112 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



Further attempts were, as I expected, useless, and the" same 

 afternoon I was called avvay, so that I never had another 

 opportunity. 



One other illustration. At Lord Normanton's water at 

 Somerley, finding one day but little sport in the main stream, 

 I asked the keeper if there were no drawns or shallow water-i 

 courses leading away from it, where I might be able to throw 

 a spinning-bait. His reply, after some consideration, was that 

 there certainly was one, but that he would not say what fish 

 there might or might not be in it ; on the last occasion, how- 

 ever, when it was fished by some troUer more enterprising than 

 usual, nothing was caught, although he thought there ought 

 to be some pike there. The description appeared to me 

 quite sufficiently tempting, and, without more delay, I begged 

 him to guide me to the unknown land, or rather water. Here 

 I hooked a fish almost at the first cast, and, in fine, I went on 

 catching thein one after another until sixteen good sized fish 

 had bitten the dust. I was so struck by the extraordinary 

 rapidity with which I was catching them, that I asked a gentle- 

 man who accompanied me to notice how long it was since I 

 began. On completing the sixteenth fish, and there appear^ 

 ing to be somewhat of a falling-off, I "asked him to look at his 

 watch, and it was found that the time, from first to last, includ- 

 ing that necessarily occupied in baiting, was very little over 

 thirty minutes. 



But, alas ! the glorious days of Avon pike-fishing are, I 

 fear, numbered. Many of the riparian owners, in their eager- 

 ness to encourage salmon and trout, have ruthlessly killed down 

 the pike, with the result that on the last two or three occasions 

 of my visits the sport has been comparatively poor, in size as 

 well a'j numbers. Once upon a time there was a fair sprinkling 

 of splendid trout in the Avon, running from three to ten pounds 

 and upwards, which afforded magnificent sport to men of the 

 •Thames trout-fisher stamp of mind,' whilst the pike-fishing 

 was simply superb. 



Now the river is first rate for nothing j moderate for pike; 



