6 ANGLING FOR PIKE. 



begin until June 16th, which is all too soon, and the fish are 

 not worth eating until the middle of July at the earliest. 



Much, as I have hinted, depends on the cooking. I have 

 enjoyed pike which had been simply plain boiled {on the day 

 they were hilled), smd served up with oyster sauce; but for this 

 simple mode of preparation they should be in the primest 

 condition. Abundance of salt should be boiled with them, 

 and they are improved by crimping — i.e., making deep cuts 

 across the back, at intervals of 2in., as soon as the fish has 

 been landed and knocked on the head. While the blood is 

 flowing the fish should be held in the water. Baking is a 

 very favourite method of cooking pike. The main points 

 about it are a good stuffing for the fish, a rich brown gravy 

 flavoured with port wine, and a piece of flare laid over the fish, to 

 keep it moist all the time it is cooking. Too often, alas ! 

 baked pike are dried up by ignorant or careless cooks, and 

 the dish is spoiled. The best way to bake a pike is to roast 

 it in a tin before the fire. I learned this in Ireland. The 

 fish can then be properly basted. A thick slice of pike, 

 egged, bread-crumbed, and fried in butter, is also very good. 

 Many a panful of such cutlets have I fried when out on fish- 

 ing excursions. Yery good fish-cakes and kedgeree can be 

 made from pike; and there are many other ways of cooking 

 this fish, which for lack of space I am unable to notice.* 



Pike, though found in a large number of rivers and 

 lakes in the United Kingdom,t are, I am very sorry to say, 

 getting scarcer every year. As a matter of fact, really good 

 pike-fishing, except in a few preserves, and in some remote 

 places in Ireland and Scotland, is not to be obtained. The 

 reason is not far to seek: As anglers have increased, pike have 

 decreased. Not only are anglers more numerous, but they 

 are also much more skilful than in former years, and in any 

 water in which there are pike to catch, caught they certainly 

 will be if our friend Piscator is given an opportunity. At 

 one time wire and a hempen cord was the common tackle for 



* Mr. Jardine tells me that he considers kippered pike superior to the bulk of 

 spent fish— i.e., kippers— which are sold as kippered salmon. Pike should be 

 kippered in autumn and mnter, when in their best condition. 



t They are absent from the Isle of Wight. 



