FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 introduced into any part of tlie system. Locli Ossian, being situated near 

 the summit of a high watershed, would prove, if it contained pike, a source 

 of contamination to the Spean and the Lochy, both of which are fine salmon 

 rivers. 



It is impossible to estimate the extent of fine fly-fishing water which has 

 been irretrievably ruined by the distribution of pike. In pre -Reformation 

 times these fish were greatly valued as furnishing food for Lent and other 

 jours dejeune. They grow very fast and fat in stew ponds, and what their 

 flesh lacks in quality (and in my humble opinion it lacks everything in that 

 respect) it makes up for in quantity. There is no other way of accounting 

 for the presence of pike in certain waters than by assuming that they were 

 transported by the monks to the waters attached to various religious 

 houses. A suggestive circumstance may be noted in Wigtownshire bearing 

 upon this hypothesis. In the parish of Inch there are three large lakes, 

 besides sundry tarns. Two of these lochs are within Lord Stair's spacious 

 park of Castle Kennedy; they measure respectively about three-quarters 

 of a mile and a mile in length, and contain plenty of trout, but no pike. 

 About a mile to the south of these lochs lies Saulseat Loch, taking 

 its name from the Abbey of Saulseat, which stood on a promontory 

 within it. In this there are no trout and swarms of pike. Now as all 

 three lochs are of similar character, lying within the same geological 

 formation and at the same level — less than fifty feet above the sea — I 

 feel convinced that we shall be doing the Premonstratensian monks of 

 Saulseat no injustice by attributing to them the presence of pike in the 

 water which was at their door. 



However, I must get back to my text, and leave pike to be dealt with 

 by another hand, merely impressing upon my readers that once pike 

 become established in a lake it is impossible to get rid of them save by 

 draining the water away, and even that is not always successful, for the 

 pike fry harbour in any little ditch or runnel connected with the lake, 

 which, after being refilled, will soon be as badly infested as ever. In- 

 dustrious netting will serve to reduce them to such numbers as are 

 consistent with the presence of a fair stock of trout; but as the trammel 

 net is the only really effective way of dealing with these pirates, large 

 trout are just as likely to be taken as pike. 



It is not to be understood that pike and trout do not manage to co -exist 

 in many of our northern lakes. In large sheets of water with plenty of 

 shallow bays and fed by streams in which the trout may spawn, there 

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