PRESERVED WATERS. 27 



A rare bit of sport is a good day's pike- 

 fishing in private and preserved water, in some 

 ancient park, where the undulating green- 

 sward is clothed with ancestral oaks and i n pre- 

 elms. In such places it has been my good s erved 



waters 



fortune to fish, and have grand sport. 



I have in my mind's eye now, such a demesne, 

 where, as described by Byron, 



" Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, 

 Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed 

 By a river, which its soften'd way did take 

 In currents through the calmer water spread 

 Around : the wild-fowl nestled in the brake 

 And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed ; 

 The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood 

 With their green faces fix'd upon the flood." 



It is not necessary to mention the exact locality, 

 for if I did his lordship would have a score of 

 letters by the next post, begging for a day's fishing ; 

 suffice it to say, that fishing there January iQth, 

 1884, with a companion, we caught fifty-four pike, 

 of which we kept twenty-two, and returned un- 

 injured to the water all fish under 5 Ibs. : my five 

 largest pike weighed 23 Ibs., 21 Ibs., 2o| Ibs., 19^ 

 Ibs., and 19 Ibs.: my friend also had a fish of 18 

 Ibs., 6 pike 121 Ibs. And on subsequent visits 

 there with Messrs. R. B. Marston and S. W. Searle, 

 we captured pike weighing 26 Ibs., 23 Ibs., 22 Ibs., 

 20 Ibs. and 18 Ibs. Some of the Sussex waters have 

 furnished me with grand fish over 20 Ibs. each ; 

 notably a pike of 30^ Ibs. killed on paternoster 

 tackle, February 23rd, 1882; and Buckingham- 

 shire has given me some big ones, including a very 

 fine fish of 37 Ibs. on September 4th, 1879. Nor 

 does Kent, the county of my birth, stand much in 



