82 THE PIKE 



I suppose it is all a question of appetite. Certainly 

 there are days when anything will answer in pike 

 fishing, and when the roughest bait, most clumsily 

 thrown, will be as successful as the most artistically 

 presented lure. 



This was a Hampshire trout stream, and one of 

 those private tenancies where it is a sacred duty to kill 

 pike as vermin. It was the rule of the water that 

 they should be kept down, stamped out, warred 

 against without consideration of seasons or the 

 ordinary laws of sport. Pike are the game fish of the 

 humble angler who frequents the public rivers, and it 

 is then that we cherish and preserve them. It was 

 otherwise with the stream with which we are now 

 concerned. 



A clump of alders overhung the water at a 

 favourite lurking place for pike and, between two of 

 the trees, was a gap upon which the light slanted so 

 favourably that, by lying prone upon the meadow and 

 peering into the depths, you could watch whatever 

 was going on or along. In this retreat there always 

 seemed to be a pike, and as it appeared to me from 

 above, half of the body then in possession which 

 was little less than a yard in length was concealed 

 by the hollowed-out bank. His snout was always 

 pointed towards the middle of the pool. It could 



