8 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



are more often " off " than " on " the feed, because if they 

 were always in a taking humour there would soon be 

 nothing left alive in well-preserved pike waters at any 

 rate ; everything else they could eat would soon be cleared 

 out. 



I often wonder how the pike manages to live and thrive 

 at all in certain waters ; there does not appear to be much 

 there for the likes of him. The truth is he is endowed 

 with the power of long fasting, and exercises this power 

 both from necessity and choice. 



I have seen it stated that no matter how hungry a pike 

 is he won't take a tench. From Walton's time downwards 

 Tench has been reckoned as the pike's physician, the touch 

 of a tench being a cure for all sorts of ailments and acci- 

 dents that a pike was subject to. Well, I don't suppose 

 a man would want to swallow his doctor, and a pike would 

 perhaps be on the same footing ; but I am afraid the tale 

 is only an old legend, and has no foundation in fact. I 

 heard of two cases once, where a gentleman had a lot of 

 very ill-conditioned pike in a small lake ; he turned a big 

 consignment of tench into that lake, and within three years 

 the pike had very much improved in general shape and 

 appearance. This was put down to the presence of the 

 tench in the water, and not, as I should suppose, the plenti- 

 ful supply of fresh food so generously put there in the form 

 of those tench. The other case was in a similar lake, and 

 this lake had in it quantities of the very finest tench I ever 

 saw, but the jack that lived there were the ugliest and worst 

 in condition I ever met with, and more wicked-looking 

 than usual. 



Pike, to be in good condition, depend more on the water 

 they inhabit, the nature of the weeds and cover, the state 

 of the springs, and the natural supply of its feeders, to- 

 gether with the quality of the natural food bred and fed 

 in the water ; and no amount of tench being turned into 

 a rank bad water will make it a good one. 



Pike spawn between the latter end of February and the 



