ; 

they all lack one most important feature viz. the permitting of 

the water to flow out freely without injuring the fry or allowing 

any of them to escape. 

In the Ferguson jars, as soon as the fish are hatched they 

commence to swim about, instead of rising and falling with the 

water. To prevent them from escaping altogether, and so 

being lost, the water is allowed to run through a cylindrical - 

shaped vessel made of fine wire gauze ; 

with fish it has to be emptied back again into the glass jar, or 

but 

when this gets crowded 

else the fry would smother each other, as they often do, even 

when well attended to. In the grille system the manner in 

which the water escapes is through a piece of fine wire gauze, 

placed across the end of the hatching-box. The wire is fixed 

perpendicularly with the bottom of the box ; 

this causes the 

water to pass through the screen at right angles, with a con- 

siderable pressure on the screen ; all weak fish getting drawn 

against this screen are killed, being unable to get away. 

To prevent all this, I have invented my present hatchingbox, 

which is as nearly as possible automatic. It is on the 

system of a boiling spring. The large-sized hatching boxes are 

twelve feet long by two feet six broad ; on the bottom (inside) 

four half-inch pipes are placed, stopped at one end. The water 

is turned on, and holes are pricked in the pipes about two 

inches apart. When the box commences to fill, it has the 

appearance of boiling, the water being all in commotion. Three 

inches above the pipes trays arc fixed, made of perforated /.'me 

or wire gauze ; these are three and a half inrhes dee]) by two 

and one foot broad. The water is raised until it is two 

feet long 

and a half inches deep in the trays, and it then runs out of the 

sides and ends of these trays by a channel that runs down each


side of the box. The ova being placed all over the bottom of 

the trays the water keeps it in a gentle motion, and any dirt that 

may be in the water is either passed off with the water or else 

settles at the bottom of the box, where it remains. Nothing 

now requires to be done but to take out any of the ova that 

may die. A week will often elapse without having to do this. 

As soon as the young fish are hatched out, the envelopes of the 

eggs commence floating about ; 

the latter must be taken out with 

a small gauze net. Matters may now be left in statu quo for 

about six weeks, as the fish keep themselves clean by constantly 

swimming about, and if there is any dirt they rub it through 

the holes in the bottom of the tray. 

The three great advantages pertaining to this plan are : 

first, the apparatus cannot overflow; secondly, no fish can escape 

or injure themselves ; and thirdly, no dirt can accumulate where 

the ova or fish are. There is also another great advantage in 

the system, which is that, as compared with all other plans, it 

is very economical, simple in construction, and can be adapted 

anywhere. 

BUK.GHLEY PARK : July 1884.

ACC 

ACCLIMATISATION of the black 

bass, 386-389 . 390-397 

Artificial baits, 58-62 . 101 

BARBEL and bream, and fishing 

for, 299-307 

Bait cans, 44-47 

Baits for pike, and bait catching, 

40 63 

Baits, natural, for spinning, 

' 

40 ; live-baits,' 138 

fresh or stale, 42 

how to . keep alive, 42 44 

brandy 

1 60 

' 

as a reviver,' 43 . 

tench as a pike bait, 43 

bait cans, 44-47 

Field's aerating bait can, 47 

Baits, preserved, and various 

experiments, 52-57 

eel-tail, salt and fresh, and 

whitebait, 53-57 

Artificial . Baits, 58-62 101 

' 

composite bait,' 6 1 

pike fly, 62 

Bait catching, 47 

cast net, 47 

seine or ' 

sweep ' 

net, 49 

1 

a rotten rope,' 49 

INDEX. 

