In Pursuit of the Pike.
If anybody had the requisite industry to compile a history of modern pike-fishing, it would be found that 1905 would stand out very prominently in at least two respects. In the first place, it has been a remarkable year for the number of heavy specimen fish caught by honest angling with rod and line; and in the second place, the year has been noteworthy for the number of curious stories which have appeared in the sporting prints dealing with what is commonly called the “voracity” of the pike. I have no wish to make this article a mere epitome of the angling reports which appear week by week in the various fishing journals, but as I have for many years past compiled a diary of all important catches, I am entitled to say that 1905 was a specially interesting year in the matter of big pike hooked and landed. This last reservation is needed, for we all hook, but very rarely land, the biggest fish in the waters wherein we angle. For instance, it has been my own ambition for years to catch a 20 lb. pike, and I have spent months and months at the water side in its vain pursuit; yet nothing bigger than a ten-pounder has ever fallen to my lot, while I have had the grim pleasure of seeing comparative novices hook and carry away with unconcern fish I myself would almost have given an ear to have played on my own rod. Yet I verily believe I have hooked fish of specimen size. Thus, I have an old spoon bait which is not merely indented with numberless teeth marks, but is even jagged and torn as though it had been placed in a vice and then wrenched. It was no ten-pounder which did that! But this and all other similar phantom fish are for the moment excluded from our chronicles. We will deal only with pike whose capture and weight are completely verified.
To deal with big pike is to open the door for the weaver of fishing yarns. A good deal of misconception exists as to the weight of pike. There is a boatman on Windermere Lake who tells you, and possibly believes it, that he knows of a pike at the southern end of the lake which must be 50 or 60 lb. weight. He has seen it! He will tell you how it pulls ducks beneath the water, how it takes a spinning bait and crumples rod and line ere it breaks everything before it, and he will solemnly warn novices not to allow themselves to be pulled out of their boat by this insatiable monster. All this is moonshine. The Lake district is favourable to the growth of big pike. Lakes ten, eight and six miles long, swarming with trout and perch, offer exceptional facilities for pike, yet very big fish are rarely caught. For many years past I have only heard of one twenty-pounder, though all the lakes are keenly fished. The record is a pike of 34 lb., caught in Bassenthwaite in 1861, on a spinning bait. The fact is that only few pike reach 20 lb., and fish over that weight, when caught, should be celebrated by a dinner and a fitting glass case. No, the modern pike is not the creature of our youthful imagination. I make it a point to verify all reported fish of over 20 lb., and it is curious how, after a few letters, these monster fish dwindle away. Thus, a 39 lb. pike from Ireland, reported in The Field and Fishing Gazette in 1904, turned out to be a twenty-eight-pounder when my inquiries were completed. All the apology offered by the correspondent for this most sinful deception was that it was a “mistake.” Then what is the biggest pike of which we have any record caught by angling? The honour belongs to Ireland. A pike was caught there in 1900, and sent to the Fishing Gazette Office, and it was made clear beyond doubt that it weighed 40½ lb. But the fish was caught in the spawning season, was heavy with several pounds of spawn, and in normal conditions would probably not have weighed more than about 35 lb. The fish next to this should really come before it, for it was caught in the early part of this year, in the winter, was free from spawn, and every ounce of it seems to be honest weight. It was caught in Lough Mask by a water bailiff named Connor, and its weight was verified by railway officials who saw it weighed, as well as by Williams and Son, the Dublin naturalists, to whom it was sent for preservation. It weighed 38 lb. Unhappily, we are not so clear as to the method of its capture. I wrote to Williams and Son, and received a letter back in which they lamented its inglorious end. They told me it was netted. I published this letter in the Fishing Gazette, when lo, the Rev. Mr. Curran wrote and denied it, and affirmed most positively that Connor caught it by fair fishing, on a rod and line, with a Blue Phantom as bait. Coming a little lower in the scale, there is no doubt at all about the next best fish to this monster from the Mask. The honour of catching the record English pike belongs to Mr. Alfred Jardine, who in 1879 caught one in a private water of the weight of 37 lb. He had already previously captured one of 36 lb. Since then that record has only twice been beaten by the two Irish pike mentioned above, and, as I have shown, one of them should be disqualified by reason of being with spawn, and the other is still invested with mystery as to the method of its capture. If we admit gaffed or netted fish into our chronicles we must enlarge our figures, for netting and gaffing are purposely carried on when the fish work into the shallows to deposit their spawn, and they naturally reach heavier weights then than at other times. There are authentic records of fish over 40 lb. thus caught.
