18 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



the greatest sport and pleasure that a noble gentleman in 

 Shropshire doth give his friends entertainment with." 



An interesting account of a struggle between a pike and a 

 gander was published many years ago, and is worth quoting 

 here. 



" A farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Loch- 

 maben, Dumfriesshire, kept a gander, who not only had 

 a great trick of wandering himself, but also delighted in 

 piloting his cackling harem to weary themselves in circum- 

 navigating their native lake, or in straying amid forbidden 

 fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to check this vagrant 

 habit, he one day seized or snared the gander as he was 

 about to spring into his native element, and tying a large 

 fish-hook to his leg, to which was attached a large frog, 

 he allowed him to proceed upon his voyage of discovery. 

 As had been anticipated, this bait soon caught the eye of 

 a large and greedy pike, which, swallowing the deadly hook, 

 not only arrested the progress of the astonished gander, 

 but forced him to perform half a dozen somersaults on the 

 face of the water. For some time the struggle was most 

 amusing, the fish pulling and the bird screaming with all 

 its might, the one attempting to fly, and the other attempt- 

 ing to swim from the invisible enemy ; the gander the one 

 moment losing, and the next regaining his centre of gravity, 

 and casting between whiles many a rueful look at his 

 snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out 

 their sympathy for their afflicted commodore. At length 

 victory declared in favour of the feathered angler, who 

 landed at last on the smooth green grass one of the finest 

 pike ever taken from the castle loch. This adventure is said 

 to have cured that gander of his propensity for wandering." 



This style of pike-fishing tying the bait to the leg of 

 a goose seems to be somewhat like trimmering with a 

 movable trimmer all alive and kicking. I don't suppose 

 anybody nowadays would attempt to entertain their 

 friends with sport of this description, whatever they might 

 have thought about it in the days of long ago. 



