PIKE FISHING IN RIVERS 73 



across the grass from pond to stream, though rare 

 examples of such curious overlanding may be quoted. 

 They get to the rivers somehow, and all preservers of 

 trout will tell you that it is nothing short of marvellous 

 to realise how mysteriously pike will appear where 

 they are not invited, and how pertinaciously they gain 

 headway if they are not kept down by every known 

 device. In a subsequent chapter the ravages of pike 

 in a trout stream will be dealt with by a sure hand. 



It was only the other day that the people living 

 on the banks of the Wye reluctantly announced that 

 their once splendid salmon stream was degenerating 

 into a sort of pike preserve ; and, at a meeting of the 

 Board of Conservators, at which the injury done to 

 the river by coarse fish was discussed, the chairman 

 stated that a gentleman (whose name was given) had, 

 in the previous year, caught 500 pike with his own rod, 

 whilst in the portion of the year which had already 

 expired (the meeting taking place in May) he had 

 killed 200 in the Wye and its tributaries. Some all- 

 round anglers might have been delighted to find that 

 the Wye was becoming a pike river, but the friends of 

 the kingly salmon would recognise with apprehension 

 that there was danger indeed for the most valuable 

 fisheries, more especially as year by year it had 

 been discovered beyond doubt that the shoals of 



