PIKE FISHING: RED LETTER DAYS - and OTHERS. WITH HINTS ON SALMON FISHING. By Tom Seccombe Gray. ("Silver Devon").

1923 1st edition. 8vo (140 x 220mm). Pp228. B/w photographs, illustrations. Binding A. Olive-green cloth, spine titled in gilt, gilt pike vignette on upper board.

"Happy is he who has a vast pike set up in his den, and treasured in his memory. But happier is he who has stood upon the banks or waded in the pools of a lordly stream and cast his fly or spinning bait for the loveliest, gamest, and most sporting fish that swims in all the waters of the world." The Rev Gray offers the enquiring reader a detailed account of his own fishing career, interestingly systematised into a valuable and detailed discussion of all aspects of pike angling. He adds some chapters on salmon fishing to provide a point of comparison for the keen pike angler. Chapters include: In the beginning; John Pike; The rod; The reels; The line; Traces; Live-bait tackles; The floats; Spinning; With live-bait; The way of a pike with a float and the way of a pike with a spinner; Notes from a fishing diary; Red-letter leaves from a fishing diary, by river, lake, and stream; The 'o' cast with the Malloch reel; Oddments in the way 'o' tackle; Salmon fishing, with fly and spinning baits; Salmon fishing days - February - May - July on Dartmoor. Salmon spinning reels, pros and cons.