In the early part of 1905, Major Mainwaring verified in The Field, two pike gaffed in Lough Mask—one 42 lb., the other 48 lb.; the latter had just spawned; otherwise, as the Major wrote, it might very easily have brought down the scale at 60 lb. Then there is a record of a pike weighing 61 lb. being caught in the River Bann in Ireland, in 1894, measuring over four feet, and containing over 7 lb. of spawn; and we have English records, mainly from the Norfolk Broads and the Lincolnshire Fens, of pike netted during the spawning period and weighing full 40 lb. We are face to face with the fact, therefore, that we can verify the capture of a pike 37 lb. by an English angler, and that by netting or gaffing, pike up to 60 lb. or thereabouts have been taken out of Irish waters.
It is necessary that these figures should be stated, because they are useful as a standard to compare the pike caught in the early months of 1905. The record for the season weighed 33½ lb. Quite a number over 30 lb. were caught, more so than for a number of years past. But, to my mind, the two facts of greatest importance which emerge from a study of my pike records are these: first, that February is the very best month of the year for catching pike; and second, that spinning is the deadliest method. Take the first of these propositions. In February last Mr. Oliver Procter and two friends had a day’s pike fishing on a private water in Nottinghamshire. The name of the place was not given, but internal evidence in their narrative tells me that it was the private lake at Clumber, the Duke of Newcastle’s place. In one day these three rods caught, by spinning, fifty-six pike, weighing 468½ lb. The best fish weighed 31 lb. and the smallest was actually 6 lb. One rod got 32 fish, weighing 275 lb.; another rod had 17 fish, weighing 119½ lb.; the other rod, Mr. Procter himself, had seven fish, weighing 74 lb. The latter average is very high, but it included the best fish of the day, the 31-pounder. As each rod could only keep three fish, all the rest were safely returned to the water. I have asked the reader to note that this was a February catch and that they were caught spinning. A few days later, in the same month, three Nottingham anglers had a day on this same water. By spinning they accounted for 52 pike, weighing 425 lb. The heaviest was 33½ lb., was the record pike of the year, and was caught by Mr. F. W. K. Wallis, of Nottingham. I have not yet done with February, nor with spinning. In the same month two Wolverhampton anglers, one of them a clergyman, fishing a water not named, caught 52 pike between them, all by spinning. The total weight was not recorded, but they gave away over 2 cwt. to the deserving poor of Wolverhampton. Another February case was that of Mr. R. C. H. Corfe and Mr. M. R. L. White, of the Fly Fishers’ Club. Spinning, they caught 55 pike in a day’s angling. The largest was only 18½ lb., but they touched bigger fish, for as they were landing a four-pounder it was wrenched off the hooks and carried away by a pike which Mr. White estimated at 30 lb. or thereabouts. They were all caught by spinning dace or sprats on an Abbey Mills spinner. Again, in that same February, a college student reported to The Field how, in two hours’ spinning, during a snow-storm, using a silver Devon on the Wye near Hereford, he caught four pike, 27½ lb., 15 lb., 8 lb. and 6 lb. These records, all from 1905, surely establish February’s claim to rank as the premier pike month of the year. Going further back, I find that other years substantiate this claim. Mr. Jardine, in his book on pike-fishing, gives a list of sixty record fish, and thirty of them belong to the end of January and the month of February.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the angler who defers his pike fishing till the winter is nearing the end has the root of the matter in him. There are some waters in Lincolnshire, the home of big pike, where you are not thanked to go a-fishing till near the Christmas holidays. The old couplet about winter “driving into madness every plunging pike” was founded upon very close observation. The dying away of weeds and the consequent loss of shelter to the pike, and the hibernation of the small fish upon which he preys, added to the frost, give him a keen appetite, and it is then that the angler has his best chance, for, after all, you are likelier to catch any fish when he is hungry than when he is lazy and fat and has no need to bestir himself to find a meal. This very naturally brings me to the second of my propositions, that spinning is in winter the deadliest method of capturing pike. In the early autumn live-baiting and paternostering are, to my thinking, the more effective. The pike is then in his lair. He is lying up in his weed bed, grimly watching all that goes on in the watery world outside. You take your live bait, either on float-tackle or on a paternoster, and you drop it right in front of his nose; and he is a very sulky pike indeed who allows it to pass him by without a protest. If