176 FISH CULTURE. 



best pike I ever saw, if I except the Till fish already 

 mentioned, are, without question, the Trent pike, both 

 for shape and make and for the table. They are 

 short, thick, well-fed, handsome fish, with firm white 

 flesh, and every other good quality which can belong 

 to a pike. In ponds pike are less liable to the muddy 

 flavour than the other fish : how this is I know not. I 

 have tasted carp from a pond of very muddy flavour, 

 and jack from the same pond almost destitute of it ; 

 so that is a point in his favour. A jack, of from one 

 to three or four pounds' weight, may be made very fair 

 eating, as I have before stated. To the sportsman he 

 is welcome, as coming at a time when salmon and 

 trout are out of season, and altogether the pike is not 

 a bad fish in his place : out of it he is a perfect pest. 



Of Bream, there are two kinds, the white and the 

 carp bream. The white bream is comparatively 

 worthless, both for the table and the sportsman, as it 

 is of small size and bad flavour. The carp bream 

 grows at times to a very large size in the Irish 

 lakes, where a bream fisherman would be satiated 

 with the sport, as cartloads are often caught at one 

 drag of the net. 1 They are sometimes taken up to 



1 In Lough Erne vast shoals of bream may occasionally be seen 

 swimming at the surface and rippling the water, so as to resemble 

 the effects of a sudden puff from a breeze of wind. 



