leister

noun

1. A spear armed with three or more barbed prongs for catching fish, particularly salmon.

   “The methods of catching the ſalmon in this pariſh are ſimilar to thoſe deſcribed in the ſtatiſtical account of Dornock, p. 15. excepting that there is no raiſe-net fiſhing, and that the leiſter is only about 10 or 12 feet long, conſequently better calculated for throwing to any diſtance.”

   “Rob Runchy, as a forlorn hope, once threw his clodding leister at a drowning man floating down the Yarrow in a high flood, and hauled him out with the lyams unharmed.”

   “Andy, who had been a moment behind getting his leister out of the fish he had killed, came up, and both he and Jock made several random strokes, when Jock, in his eagerness, slipped his foot, and fell headforemost into the water, the leister flying from his hand just as I caught sight of the fish they were after, lying close in to the bank; […]”

   “Old Sandy fished down the river, but he could kill no more salmon that night, […] He missed one; wounded another on the tail; and struck a third on the rigback, where no leister can pierce a fish, till he made him spring above water.”

   “The leister is a spear composed of four or more barbed prongs, something like the manure fork or graip of the agriculturist, and firmly fixed to a light straight pole about twelve or fourteen feet in length. […] The leisterer looks into the river to find a fish, he spears it if he can and must keep it from wriggling off his leister after it is pierced.”

verb

1. (transitive)To catch or spear (fish) with a leister.

   “We once knew a notorious salmon poacher, who, on one of his excursions, saw a pair of salmon spawning in a stream. He leistered the male from the side of the female, and as soon as she missed her partner, she retired from the spawning-bed into the pool below the ford, and very soon returned with another male, which the poacher also leistered.”

   “No sport (hare-hunting excepted) gave more delight to the master of Abbotsford than the leistering of a salmon by the light of a pine-wood torch in the early part of a long winter's night, when a feast on some occasions would be improvised, a fire would be kindled, and a kettle would be got ready; […]”

name

1. A surname.