you are spinning you may cover acres of water and never have the luck to get near enough to him to attract his attention, but in winter the conditions are altogether different. Cold and hunger have driven him out of his summer fastnesses. He is roaming hither and thither in search of food. Every faculty is on the alert, and woe betide the hapless creature that comes within the range of his vision. It matters not whether it is a rat swimming across to his hole on the opposite bank, a dab-chick aimlessly swimming about, a water-hen or a duckling, it is all the same to Master Pike. What more natural, therefore, that a well-spun bait drawn across his very eyes should in a moment rouse him to anger? All the records I have already given were the result of spinning. Now in the Badminton volume on Pike Mr. Pennell, who is a confirmed pike-spinner, rather suggests that the biggest pike are generally caught with live-bait and not by spinning. True, Mr. Jardine’s 37-pounder was on live-bait, but the Irish 38-pounder, according to my clerical correspondent, was on a spinner. This year’s record, a 33½ pounder, was on a spinner, and so was Mr. Procter’s best fish, a 31-pounder. The record of 1903, a 34-lb. pike taken in the Wye, was caught by spinning a dace on Abbey tackle, and in February, it may be added. That same year Canon Dyke, of Ashford, Kent, wrote to The Field, saying that spinning had always brought him good results. He instanced several pike up to 28 lb. he himself had caught while spinning. More conclusive than this, however, was a remarkable diary published in The Field in 1903. In 204 days’ fishing the diarist caught 1,665 pike, an average of about eight fish per day. The gross weight was 2 tons 10 cwt. 62 lb., and it works out at an average of nearly 3½ lb. per fish; but the most striking thing about the record is this, that all were caught by spinning. About a dozen were taken on a spoon, the remainder fell victims to spinning a five-inch dace. The moral of this is obvious. If you want to catch large pike and many of them, you must spin. If you merely want an isolated fish, if you set your mind on some monster whom you know to inhabit a certain hole, you may adopt the method of the dry-fly man and stalk him with a lively roach of ½ lb. weight, but if you are in earnest and wish to make a big bag, you most assuredly will have to arm yourself with plenty of spinning tackle. I can give instances without end of good pike which have fallen to the spinner. Here are a recent few at random: a 27-pounder, 1903, from the Irish Blackwater, caught by spinning a trout; a 34½-pounder, caught with a spoon, by a Bolton angler, in 1903, at Lochmaben, near Dumfries, and so on. And here are other fine records to the credit of the spinner. In September, 1903, two members of the Palmerston Angling Society, fishing two days in a Cambridgeshire water, landed 127 pike, all of them falling to pickled sprats and dace.
Then there is a remarkable catch by Mr. F. Shroeder, a York angler, who, fishing Hornsea Mere, near Hull, in 1902, caught 65 pike in a day, weighing 348 lb. The heaviest was 13½ lb. Another day Mr. Shroeder tells me he caught ten pike in the same water before breakfast, weighing 110 lb., including a 23-pounder and a 20-pounder. I asked Mr. Shroeder how he got them, and his reply is, in the morning by spinning a dead bait on an ordinary flight, and in the afternoon by live-baiting, but principally by spinning. I have just tracked another remarkable catch to the credit of the spinner. Mr. Albert Shlor, of Worksop, wrote in October this year to the fishing papers, stating that he had just caught twenty-one pike, in a private lake, in five and a half hours, of a total weight of over 149 lb., the heaviest being 13 lb. 11 oz. I wrote to Mr. Shlor, and he tells me he caught them all by spinning. Fifteen were taken on a Colorado spoon. Then he put on a dead gudgeon, on an ordinary flight made by himself, and having no flanges or spinning arrangement, the spin being obtained, as in Mr. Shroeder’s case just mentioned, by bending the tail of the fish. Well, out of seven runs with this tackle Mr. Shlor, who is only twenty years of age, landed six pike. That is something like fishing, and it is something like spinning. For, as Mr. Shlor tells me, his brother, who was fishing with him and using live bait, only landed two fish, and only had three runs altogether! But if this is not enough, Mr. White, of the Fly Fishers’ Club, says in a letter that he has frequently had up to forty-five pike to his own rod in a single day by spinning, and once, in company with another, they took seventy-five in a day’s spinning, though they “shook off,” all under about 10 lb. or so. Had they retained all, their total would have been fully 100 pike for the day. And while this is in the printer’s hands, I have a letter from Mr. O. Overbeck, of Grimsby, the champion carp fisher, who tells me that it was spinning dead roach that he caught, at Clumber in 1903, thirty-one pike in four hours, of a total weight of 187½ lb.