CAR 

Bait catching (cont.} : 

foolish exposure, 51-52 

minnow net, 52 

a Lough Corrib pike, 57 

Baits for coarse fishing generally, 

see ' 

Float Fishing,' 225-241 

Black bass, acclimatisation of, 

and rearing, 386-389 . 390- 

397 

' 

see Gudgeon and Bleak,' 

Bleak, 

and fishing for, 324-334 

Brandy and pike baits, 43 

. 161 

Bream-flat, 304 

Bullock's brains and ' 

pith,' 234 

CADDIS bait,' 237 

Carp-Bream, and fishing for, 

299-307 

Carp and tench, 269-298 

' 

Cunning Carp,' lay of, 272 

sense of hearing in carp, 275 

tameness of carp, 274 

in ponds, 276 

longevity, 285 

varieties of carp (Prussian, 

&c.), 281 

large specimens, 282 

tackle, baits, and times for 

carp fishing, 286-293

4o3 


CAR 

Carp and tench (cont. ) : 

tackle, baits, &c., for tench, 

293 

habitats of tench, 294 

healing qualities, 295 

Casting nets for bait, 47 

Casts of fish v. stuffed fish, 149 

Chub, see ' Dace and Chub," 

fishing for, 308-323 

Creels, 2IO 

and fish carriers, 34 

Crucian carp, 281 

Cultivation of coarse fish, 376- 

386 

Lund's hatching box, 379 

the breeding hurdle, 382 

pond cultivation, 382 

spawning of coarse fish, 384 

DACE and chub, and fishing 

for, 308-323 

dace and chub flies, 309 .315 

turned-down eyed hooks for 

flics, 309 

1 

Pcnnell sneck ' 

bend, 310 

knot' attachment foi 

'jam 

flies, 309-311 

bottom fishing and ground 

baiting, 316 

natural grasshoppers and arti- 

ficial 

caterpillars, 316 

' 

pith ' 

and bullock's brains,. 

234 

Disgorgers, 29 

Dogs, fishing, 247 

EEL-TAIL bait, salt and fresh, 

53-57 

Exeter, Marquis of, piscicultural 

experiments, 390-405 

FERRULES, 15 

FLO 

' Fine fishing,' recommended, 2 ; 

for pike, 7 

Fish culture at Burghley House, 

390-405 

Fishing knife, 223 

Flights, spinning, for pike, 67-74 

how to bait, 80 

material for dressing, 84 

testimony to success of Mr. 

Pennell's, 91-93 

Float fishing for coarse fish gene 

rally, 205-351 

Tackle for, 205-224 

hooks, 205-207 . 309-311 

. 229 

gut, 207 

reel or Running line, 207 

Nottingham line, 208 

rods, 209 

creels, 210 

landing nets, 21 1 

floats and ' 

caps,' 213 

shot and lead wire, 218 

plummets, 219 

a rod rest, 220 

tackle vice, 222 

fishing pliers, 222 

. 222 

fishing knife, 223 

Eaits, 225-241 

worms and how to bait with 

them, 225 

two-hook worm tackle, 2^9 

gentles and pastes, 230 

greaves, 234 

'pith ' 

and bullock's brain-, 

234 

wasp grubs or lame, 23 j 

grasshoppers, 237 

' caddis bait,' 237 

meal worms, 238 

stewed wheat, 238 

ground baiting, 239-241

FLO 

Floats and caps, 213 . 222 

' 

Flying triangles,' 68 

GAFFS and gaffing pike, 32-34 

Gentles and pastes, 230 

Gimp, selection of, and staining, 

35- 36 

Gorge bait, dead, trolling with 

the (see Pike Fishing), 1 74- 

204 

line and tackle (see Pike Fish- . 

ing), 171 

Grasshoppers, 237 

Greaves, 234 

Ground baiting, 239-241 

Growth rate of pike, 144-149 

Gudgeon and bleak, and fishing 

for, 324-334 

Gut, how to twist, 86 

' ' 

Buffer knot for, 87 

selection and staining of 

(vide vol. i. ) 

HOOKS, killing powers of, in 

Pike-spinning flights, 74 . 

