TROLLING WITH DEAD GORGE-BAIT. 203 



fleshed pikes referred to by Yarrell and some other authors, I 

 cannot say that I have ever met with a specimen ; if such exist, 

 they probably owe their reputation as a dainty rather to the fact 

 of their rarity than to any intrinsic superiority over pike with 

 flesh of the ordinary colour. 



The best pike for the table are almost always found cheek by 

 jowl with trout. Wansford Broadwater (in the famous Driffield 

 stream), the Teviot, Bala Lake, Loch Tummel, Marlow Pool, 

 the Dorsetshire Frome, &c., bear witness notably to this fact. 



To show the condition into which pike may be brought by 

 high feeding it is asserted that a quart of fat has been known 

 to be taken out of the stomach of one about a yard long ; and 

 in the days when fat pike were a favourite dish with fat monks, 

 it was jocosely proverbial that the former was as ' costly and 

 long a feeding ' as an ox 1 Of all pike-food eels are the most 

 nutritious and rapidly fattening. 



When in high season the general colour of the fish is green 

 spotted with bright yellow, whilst the gills are of a vivid red ; 

 when out of season, the green changes to a greyer tint, and the 

 yellow spots become pale. The ' points ' of a well-conditioned 

 pike should be small head, broad shoulders, and deep flanks. 

 The pike spawns about March and April, according to the 

 climate, forwardness of the Spring, and other local circum- 

 stances, — the young females of three or four years old taking 

 the lead, and the dowagers following. For this purpose they 

 quit the open waters in pairs, and retire into the fens, ditches 

 or shallows, where they deposit their spawn amongst the leaves 

 of aquatic plants ; and during this period the male may often 

 be observed following the female about from place to place, and 

 attending upon her with much apparent solicitude. As many 

 as 80,000 eggs have been counted in one fish. 



When the spawning process is complete the fish return 

 again into the rivers, and are then for some weeks in a state of 

 partial stupefaction, and unfit for food. In rivers they begin to 

 be in condition again about June, and are in their best season 

 in November, but in still waters the recuperative process is 



