THK PIKE, 



water in the Ouse, when the weather has been very severe 

 indeed, but still taking it all round, the deeps show the 

 best results when the weather is very cold. As for good 

 pike lakes; these are generally preserved and protected to 

 such an extent, that the average working-man-angler does not 

 get many chances to wet a line in them. It is not such a 

 difficult matter to find out the haunts of pike in lakes, as it 

 is in rivers ; although I am aware that even in the circum- 

 scribed space of a small pike lake, those fish have their 

 favourite haunts, some places being tenanted very thickly, 

 while other parts would have next to nothing in them. I 

 remember once going with a gentleman to fish a small lake 

 of some four or five acres, in which he had been given to 

 understand were a lot of good jack; we wandered three 

 parts of the way round that pond trying all likely and even 

 unlikely places, but never saw a pike move, until at last we 

 came to the opposite corner, within fifty yards from where 

 we started, and there we found the home of those fish. 

 I should say that fully nine-tenths of the pike in that lake 

 were in a good deal less than half-an-acre of water. Some- 

 times when the bottom fisherman has groundbaited a swim 

 in a river some considerable time, and has been enjoying 

 capital sport, the fish suddenly go off the feed. It is quite 

 likely under the circumstances, if the water contains pike, 

 that several of those customers have been attracted into the 

 swim, putting the other fish off the feed, if not exactly scar- 

 ing them away altogether. Some of the very best bags of 

 jack I can remember, have been taken under these circum- 

 stances ; some lively dace have been procured, fixed on snap 

 tackle, and run down the whole of the swim, which resulted 

 in the baited bream swim, or whatever it was, being cleared 

 of those pike, and the sport among the other fish recom- 

 menced. I heard the late Jim Chatterton once say, that a 

 friend and himself took thirteen in one afternoon ranging 

 from two to ten pounds each, out of a barbel swim in the 

 Corporation Fishery on the Trent, after they had tried for 

 two days without result to catch the fish they baited the 

 place for. It suddenly struck him that the pike had taken 

 possession, because they had been having such good sport 

 among the dace, roach, chub, and bream, a few days before. 