124 

defective ditto, 75 

triangles for ditto, 76 

' 

flying triangles,' ditto, 68 

tail and reverse hooks, ditto, 

77 

'straight reverse' ditto, 77 

lip hooks and new patterns, 

ditto, 77 . 83 

for float fishing generally, 205- 

207 . 309-311 . 229 

for chub and dace flies, 309 

3" 

eyed, turn-down, 309-313 

,, ,, for float-fishing 

and sea-fishing, 313 

INDEX. 409 

PER 

'JAM KNOT' attachment for 

chub and dace flies, 309-311 

Joint fastenings, 1 6 

' 

KINKING,' 66 . 89 

Knife, fisherman's, 223 

Knots, for eyed hooks, various, 

309, 313 

LANDING NETS, 211 

Leads, new pattern for spinning 

traces., 88-90 . 91 . 93 

Lead wire instead of shot, 218 

for spinning-traces, 91 

Leger lead, new, 302 

Legering for barbel, 302 

Live-baiting for pike (see Pike 

Fishing), 132-173 

Live gorge-baiting and tackle 

(see Pike Fishing), 171 

MEAL WORMS, 238 

Midge antidote, iio-in 

Minnow nets, 52 

NETS for bait catching, 47-52 

Norfolk Broad and river fishing, 

352-375 

PASTES and gentles, 230 

Paternostering, 165 

Mr. Jardine's Pike-paternoster, 

1 66 

Perch and perch fishing, 242-268 

sense of sight, instances, 256 

' 

acclimativeness,' 257 

spawning, 257 

unisexual, 258

4TO 


PER 

Perch and perch fishing (cont. } : 

perch fishing with paternoster, 

259 

minnow and float, 262 

spinning for, baits and tackle, 

262-265 

float and worm, 265 

Pike, notes on history of, 

1-7 

European and American, 3 

British, early notices of, 4 

derivations of names, 4-5 

tame pike, 140 

taking frogs in stew-ponds, 

139 

killed by swallowing lizard, 

141 

capacity of food consumption, 

143 

growth rate, 144-149 

fish casting v. fish stuffing, 

149 

very large pike, 150-155 

pike with rings, 155 

fish 'declensions,' 157 

voracity of pike, 158 

. 180- 

183 . 194 

edible qualities of, and cook- 

ing, 197-203 

spawning, 203 

Pike fishing, 64-204 

Spinning for pike, 64-131 

early mention of, 65 

'kinking' and its remedy, 

66. 89 

correct principles in con- 

struction of spinning 

flights, 67 

' 

flying ' 

triangles, 68 

three patterns of flights, 

69-74 

to bait a spinning flight, 

So 

PIK 

Pike fishing- Spinning (cont.} : 

' 

' 

killing powers of hooks, 74 . 

124 

defective hooks, 75 

triangles, 76 

' 

tail and reverse hooks,' 77 

4 

straight reverse,' 77 

lip hooks and new patterns, 

77.83 

Tinsel and varnish for flights, 

80 

proportion of runs missed, 

Si . 122 

Mr. Penncll's improved flights, 

Si . 67-74 

to dispense with lip hooks, 

82 

diagram of, and trace, 83 . 85 

materials for dressing flights, 

84 

the trace, 83 . 85 

how to twist gut, 86 

'Buffer' knot for traces, 87 

swivels, 88 

leads new pattern, 88-90. 

9i 93 

lead wire, 91 

' 

kinking,' 66 . 89 

testimony to success of Mr. 

Pennell's 

91-93 

spinning tackle, 

how and where to spin, 94-131 

method of casting, 95 

' 

Nottingham style,' 97 . 19 

'Thames style,' 99-100 

long cast, 99 

best places for spinning, 100 . 

ic6 .in 

artificial baits, failure of, 101 . 

