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A SEPTEMBER DAY.

YOUR true pike-fisher- the man who makes pikefishing his hobby-cares but little for fishing during spring and summer. Trout-fishing ensnares him not. Roach and gudgeon have no charms for him, unless he catches a quantity to preserve in spirits of wine, to do duty as spinning baits on cold winter days when baits are not to be had. But when the hot harvest days are passed by, and as September wanes, as the nights grow colder, and even the midday air has a touch of keenness in it, then does the fever seize him, and henceforth during the autumn and winter there is no peace for him save at the waterside, with his trusty pike rod in his hand, and a prospect at least of having two or three good-sized pike to carry home.

And about the 15th of September he hath an opening day, and he goeth, not to a grand preserve, but to a small but pikey stream which floweth through the meadows. It is just to see that his rod and tackle are in order, and that he has not lost the knack of casting a bait. This is the record thereof.

Is it any harm, I wonder, to look at one's rod on

a Sunday? There is such a temptation to do it. One sits in one's snuggery in the afternoon; a favourite rod lies on a bracket close by. Is it warped? one wonders, after its long rest. What more natural than to put it together; and if the study is not large enough for its length, to push it out of the window and try its spring? And if people are passing on their way from afternoon church, is there any particular reason why they should look so extremely shocked? If it is wrong, then I am afraid the pike-fisher sinneth occasionally as September goes on.

At seven in the morning he steps out of his house and rings the gardener's bell. The gardener comes, and is laden with a casting-net and a bucket.

"A fine morning, sir."

66 "Yes, John. We ought to get some to-day. The wind blows cool and the sky is cloudy. Bring the garden rake with you." And they walk down to the canal, where John rakes the bottom vigorously, until it is muddy for several yards around. The master waits a few minutes, and leisurely adjusts the casting-net ready for a cast; and then, when he deems that there are sufficient gudgeons assembled on the muddy spot on the search for food, he swings the net; one, two, three, and the net flows evenly off his arm, and falls in a perfect circle on the water. He leisurely draws it in; and when John spreads out the tuck, they find twelve

These are

gudgeons and two roach in its folds. duly transferred to the bucket, as are also half a dozen gudgeons secured by a second cast. Then the master goes home to breakfast, while John kills the bait and wraps them in a cloth, rolling them up in the same manner as one sees a dentist's or surgeon's tools rolled up sometimes in a leather case, and so that only one bait at a time is exposed, when required, and they are kept from rubbing against each other.

About ten o'clock master and man are at the side of a small river which flows with sinuous course through rich meadows and yellow stubbles, forming here a long shallow, about a foot or two feet deep, with a smooth current sliding over waving weeds, and there a wide pool where the water moves very slowly in a large eddy, and washes lazily about the roots of tall flags and clumps of rushes.

He puts his rod together, and as the weeds are somewhat too thick as yet for comfortable spinning, he baits a gorge-hook and makes a cast from the reel, and the bait descends head-foremost into a deep pool close by a patch of lily leaves.

The master's tackle is somewhat peculiar, for he has his fancies, as all true anglers have. He has a Nottingham reel of a great diameter, and yet he has a dressed line such as is not used in the Nottingham style of fishing. The master says that even with a dressed line he can throw a long way off the reel if he so desires; and where the ground

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is scrubby that is a great advantage, as he is not bothered by the line catching in the thistles and grass. Then if he desires change, there is a thick india-rubber ring on the butt of the rod, and this he slips down to the reel, so that it catches the circumference and acts as a brake, transforming the reel instantly into an excellent check one. Then he fishes with the line in coils at the feet, or gathered in ringlets in his left hand, although the latter method is open to the objection that both hands are engaged, which is occasionally awkward.

The bait is drawn to the top of the water, and then shoots erratically downward until every inch of the pool has been systematically fished. In the next pool the master feels a slight check to the line. Is it a fish or a weed? There is a tremulous motion of the rod, and a slight movement of the line through the rings. It must be a fish; and the master lowers the point of his rod, and suffers the line to be drawn out without a check, and the fish shall have ten good minutes to gorge. (Don't those ten minutes always seem to be half an hour at the least?) The fish is uneasy. It moves about a yard or two at a time. The master is in doubt whether the bait has been pouched or not; nevertheless his patience cannot last more than ten minutes, so he tightens his line. The pike is on, and fights well, although it is only a small one-say three pounds in weight. It is conquered, and

is drawn in to the side, when-lo! the bait comes out of the water with a jerk, and the pike is free.

"Ah, I thought that fellow had not pouched. He was simply holding on. The bait is not much torn, so here it goes on again. He will probably run at it again. Ah, there he is, and he has got it between his great jaws."

At the bottom of the pool, which is not very deep, you can see two small gleaming objects. They are the head and the tail of the gudgeon. Its middle part is in the pike's mouth; and with those white specks as a starting-point you can trace the long body of the jack, which would otherwise be invisible. The master gives the jack ten more minutes, and still it has not swallowed the bait. He loses patience at this, and says,

"We cannot waste all the morning with this little fellow, John, so I will try and swing him out."

So he gently draws the pike down-stream, and within a foot of a low grassy bank, and then with a mighty heave he tries to jerk the fish out by the hold of its back-bent teeth upon the bait.

There is a sharp struggle on the top of the water, and the pike escapes.

The master smiles grimly as he proceeds to change his tackle to a spinning flight, for he will not be played with again.

Twenty yards lower down he has another run, and, striking hard, he finds that he has hooked

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