2 ANGLING FOR PIKE. 



deserved names. Look at him gazing up with his wicked eyes 

 from the well of the punt ! If looks mean anything, that 

 expression says, as plainly as possible, " I'd like to eat you ! " 



Jack, pickerel, luce, gedd or gade (Lowlands of Scotland), 

 gullet (Northumberland), haked (Cambridgeshire), are some of 

 the names borne by the pike. Jack is the name most commonly 

 used in the Midlands and Southern counties of England, " pike " 

 being only applied to fish of considerable size. In Ireland and 

 Scotland, pike is the more common name for fish of all sizes, a 

 jack being understood by Southerners to be a pike of small 

 size. Many writers have attempted to define the exact weight 

 at which the jack ends and the pike begins. As a matter of 

 fact, the names which are popular and not scientific are con- 

 stantly used far too loosely for any accurate definition to be 

 possible. Luce and pickerel are old English words which are 

 not often heard now. 



Nothing certain is known concerning the growth -rate of pike, 

 probably for the simple reason that there is nothing certain to 

 know. The growth of most kinds of fish depends chiefly on the 

 amount of food they can obtain. For instance, a trout in a 

 Devonshire brook may, at the end of three years, be not above 

 :Tlb. in weight — probably much less — whereas, had he been 

 placed at an early age in a Hampshire river where fish-food 

 is abundant, he would in the same time have at least attained 

 treble that weight. There is a record of a pike kept in the 

 Zoological Gardens which only increased l|lb. in ten years! 

 Under favourable circumstances, there is no doubt that pike 

 gain weight very rapidly, especially during the first few years of 

 their existence ; they eat enormously, and their growth-rate 

 corresponds to their appetites. In " The Book of the Pike " is 

 recorded how eight pike, of about 51b. each, once ate nearly 

 800 gudgeon in three weeks, and that the appetite of one 

 of them was almost insatiable. Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell, 

 the author of the work referred to, gives it as his opinion 

 that, in open waters, the maximum growth during the first 

 year does not much exceed ^Ib., seldom averages more than 

 lib. a year during the first two years, and from l^lb. to 21b. 

 a year afterwards, decreasing again, after eight or nine years, 

 to about lib. a year. 