58-62 

jack fishing on the Avon, 107- 

1 

1 1 1 

midge antidote,' 

I IO- 1 1 1

PIK 

Pike fishing Spinning (cont.} : 

wet weeds as sun protectors, 

no 

pike rivers not generally 

good salmon and trout 

rivers, 1 12 

the Thames as a salmon 

river, 114 

striking and playing, I2O- 

127 

landing, 127 

' 

water babies,' 127 

best hours, weathers, and 

waters, 128 

depth at which to spin, and 

' 

leading,' 130 

pike haunts, 131 

Live baiting, 132-173 

tackle and hooks, 132-136 

'Fishing Gazette' float, 136 

trace, 137 

baits, 138 

best places to use live bait, 

1 60 

huxing, 163 

paternostering, 165 

Mr. Jardine's paternoster, 

166 

live gorge baiting and 

tackle, 171 

Trolling with dead gorge 

bait, 174-204 

origin and early mention of, 

174-178 

when legitimate, 178 

to extract hooks, 179 

tackle and hooks, 183-188 

working the gorge bait, iSS- 

194 

an ' 

immovable ' 

Pike fly, 62 

pike, 191 

Pike tackle, 8-39 

Spinning and trolling rods, 8 

INDEX. 411 

REE 

Pike tackle Rods (cant.} : 

different woods, 9 

a favourite pike rod, IO 

of spliced cane, 1 1 

too short better than too 

long, 12 

steel rings for, 13 

' 

pronged ' 

top and bottom 

rings, 13-14 

ferrules, 15 

new joint fastenings, 16 

reel fastenings, 22 

varnish, 17 

india-rubber knobs, 17 

Reels and reel lines, 17-26 

' 

line-hitching ' 

19-20 

Nottingham reels, 19 . 97 

wedge fastening for, 22 

reel lines, . 23 26 

preventer, 

dressings for, 23-26 

Swivels, . 27 88 

double, and 'hook,' 27-28 

disgorgers and 'trolling knife,' 

29 

gaffs and gaffing, 32-34 

creels and fish carriers, 34 

gimp, selection of, 35 

to stain, 36 

tackle varnish, 39 

Pisciculture at Burghley House, 

390-405 

' Pith ' 

and bullock's brains, 234 

Pliers, fishing, 222 

Plummets, 219 

Pomeranian bream, 305 

Preserved pike-baits, 52-57 

Prussian carp, 281 

REEL FASTENING, new, 22 

Reel lines, 23 . 26 . 207-208 

Reels for trolling, 17-22 

Nottingham, 19 . 97

412 


RIN 

Rings, steel 'pronged,' for troll- 

ing rods, 13 

Roach fishing as a fine art, 335- 

351 

Rod rest, 220 

Rods, spinning and trolling, 8-17 

for float fishing, 209 

Rudd, fishing for, 349-350 

Ruffe, caught for bet, 259 

SEA fishing, turn-down eyed 

hooks for, and knots, 313 

Shot or lead wire, 218 

Spinning for pike (see Pike Fish- 

ing), 64-131 

Spinning flights for pike, 67- 

74.81 . 84 

how to bait, So 

Spinning rods, 8-17 

Stew ponds, anecdotes of pike in, 

140 

Sticklebacks, 255 

' Strait-Reverse ' 

and ' 

tail-hook,' 

77 

Stuffed v. ' Cast ' 

fish, 149 

Swivels, 27-28 

Swivels, double and ' hook 

swivels,' 88 . 27-28 

PRINTED TV 

WOR 

TACKLE VICE, 222 

Tail -hooks, 77 

Tench (see Carp and Tench), 

269-298 

Trace, for pike spinning, 83 . 85 

.87 

Transporting fish, 244 

Triangles, 76 

Trailer's knife, 30 

Trolling rods, 8-17 

Trolling with dead gorge, 174- 

204 

Turle, Major, knot for eyedhooks, 

313 

Turned-down eyed hooks for 

chub and dace flies, 309-311 . 

313 

VARNISH for rods and tackle, 

17- 39- So 

WASP grubs, 236 

Wheat, stewed, 238 

White bream or bream-flat, 

304 

Worm tackle, two-hook, 229 

Worms, 225 

SPOTTIS'.YOODK AND CO., NliW-STREET SQVAKB 

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