MODE OF DESPATCHING IT. 309 



immediately before a flood and when the water is just 

 beginning to swell. This is owing, no doubt, to the 

 anticipations entertained by them, through instinct, of 

 being deprived for some length of time of their usual 

 food, which, during a thick, muddy water, they are ' 

 unable to discern and secure. They, moreover, bite 

 freely, when the river is of a deep brown colour, and I 

 have caught them in pools highly impregnated with 

 snow ; in fact, there is no state of water, actual floods 

 excepted, during which the river pike I allude to may 

 not be induced to take. 



Before concluding this chapter, a single advice as 

 to the mode of despatching pike when landed, and of 

 extracting most readily and with least danger the gorge- 

 hook, may not be reckoned superfluous. The quickest, 

 simplest, and most effectual way of killing the fish is 

 by spining it, that is, by urging a sharp instrument, 

 such as the strong blade of a pocket knife, through 

 the spinal marrow at its junction with the brain; a spot 

 at once ascertained from its being situated immediately 

 behind the skull bone. The pike being thus despatched, 

 open the gill cover and cutting through the gills them- 

 selves, allow them to bleed freely. This done, take hold 

 of the wire arming of the gorge-hook, and drawing it 

 tightly up you. will discover your hook lodged fast 

 among the entrails of the fish. You have then only to 

 cut it out with your knife, and disengaging it from the 

 wire, draw the latter, along with the bait, through the 

 lifeless and unresisting jaws. 



