a sprat to catch a mackerel

She said it it's a sprat to catch a mackerel.

A sprat to catch a mackerel was fair enough.

Now that he realized that Vesper had only been a sprat to catch a mackerel the whole picture became clear.

She fixed Claribel with a beady eye; having set a sprat to catch a mackerel, she was hopeful of a good catch.

The revised offer by Dai call me dave and judas clegg is just a sprat to catch a mackerel.

Set a sprat to catch a mackerel, Deborah told herself, getting on the bus again to go back to Hampstead and the large un&iendly house she had called home for some years.

If he had been English he would probably have described my aide-memoire as a sprat to catch a mackerel, but gambit was also a pretty accurate description - too accurate for my liking.