THE PIKE. 305 



deeper water than in summer, at which season they 

 frequent the middle depths or bask in the sun under 

 floating water-plants. Though the pike is not gregarious, 

 yet where one is taken others will always be found in 

 the same neighbourhood, and the troller should by no 

 means abandon his ground under the impression, which 

 is a very common one, that it is a solitary fish : an error 

 first propagated by Isaak Walton, who says, " the Pike 

 is observed to be a solitary, melancholy, and a bold fish : 

 melancholy because he always swims or rests himself 

 alone, and never swims in shoals or with company, as 

 roach, and dace, and most other fish do ; and bold be- 

 cause he fears not a shadow, or to see or to be seen of 

 anybody, as the trout, and chub, and all other fish do." 



Yarrell however, mentions the fact of an annual 

 migration of this fish taking place in spring in the Cam, 

 into which river he says "they come in great shoals, 

 doubtless, from the fens in the neighbourhood of Ely, 

 where they are bred." I have myself often seen pike in 

 company ; and it almost invariably occurs that when one 

 is taken from a hole he is succeeded at once by another. 



The most successful lure, when it can be procured, 

 is the " pickerel frog," a small and singularly marked 

 creature. A minnow, or a small " lake-herring," bream, 

 or any other similar fish will however always answer. 

 Artificial bait or flies seldom attract, and the angler 



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