THE IMITATION RAT. 91 



Fly-fishing for Fike. — Pike-flies are not often used in 

 England — in fact, tlie Shannon is the only place I know of 

 where pike of respectable dimensions are so taken to any 

 considerable extent. On Lough Derg, an expansion of the 

 Shannon, they are frequently worked with an otter- board — a 

 poaching instrument worked in the water the same way that 

 a kite is in the air; but I see no reason why they should 

 not be cast. In Lough Derg, on hot days, when the pike 

 lay near the surface, I have known them take a fly well, 

 even where the water was very deep. An old Irish fisherman 



Fig. 51. Pike- fly. 



of Banagher told me that a fly made out of the tail of a 

 brown calf was very killing, and that he had taken many 

 fish on such a one in a weedy backwater of the Shannon. 

 Only the tip of the tail is used. It no doubt represents a 

 rat. Pike probably take the usual pike-fly (see Fig. 51) 

 for a bird. They are certainly not in the habit of rising 

 to natural flies, though, as a matter of fact, I did once take a 

 small jack on a moderate-sized lake-trout fly. 



This short notice of fly-fishing brings to an end all that, I take 

 it, need be written on the subject of pike-fishing as at present 

 understood. Some twenty or thirty years hence — if there 

 are any pike left — more killing methods will possibly have 



