PIKE-FISHING. 1 6 7 



many are the country-houses where a Brobdingnagian 

 specimen is encased as proof of the prowess of the squire, 

 the captain, or his lordship. In their condemnation of 

 "Cockneys" the upper ten of the angling world do not 

 include the wielder of trolling or spinning rod, though they 

 may look askance at a bait-can. The pike, more even than 

 salmon or trout, touches the fisherman nature, and makes 

 us all kin. And this for several and obvious reasons. 



The fish is the largest of the coarser denizens of our 

 waters, and as such appeals to the sportsman who likes to 

 kill something that cannot be whisked like a minnow over 

 his shoulder ; and there is always the possibility, although 

 experience generally reduces the probability to a minimum, 

 of a great prize to be remembered as long as he lives and 

 handed down to posterity as a sacred heir-loom. The pike 

 is, moreover, a heartless scoundrel who sticks at nothing ; 

 the laws relating to infanticide he regards not ; and if some 

 of the legends of our boyhood's books are truth, he is an 

 ogre more atrocious than the late Fee-fi-fo-fum, who, we 

 have been assured, drove a thriving trade in the bone- 

 grinding business. He is the enemy of all other finsters, 

 and rests not until he has worried and pouched everything 

 within his reach. He is much more artful than some per- 

 sons suppose him to be, and has to be captured with a con- 

 siderable amount of guile, and if taken in a sportsmanlike 

 manner (of which more presently) battles fairly for his 

 life. 



A ferocious fish of prey, he merits no mercy, for he gives 

 none, and is of the class which is doomed to perish by the 

 weapon by which it lives. He is furthermore abundant in 

 most waters, especially in England, and the Government as 



