fishing; but if it chance to be a dry season and open, it is one of the best months. March, too, is very seasonable to the troller, excepting the time of spawning, which usually begins about the middle, unless the spring is very forward; and then they will be sick sooner. The snap is then the only way. If you fish at pouch, you may have many runs, but scarcely take one except it be a male fish. These two months will try the fisherman's patience, even if he is wind and weatherproof; but April will make him amends for his former sufferings. This month he will find most propitious to his pastime, because the weeds which have couched all winter have not yet erected their heads to annoy the bait, or frustrate the hopes of an impatient fisherman. The river is now clear of fog and filth; and the fish having lately cast their spawn, are now more hungry and ready for their prey; and there is now little fear of their forsaking the bait, as they did in March.

"The beginning of May is likewise seasonable, especially if it hits with the proverb, cold and windy. Towards the latter end of it the weeds spring up, and are very offensive to the hook; then begins the troller's vacation, which continues till the latter end of August or the beginning of September.

"In the autumnal season, October is the principal month, the weather being then temperate, and the weeds, which were strong and high before, dying and falling to the bottom. The rivers are generally low, which is a great advantage, because the fish are more easily found in their harbours; they leave the shallows and the scours, and lodge themselves in pits and the deepest places. A pike is now very firm and fat, having had the benefit of the summer's food; and if the weather continues dry, and not extraordinarily cold, you may take in part of November, which will add much to your sport, because the weeds will be more wasted and rotten; but if flood comes in October, or the beginning of November, you may lay aside your tackling for that season; for great rivers (like great vessels), being long in filling, and slowly mounting to their full height, are again long in falling and settling; so that the water will be thick and out of order unless frost or fair weather comes to

a

clear it. In small brooks and rivulets it is not so; you may fish there again within a week or less after the flood. If such inconveniences put off your designed sport, you must desist until the following spring, when the days will be longer, though the weather colder. As to the time of day, the morning and evening is best in summer, because towards noon the fish get to the top of the water, and are more mindful of their play than their meat. If the day be clear and calm, a snare is more proper than a bait; for the least motion you can make with your line will affright a fish that lies high; and if he is once moved and put to the flight, all the art you can use will not entice him to your bait again. Beside, it will then be too hot for sport; for heat creates no appetite in anything, much less in fish. It is the wind and the cooler clouds, when Zephyrus curls the waves with a brisk gale, that invites a fish to repast: those hot and sultry days are fittest for the float, when the fish are for some light diet, and the angler has the best time with flies, bees, &c. At such a time of the year, early or late is the best fishing, if it is in the night. As to the winter or spring quarter, one part of the day is as favourable as the other, for then the sun being not so hot, it neither molests the fisher, nor takes away the fishes' stomachs. The south and the south-west winds are the most pleasing to the troller; and it is granted that the fish are more brisk and quicker at the bait, and perhaps they may then have more sport than when the wind is contrary; yet this is certain, that the colder the wind is, the closer the fish lie to the bottom, and farther in their harbour, which may hinder you from having so many bites as when they lie out and more open in a warmer day; yet the air being cold and sharp, it makes them hungry, and if you are careful you may have as many fish as bites. A pike, in general, takes so much pleasure and delight in eating, that he never cares to stint himself, or physically, for his health's sake, to be content with moderate diet; for I have often taken him so soon after his feeding that he has had part of his meat in his mouth; having newly swallowed so large a fish, that his ventricle was neither capable to receive or digest it quickly; sometimes I have taken him with two or three baits in

his maw; sometimes with a great roach or dace; sometimes with one of his own species, very seldom with a frog in his belly. A frog is accounted a good bait once a year, that is about hay-time, when it looks bright and yellow, though then it is something difficult to find. A pike will feed to such excess and fulness, that he cannot gorge your bait, yet will rise and show himself, and make many offers, having a good-will to do it, that you may often catch him with the snap."

The pike spawns in March and April, making its way up the narrow streams and ditches which run into the river, or to the shallow parts of the lake: from the 1st of March to the 1st of June the pike should not be angled for.

Pike grow to a great size. The largest I ever saw caught was thirty-three pounds; but I have seen stuffed specimens of pike, taken in the Thames, which weighed forty pounds and more, and larger fish are caught occasionally in the Irish lakes. Under three or four pounds a pike is called a Jack, and indeed the latter term is often applied to fish of all sizes.

The autumn and winter months are best for Jack fishing, and a good breeze is always desirable. The water should not be thick or impregnated with snow, but otherwise any state of water or any sort of weather will do for pike fishing. There are three ways in which this game fish is usually fished for-i.e., trolling, spinning, and live-baiting. The rod for all three purposes may be the same, only if the angler has a choice it is better to have a longer rod for

live-baiting, as you can reach farther with less injury to the bait. Twelve feet is a good-length. The rod should be springy, yet stiff, with a strong top: ash for the butt, hickory for the second and

third joints, and greenheart for the top, is an excellent mixture. The rings should be large and upright, in order to let the line run freely through them, and the bottom ring should be of the form shown in the cut, while the top ring should be like that shown in the next cut. The rings are of this form in order to throw off the coils of the line, and prevent them catching. A large check-reel with about 60 yards of strong dressed silk, 8-plait line, is requisite. The Manchester Cotton Twine Spinning Company make some very cheap and strong cotton lines, which harden in the water and will do without dressing. They also make dressed lines, which are cheap, but the dressing is hard and wears off soon.

Trolling with the dead gorge-bait is most useful in holes which are weedy or abounding in stumps or tree-roots. The hooks do not catch in anything, and every hole and corner can be searched. The objection to it is that you must give the pike five or ten minutes to swallow or gorge the bait, otherwise the hooks will not catch in him, and it often happens that the pike rejects the bait before swallowing it, and your labour is in vain.

I should have said that the pike preys chiefly upon small fish, and these are the staple bait for him. The engraving shows the form of gorge tackle, and how it is baited.

Fig. 3 is the tackle: A the hooks, в the lead, D the gimp trace looped on-(gimp is silk covered with brass or white metal wire lapped closely around it, to prevent the pike's teeth from cutting the trace. It is made of different degrees of strength and fineness).

Fig. 4 is a baiting-needle. Fix the loop of the trace on the needle, and draw it through the fish from the mouth to the centre of the tail, the tail fin having first been cut off. The lead will then lie in the body of the fish, and the hooks close against its cheeks or gills. If the gimp be passed again laterally through the tail, as at H, it will keep the bait secure and prevent it doubling up. The needle is unhooked, and the trace looped to the running-line. The bait is cast into the water and allowed to sink to the bottom, then drawn up nearly to the top, and allowed to sink again. In this way every part of the pool is thoroughly probed and searched.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

E

F

Fig. 5.

It is a good plan to cut off a ventral fin on one side, and a pectoral fin on the other, in order to make the bait glance and sail about in a more eccentric and attractive manner. In order to throw any distance, the line must be drawn off the reel and allowed to rest in coils on the ground. Then with the bait hanging about a yard and a half from the top of the rod, the butt of the latter on the groin, supported by the right hand half-way up the butt, give the rod a swing, and as the bait is impelled forward, loose the line from the left hand, which has previously held it, and the bait will shoot out, drawing the line through the rings until it reaches the spot to which you have directed it. I have often thrown forty