PIKE FISHING IN RIVERS 83 



hardly be called a stream which ran through it, 

 but there was steady motion : for now a leaf, now a 

 twig, could be observed gyrating in and out and 

 around, to drift away presently when it caught the 

 current. The pike lay within the still backing of this 

 eddy. The bottom was mostly sand, but there were 

 one or two clumps of aquatic plant. I watched that 

 pike off and on for hours in the hope of seeing him 

 catch a fish. Some dozen perch occupied the hole 

 in confidence, for the pike took no notice of them. 



After maintaining my position for an hour one 

 morning, the pike ever keeping his duck-like bill 

 pointed outwards, a shoal of roach came scurrying 

 into the shelter from the middle of the river, driven, I 

 suppose, by a smaller pike that dared not intrude. 

 This was the chance of my friend ! He made one 

 lightning streak, and when things had settled he was 

 back in his old place with a roach of, perhaps, six 

 inches crosswise in his jaws. It almost seemed that 

 the green eyes of the jack were twirling with satisfac- 

 tion. He made no sign of gorging his prey, and it was 

 the strangest sight of all to watch the minute specks of 

 silver floating in the water as the scales of the roach 

 were crunched gradually from its small carcase. The 

 most curious circumstance was that, after keeping the 

 creature in his mouth in this fashion for at least ten 



G2 



