PIKE FISHING IN RIVERS 75 



and swirls, and here and there the diapason tones of 

 a weir or the sharper effects of a tumbling bay. 



The acquisition of knowledge as to where a pike 

 should be found in this or that river is something of 

 a sport in itself. One or two types of rivers and the 

 character of the sport it affords may be sketched. 

 The Ouse of the Midlands Cowper's river is in its 

 way very typical of the favourable pike stream ; and 

 it is not possible to specify a more wholesome and 

 winsome exercise than a day's easy spinning along 

 the Huntingdonshire or Bedfordshire meadows. If 

 the river can be fished without the employment of a 

 boat, so much the better. The pike is not by any 

 means a shy fish, but he has his days of moroseness 

 and inaction, when the passage of a boat must be 

 reckoned among the disadvantages of pike fishing. 

 It is with the pike fisher as with the salmon fisher 

 few men would care to angle from a boat when they 

 could take their sport from the bank. 



The pike angler on foot goes to the river in 

 light marching order, bag or basket at back, gaff 

 neatly swung, and natural or artificial baits at hand. 

 He may work with energy pr handle the rod as 

 gently as he chooses. Here, to begin with, is a long 

 stretch of broad, uniformly deep water, with weeds 

 here and there in patches of varying dimensions. It 



