SMALL WATERS AND TYPICAL DAYS 57 



of the province. The fishermen purchase their 

 rights, and in truth . they generously live up to them. 

 Their clumsy craft, sometimes as large as a Norfolk 

 wherry, are furnished with roomy wells, and the nets 

 are worked night and day. The men anchor close to 

 the reeds, and from this centre an immense seine net 

 is swept around the neighbourhood. That there are 

 pike left was evident from the two or three hauls I 

 myself watched of thirty or forty fish, averaging 

 perhaps 3 Ib. I saw nothing larger than 5 lb., but noted 

 numbers of poor half-pounders thrown into the tank. 

 Our principal object was to avoid these fishing boats, 

 which, anchoring in one place, cleaned it out and then 

 moved on to another. Every mere, therefore, and 

 the whole mere, is systematically fished, so that if 

 any pike elude the meshes they are so harassed and 

 worried that the angler has little chance. 



PIKE FISHING IN WINTER 



In a company of anglers, leisurely smoking in the 

 warmth of a well-lighted room or, better still perhaps, 

 spiking their trout-rods during the impossible hours of 

 a pleasant bright summer day, and lolling under the 

 shade of a spreading chestnut, recalling the while in 

 dog- day heat experiences of winter fishing should 



