10 
Appendices to Tenth Annual Report 
If it is desired to take pike out of a loch, it is most difficult to do so 
by means of an ordinary drag-net. They will avoid it in the cleverest 
manner possible. The best plan is to set a trammel-net along the edge 
of the weeds, and then beat the latter and drive the fish out, when they 
will mesh themselves in the net. Evening is the best time to kill the 
larger pike, who, during the day, remain in the deep water, but come in 
at nightfall to the shore to the mouths of the burns that run into the 
loch, where they find small trout and other food brought down by the 
streams. 
A deadly mode of killing pike is by liggers or trimmers. The ligger or 
trimmer is a long cylindrical float made of wood, or cork, or rushes tied 
together at each end ; to the middle of this float a string is fixed from 8 to 
15 feet long ; this string is wound round the float except 2 or 3 feet when 
the trimmer is to be put into the water, and slightly fixed by a 
notch in the wood or cork, or by putting it between the ends of the rushes. 
The bait is fixed on the hook, and the hook fastened to the end of the 
pendent string, and the whole is then dropped into the water. By this 
arrangement the bait floats at any required depth, which should have 
some reference to the temperature of the season — pike swimming near 
the surface in fine warm weather, and deeper when it is colder, but 
generally keeping near their peculiar haunts. When the bait is seized by 
a pike, the jerk loosens the fastening, and the whole string unwinds — the 
wood, cork, or rushes floating at the top indicating what has happened. 
Floats of wood or cork are generally painted, to render them more dis- 
tinctly visible on the water to the fishers who pursue their amusement and 
the liggers in boats. Floats of rushes are preferred to the others, as least 
calculated to excite suspicion in the fish. 
Some writers of high authority on all matters relating to sport have 
expressed a strong opinion that pike should not be extirpated or thinned 
out in large and deep lochs like Loch Venachar and Loch Katrine. 
Mr St John, for example, writes as follows on the subject in his charm- 
ing volume Sport in Morayshire : — ' It is a fallacy to suppose that pike 
' are detrimental to the sport of the fly-fisher — that is, in the Highland 
• lakes, where there is depth and space enough for both kinds of fish to 
' live and flourish ; of course pike kill thousands and tens of thousands 
' of small trout, but the fault of most Highland lakes is that there are too 
' many trout in them, and the fly-fisher works for a month without killing 
- a trout above a pound weight ; pike keep down the overstock ; there are 
' still plenty and more than plenty of trout remaining in the water, and of 
■■ a better size and quality than where they are not thinned. I have invari- 
' ably found this the case, and that I could catch a greater weight of 
' trout in a loch where there are pike than where the trout had no enemies 
1 to keep down their daily increasing numbers, besides which, though the 
1 pike is piscivorous, he is also most decidedly as omnivorous as a pig or 
' an alderman : a great part of the food of the pike consists of frogs, 
' leeches, weeds, &c. ; young wild ducks, water-hens, and even water-rats, 
' do not come amiss to him. Like a shark, the pike when hungry 
' swallows anything and everything that has the misfortune to come within 
* reach of his murderous jaws. If the fact could be ascertained, I would 
' back a saimo ferox of 10 lbs. weight to kill more trout in a week than a 
' pike of the same weight would in a month. I never killed a large trout 
1 without finding the remains of other trout within him, sometimes, too, 
' of a size that must have given him some trouble to swallow. In fine, 
' I am strongly of opinion that pike should be encouraged in all large 
£ Highland lakes where the trout are numerous and small. There is no 
1 doubt, too, that the large trout, with a due respect to the lex talionis t 
' feed on the infant pike as freely as the pike feed on the young trout.' 
