62 THE POOKA. 



By mesli-nets immense numbers of pike are annually taken ; 

 and with night-lines, and a very simple contrivance called the 

 pooka, these fish, with the largest trout and perch, are con- 

 stantly killed. 



This latter implement is formed of a piece of flat board, 

 having a little mast and sail erected on it. Its use is to carry 

 out the extremity of a long line of considerable stoutness, to 

 which, at regulated distances, an infinity of droppers or links 

 are suspended, each armed with a hook and bait. Corks are 

 affixed to the principal line or lack, to keep it buoyant on the 

 surface ; and from a weather- shore, if there be a tolerable 

 breeze, any quantity of hooks and baits can be floated easily 

 across the water. The corks indicate to the fishermen when a 

 fish is on the dropper, and in a small punt or curragh, he attends 

 to remove the spoil and renew the baits when necessary. 

 Two hundred hooks may be used on the same line, and the 

 pooka at times affords much amusement, and often a well- 

 filled pannier. 



There are no waters in Great Britain, with the exception of 

 the river Shannon, where larger pike* are caught than those 

 taken in Loughs Mask and Corrib. It would appear, that in 

 these lakes the fish are commensurate to the waters they 

 inhabit. It is no unusual event for pikes of thirty pounds 

 weight to be sent to their landlords by the tenants ; and fish 

 of even fifty pounds have not unfrequently been caught with 

 nets and night-lines. The trout in those loughs are also 

 immensely large. From five to fifteen pounds is no unusual 

 size, and some have been found that have reached the enormous 



* " About seventeen years since, when visiting the late Marquis of Clan- 

 ricarde, at Portumna Castle, two gentlemen brought to the marquis an 

 immense pike, which they had just caught in the river Shannon, on the 

 banks of which they had been taking their evening walk. Attracted by 

 a noise and splashing of the water, they discovered in a little creek a 

 number of perch driven on shore, and a fish, which, in pursuit of them, 

 had so entangled himself with the ground, as to have a great part of his 

 body exposed, and out of the water. They attacked him with an oar, 

 that by accident lay on the bank, and killed him. Never having seen 

 any fish of this species so large, they judged it worth the observation of 

 the marquis, who, equally surprised at its magnitude, had it weighed, and 

 to our astonishment it exceeded the balance at ninety-two pounds ; its 

 length was such, that when carried across the oar by the two gen- 

 tlemen, who were neither of them short, the head and tail touched the 

 ground. 



