Angling (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. MID-WATER FISHING. The second division of fishing is that of mid-water fishing, and this may be sub-divided between spinning and live baiting: taking live baiting first as being linked with float fishing. This is practised in two ways, with a float and without a float; live baiting with a float is employed for taking pike, perch, and sometimes trout. The float and weight of the tackle are proportioned to the size of the bait. When a large bait is used a heavy weight is required to keep it down in the water, as the tendency of all fish, when hooked, is to strike upwards towards the surface; and also it is necessary to prevent the bait from pulling the float under water, and swimming away with it. It is often necessary, when the fish to be caught are very large, to use large dace and roach of three and four to the pound as baits; and in this case the float is made of cork, and it is as large as a good-sized Bergamotte pear. In this style of fishing, which is chiefly for pike, one bait will be found enough; and it is desirable to have a swivel between the float and the hooks, in order if the fish turns round much that he should not twist and bring the line up, as often happens without this; and it is as well to have another swivel to attach the tackle to the reel line, so that the reel or running line may not be entangled with the tackle. Also it is desirable that the running line should be kept as near the surface as possible, so that it may not sink and become entangled in the weeds below, and so check the freemotion of the bait or the run of the fish. To effect thia fix a small piece of cork on the line, a yard or two, if possible, above the float. The bait must be allowed to swim rather below mid-water unless the water is very deep, when it should be placed nea...