FISHING YARNS 285 



smells of fine fresh meadow flowers ; he heares the melody 

 of birds, and sees the water-fowles with their brood, which 

 he thinketh better than the noise of hounds and homes, 

 and all the sport they can make." 



I suppose the pike is the fish which has more than any 

 other exercised the romancing powers of anglers. Some 

 five-and-twenty years ago it was reported that there was 

 an immense pike frequenting the river near Staines, which 

 the local fishermen estimated as weighing 30 or 40 lbs. 

 at the very least. The fame of this pike spread far 

 and wide, and anglers crowded from the city to have 

 a try for him. I had more than one try myself, but soon 

 abandoned the task. Others, however, tried for that pike 

 week after week with a persistency and a devout belief in 

 its existence, which were really touching to behold. I had 

 my suspicions that the pike was a finny relative of Sairey 

 Gamp's " Mrs Harris," and years afterwards I learned from 

 an old fisherman, who had often been my guide, philosopher, 

 and friend, that my suspicions were well founded — the 

 great pike was a pure creation of the imagination. 



Colonel Thornton, the greatest all-round sportsman of 

 the latter half of the eighteenth century, in the narrative 

 of his Tour in the Highlands, gives an account of the 

 capture of two immense pike — one taken in Loch Alvie, 

 the other in Loch Petullich ; the former weighing 47 lbs. 

 and the latter about 36 lbs. Strange to say — although the 

 Colonel was in his own day considered rather a tall shooter 

 with the long-bow — modern writers on angling give him 

 credit for veracity in his statements, and do not make 

 even Sir Samuel Montagu's reduction either in these cases 

 or in that of the 7|-lb. perch which he caught in Loch 

 Lomond. 



But, after all. Colonel Thornton's 47-lb. pike was a mere 

 infant compared with the celebrated Kenmure pike taken 

 in Loch Ken, Galloway, the weight of which was 72 lbs. 

 This, again, takes a back seat by comparison with two 

 captured in Ireland — one on the Broad Wood Lake, 

 Killaloe, weighing 96 lbs., the other in the Shannon, 

 weighing 90 lbs. Beyond that limit one would have 

 thought that no pike of romance could have passed. Yet 



