Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/495

 ANGLING 449 No. 1 shot, and a yard and a half below the shot a lip England by means of light worm tackle worked with an hook and a small triangle. It will be seen that the bait exceedingly small float and a single shot. This is cast plays near the surface, for near the surface are the trout out here and there in rippling streams, the angler striking when feeding. Success largely depends on knowing the at the slightest bite. A method which is gradually dying whereabouts of the fish. Many trout take up their out is the so - called grasshopper, a good - sized hook position after early spring in the more quiet reaches of the weighted with lead and the shank bound round with river, but most of the fishing is done in the weir-pools and green silk, a straw placed on each side of the bend of the on the shallows below them. hook, and the point covered with gentles. This arrangeIn lakes, spinning is usually termed trolling, and is ment is worked with a sink-and-draw motion, and can commonly carried on by trailing the bait some distance hardly be termed a sportsmanlike method, for the grayling behind the boat. In this case, as there is no casting to is a very sport-giving fish. be done, the ledd should be placed as far as possible from Pike, or jack {Esox Indus) are usually fished for with a the bait j one of the best tackles for the purpose is a dead or live bait, according to the season of the year and small Chapman spinner. Large trout which are never the condition of the water. When the weeds caught with the fly, except in the May-fly season, may be are down, or at any time in such places as weircaught by trolling. They are, as a rule, on the shallows pools, a live bait on float tackle is a deadly method, proin March and April ■ about June they begin to move into vided the bait can be made to travel, and be brought deeper water and remain there until September, when under the observation of a number of fish. For very they are found round the mouths of tributary rivers and small baits a single hook is used, placed through the lip streams up which they will by and by run for spawning. of the bait. For those of medium size, two triangles, The deep waters of lakes are not sufficiently fished, perhaps placed within about an inch and a half of each other, are because the labour of working them properly is consider- preferred. The hook of the upper of these is caught in the able. As much as a pound of lead may be required to back fin of the bait, while the hook of the lower triangle, get down to the depths where the big fish lurk, and so usually made small for the purpose, and sometimes that this lead may not alarm the wary old trout it has to reversed, is affixed to the bait near the shoulder. This be placed not less than 12 feet from the bait. Among the is commonly known as the Jardine tackle. For larger best baits used are small trout, minnows, gudgeon, bleak, baits the Bickerdyke tackle is one of the best made. and stone loach (called collochs in Ireland). A fish This is saddle-back in character, arming both sides of the firmly believed in by many Scottish loch-fishers is Salvio bait. A single hook is stuck through the back fin and ferox, which is caught usually by trolling. It is, as a rule, a whipped on to the two links of gimp bearing the side big-headed, ugly, dark old fish, and modern ichthyologists hooks, where they join. One of these side triangles are of opinion that it is simply a lake trout of con- hangs down loosely under the back fin, while the other, siderable age and usually a male. Trout vary so much which is on a longer piece of gimp, is brought up to the in appearance, according to their age, sex, food, and the shoulder of the bait and held there by means of a reversed nature of the soil over which they swim, and other local hook. Thus, when a pike is struck the tackle is usually conditions, that many alleged species have from time to pulled away from the bait into the fish’s mouth. Live time been discovered, which, in the end, turned out baiting with gorge tackle is quite out of date, snap tackles to be simply local varieties of the ordinary brown trout. of the kind described having proved far more effective. Rainbow trout {Salvio irideus) have now been so largely Paternostering is another method of pike fishing with introduced into England, that they certainly claim atten- live bait much favoured by modern anglers. The pike re ar Rainbow ^or1' g ds their beauty, sport-giving and paternoster consists simply of a two-yard length of stout trout. edible qualities, they rival the sea-trout, while gut, at the end of which is a half-ounce weight, bullet- or they grow with astonishing rapidity when well pear-shaped. About two feet from the weight a loop is furnished with food. They are easily reared, and are tied in the gut, and to this is looped a short length of certainly a great acquisition. They have not yet had time gimp which bears the hook. A long, rather light bamboo to become acquainted with the methods of English fly- rod should be used for swinging out this tackle. The fishers, and rise freely at any fly and take all the ordinary angler fishes entirely by feel; drops his bait in likely trout baits. They succeed particularly well in lochs and places, and, on getting a run, should strike without delay. other enclosed sheets of water. They appear to have Spinning is regarded as one of the most sportsmanlike migratory tendencies, but it has not yet been definitely methods of taking pike, and, particularly in lakes, is one ascertained whether this migration is simply in search of of the most successful. The best method of mounting the food from streams and rivers where they find themselves bait is either on a Bromley-Pennell flight or a Chapman starved, or whether it is an instinct. A quantity which spinner, and the bait may be a small dace, gudgeon, bleak, were placed in the Dove have, to the knowledge of the or sprat, while in very fine, low water a big minnow will writer, remained there three years. They have disappeared sometimes be successful when larger baits fail. Artificial from many streams. pike baits are legion, but the spoon and phantom still The grayling {Solmo thymallus), which is found in hold their place among the best of them. It is extremely many of the trout streams, is, like the trout, a mem- important to have a properly constructed salmon-gut t ie G ray ling ^er ^ salmon family. It spawns in the trace, the lead being hung a little below the level of the spring, gets rapidly into condition, but is more gut, so that no twisting takes place above it. Immediately commonly fished for in autumn than in summer. On below the lead should be a pair of brass swivels, and the whole, it frequents somewhat quieter waters than absolutely none others are required. Such traces are not the trout. In the chalk streams it is taken by the always kept by tackle dealers, so that the angler frequently ordinary dry-fly methods, and elsewhere with both the has to make them up for himself. The line should be just wet and dry fly. It is less easily alarmed than the trout, strong enough to hold the biggest pike likely to be caught, and will rise again and again from the bottom, a and stouter where many weeds are present than in open peculiarity of the fish. Two of the best grayling flies water. The rod should be rather stiff, the rings large, are a very small apple-green dun and the red tag; but a and the reel of the Nottingham type with an optional good imitation of any fly on the water will usually take check. With this reel the pike spinner can cast in the this fish. Many grayling are caught in the north of Nottingham fashion, or, if he prefers it, in the oldS. L—57