THE PIKE 



was fishing the Ithon, in Radnorshire, for salmon, 

 had his fly, a large brown-winged one, with a 

 gold-twist body, tied upon a number one hook, 

 taken by a pike, which was hooked and killed, 

 and weighed eight pounds. Thomas Boosey, 

 the angling author, reports that a friend of his 

 caught a pike with an artificial fly at Boxmore, 

 in Hertfordshire. Stoddart, a most respectable 

 authority, says in his " Scottish Angler," that 

 though not much in use, angling with the fly for 

 pike is most deadly in some waters, and is practised 

 in the lochs of Scotland. " The pike fly," he 

 says, " should be large and gaudy, fabricated of 

 divers feathers and tinsels, to resemble the king- 

 fisher or large dragon-fly. Use it in a strong, 

 warm wind, upon water from six to two feet deep, 

 and near the weeds." Natural flies are too in- 

 considerable trifles for the pike to trouble himself 

 about, and there is therefore no doubt that he takes 

 the artificial flies offered him for something more 

 substantial. Mr. John Bickerdyke says that the 

 pike-fly is no fly at all, but a fancy bait made with 

 bright feathers, which the pike probably mistakes 

 for a young bird. It can be cast, or trailed, in 

 exactly the same manner as a spinning bait, but 

 need not spin. In very shallow, weedy meres it 

 is sometimes worked near the surface, but it is a 

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