WHICH INTRODUCES THE PIKE 3 



sides, when the fight has ended, and his long length lies 

 quivering on the bank. 



I find on reference to my notebooks that one season I 

 landed no fewer than two hundred and twenty-seven pike, 

 all of good standard size ; and in the process wore out five 

 fifty-yard lengths of plaited silk lines, besides twice renew- 

 ing the rings on my spinning-rod. That was the hardest 

 season's work I ever put in, and this, too, was in a well- 

 fished public river, where Tom, Dick, and Harry had an 

 equal right to fish. 



I find also on reference to other seasons' work that the 

 sizeable jack landed have been as few as six ; while from 

 twenty to thirty in as many days' outings have been re- 

 corded as a very fair average season's take. My friend 

 Mr. William Ball, the famous " Trentsider " of the Lower 

 Trent, in a letter written to me the other day, said : " Ah, 

 my boy, there does not seem to be the keenness and the 

 pluck among the fishermen nowadays as there was in 

 the days you write about in your last book : the Tommy 

 Sunmans, the Andrew Broughtons, the Frank Sims, the 

 Thomas Bentleys, and the anglers of that kidney, that 

 you name, are few and far between ; men who cared for 

 no weather, no matter what it was, but were found with 

 spinning or other seasonable rod in hand during their 

 spare time." Those men, and more of the same sort 

 that I do not name, are sacred memories with me ; and, in 

 common parlance, " What they did not know about pike- 

 fishing was not worth knowing." 



I used to make it my business to go on a tour of inspection 

 all down the rivers which for the nonce I was residing near 

 to ; and after one of these rambles I would remark to one 

 or other of the famous anglers named above : "I saw a 

 good jack or two in a certain place." " Then," the answer 

 was given quickly, " that pike's death warrant is as .good 

 as signed, sealed, and delivered ; he won't get much grace." 

 I don't write in any boasting strain, but only wish to show 

 that my masters and pastors and companions were men of 



