58 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



giving way. Suddenly my bait began quietly, perfectly quietly, 

 to move away ! ' Hughes ! ' I shouted to my trusty henchman, 

 ' Hughes, it is a fish ! I believe I have hooked leviathan !' . . 

 At that moment the line came quietly home, without an effort 

 or struggle, and without — the flight. The new gimp was appa- 

 rently cut through as with a pair of scissors. 



To rig up a fresh flight — this time of double gimp — ^was the 

 work of a very few minutes, and another eel-bait, still longer 

 than the first, was soon in the water. Almost immediately I 

 was fast again in the fish, who pursued precisely the same tac- 

 tics as before — at first remaining motionless, and then after a 

 little while moving off without struggle or commotion. And after 

 the display of about the same amount of vitality as before, 

 once more the line came back to my hand with the doubled 

 gimp neatly and cleanly severed a few inches above the bait. 



I fished the water over again, and^gain next day, but never 

 saw anything more of my conqueror, unless, indeed, a vast 

 'wallow' a few minutes later on the surface of the Lough some 

 eighty yards away, was an indication that he was 'there,' and 

 probably trying to rid himself of his recent dinner. . . What 

 this fish actually weighed can, of course, only be a matter of 

 conjecture ; but I have had some experience of the ' ways ' of 

 heavy, fish, both pike and salmon, and I have always believed 

 that on that occasion I lost the chance of basketing the biggest 

 pike of my life. These Lough Corrib pike fight like demons. 

 I remember my wife catching one that weighed only thirteen 

 pounds, and in his struggles to make for home — a rush bed 

 about eighty yards off — he actually towed the boat a good 

 many yards in that direction before he was basketed. We all 

 thought at first from his style of running that it must be a 

 salmon. 



When it is absolutely impossible to procure natural baits of 

 any kind, resort must, of course, be had to artificial baits, of 

 which, however, it may be said that for the most part they are 

 made to catch fishers rather than fish. 



