WHICH INTRODUCES THE PIKE 9 



beginning of May ; it all depends on the state of the 

 weather as to whether they are early or late. I have 

 observed them pairing as early as St. Valentine's day, and 

 I have also seen them as late as the tenth of May, which 

 my notebook says is the very latest I have any record of. 

 Spawning time is a very long and trying period in their 

 history. At this time they seek out all sorts of dykes, 

 ditches, backwaters, and creeks, depositing the ova 

 among the vegetation, and so absorbed are they that 

 scarcely anything frightens them. They have fallen 

 victims in scores to hand- nets, wire snares, and even snatch- 

 hooks suspended from the centre of a long clothes line. 

 Now they are in the very worst possible condition 

 slimy, lanky, and unwholesome as food, and should in a 

 well-regulated pike fishery be left alone till October, 

 or September at the very earliest. 



Under favourable conditions these fish will grow to a 

 very large size ; but what their heaviest weight is, or was, 

 or is likely to be, we cannot determine ; so many fables 

 and romances have been written on this subject that we 

 have to be very careful what we accept. There is a 

 tradition of a Scotch loch pike that reached the extra- 

 ordinary weight of seventy- two pounds; another fish, 

 whose head is preserved, was credited with forty- two 

 pounds as its weight. 



Traditions have been handed down by succeeding 

 generations of Irish fishermen that pike reaching the enor- 

 mous weight of eighty pounds have been taken in the lakes 

 and tarns of that land of romance and superstition. Pliny, 

 the ancient writer, mentions an Esox that weighed a 

 thousand pounds ; but this cannot be identified with the 

 Esox lucius of modern times. I dare say the top 

 weight of our everyday pike would reach forty pounds, 

 and these would only be few and far between, the big 

 Irish lakes being the most likely places to find them. 

 Perhaps Mr. Jardine's brace of thirty-five pounders can 

 be set down as our record English pike at any rate. Any- 



