78 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



used on the same line, and the pooka at times affords 

 much amusement, and often a well-filled pannier. 



There are no waters in Great Britain, with the excep- 

 tion of the River Shannon, where larger pike are caught 

 than those taken in Loughs Mask and Corrib. It would 

 appear, that in these lakes the fish are commensurate 

 to the waters they inhabit. It is no unusual event 

 for pikes of thirty pounds weight to be sent to their 

 landlords by the tenants ; and fish of even fifty pounds 

 have not unfrequently been caught with nets and night- 

 lines. About seventeen years since, when visiting the late 

 Marquis of Clanricarde, at Portumna Castle, two gentle- 

 men brought to the Marquis an immense pike, which 

 they had just caught in the River Shannon, on the 

 banks of which they had been taking their evening 

 walk. Attracted by a noise and splashing of the water 

 they discovered in a little creek a number of 

 perch driven on shore, and a fish, which in pursuit 

 of them, had so entangled himself with the ground as 

 to have a great part of his body exposed, and out of the 

 water. They attacked him with an oar, that by accident 

 lay on the bank, and killed him. Never having seen 

 any fish of this species so large, they judged it worth 

 the observation of the marquis, who, equally surprised 

 at its magnitude, had it weighed, and to our astonishment 

 it exceeded the balance at ninety -two pounds ; its length 

 was such that when carried across the oar by the two 

 gentlemen, who were neither of them short, the head and 

 tail touched the ground. The trout in those loughs 

 are also immensely large. From five to fifteen pounds 

 is no unusual size, and some have been found that have 

 reached the enormous weight of thirty. The perch 

 tribe appear the smallest in the scale of relative 



