376 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



punt with his circular net, weighted with eighteen pounds 

 of lead, on his left shoulder and in his right hand, his keen 

 eye fixed on any movement in the shallows under a lee, 

 where the bait are feeding. Presently he detects a pike 

 strike at a bait under a reed- bed, and he directs the 

 sculler towards the place, when the net is cast spreading 

 into a circle as it falls, describing a circle as it strikes the 

 water, the weighted circumference finally describing a 

 cone in the water and closing on the sharp-nosed roach. 

 The liggers are then baited with these roach, and started 

 on the windward side of the broad, and they go " wallering " 

 across, driven by the wind, pricking to windward when 

 taken.* But small perch, and pike, and golden carp are the 

 deadliest baits for liggers. 



There is no doubt that the colour of the pike varies accord- 

 ing to the water he inhabits and the food he feeds upon ; 

 but the female can always be distinguished, for the male is 

 spotted and lighter in colour than the female, which is darker. 



Some old Broadsmen aver that pike and other fish go into 

 gravelly shallows just before spawning, to clean the slime 

 off themselves, which comes again in autumn, even collecting 

 over their eyes ; but of these things I have no experience. 



When the smelts come up the rivers in the spring, the 

 pike eat them, and are very fond of them. One old lock- 

 keeper assures me you cannot open a pike at that season 

 without finding a smelt inside of him. " You may see them 

 inter lock with the smelts." Smelts are therefore a good bait. 



Shrimps too are seen in the locks that is, the pike that 

 eats the smelt that eats the shrimp are seen altogether all 

 in the locks ; and a dainty morsel must an eleven-inch smelt 

 be for a good-sized pike, though the keeper has caught a 

 smelt a foot long; and when we know that fifty score of 

 smelts have been caught in a lock (though twenty score are 

 rarely caught now-a-days), we realise that "Jack " must have 

 a good time. 



* Vide " On English Lagoons." 