Now, if spinning is the deadliest method, it is a fair question to inquire which particular form of spinner holds the field for the best results. Every pike angler has his favourite lure. Personally, I find the spoon the most effective. In an article in The Field once I gave the tabulated results of my season’s pike fishing. I used two artificial baits, a Kill-devil Devon and a common spoon, and pickled dace on an Archer spinner. The spoon easily came first, then the Kill-devil. I obtained the worst results with the natural bait, but the local conditions and personal preference count in this vexed question. For instance, in the Lake district a spoon is always the most effective. Pike there feed on perch every day of their lives. There is nothing tempting or novel to them in the sight of a spinning perch. Put a spoon on, or a Phantom, and you will be into good fish almost immediately. There is even room for taste in spoons. You may fish half a day on Esthwaite Lake with a plated spoon and never touch a fish. Change it for a Norwich spoon, on which is painted the head and eye of a fish, and you may catch half-a-dozen good pike in the hour. Who shall account for this? There are other waters where the spoon is never looked at by a fish. You must have real fish for bait, or you will do nothing at all. My own observation leads me to this conclusion, that in the North of England the spoon is the best lure; in the Midlands and the South natural fish have the advantage as bait. Finally, a word as to size. It seems to me that in spinning for pike the very reverse holds good to the ascertained facts of live-baiting. In the latter form of fishing you must have large baits to catch large fish. Mr. Jardine’s 37-pounder was caught with a ½-lb. roach. Some anglers—Mr. Pennell is one—use and recommend jack up to 2 lb. as lively bait for their big brothers and parents, but in spinning you must use a small bait. If it is a spoon, or an imitation fish, anything over three inches and a half is a waste of money and a menace to good results. Pickled dace or roach should never exceed five inches. Mr. M. R. L. White has often emphasised this point. He says he has many times turned a bad day into a good one by changing to the smallest bait he had, and he tells of one occasion where, obstinately sticking to big bait, he hardly got a fish, while his friend, fishing the same water with him, but using smaller bait, landed thirty-five. A correspondent in the Fishing Gazette last year drew attention to the fact that the three largest pike which had come under his personal notice were taken on small baits, one of 38 lb. on a spoon only an inch and a half long; another of 32½ lb. on a roach of three and a half inches, and a third of 30 lb., also on a very small roach. I am entitled to claim, therefore, that this rapid survey of some recent records of pike fishing demonstrates three facts which are worth remembering: that February or thereabouts is the best time to catch pike, that spinning is the deadliest method, and that a small spinner, whether natural or artificial, has undoubtedly all the advantages on its side.
It is with some diffidence that I approach the second half of my subject. For years the angling humorist has poked fun at what the newspapers all agree in terming the “voracity” of the pike. Let me say at the outset that the reader will find nothing here of that pike which chased an angler round a three-acre field in a snow-storm; nor of that other pike which leaped out of the water, seized the angler’s pannier and made off with its contents; nor of that other which, when an unfortunate rodsman fell into the river, kindly took him in his mouth and gently conveyed him to the bank again. The recital of these yarns must be sought for elsewhere. Still, I cannot help recalling the capital story told by Lord Claud Hamilton at the last dinner of the Fly Fishers’ Club. An Irishman had caught a big pike. Noting a lump in its stomach, he cut it open. “As I cut it open there was a mighty rush and a flapping of wings, and away flew a wild duck; and, begorra, when I looked inside, there was a nest with four eggs, and she had been after sitting on that nest.” The pike has always been fair game for the yarn-spinner, and some of the very best of his products have naturally come from Ireland. The most curious story of 1905 hailed from Pickering, in Yorkshire. Dr. Robertson, of that town, is its author. He tells how he was sent for by a farmer friend to see his son, who, so ran the message, had been bitten by a fish. On arrival, the doctor found that the lad’s foot bore unmistakable marks of teeth, and the wound was so severe it required stitching. The lad’s story was that he had been bathing. After leaving the river he sat on the edge of the bank, with his foot near the water, and while there a pike jumped up and bit him. His cries attracted a woman, who bound his foot up and assisted him home. To complete the story, a local angler was shown the spot, and on casting over it with a spinning bait he hooked and caught a 6 lb. pike. Now, there is nothing improbable in this, though a good deal of unkind fun was poked at Dr. Robertson. But the doctor was responsible for nothing beyond telling the tale; and remember, he had seen the lad and stitched up the wound, he had seen the woman who had carried him home, and he had seen the angler who subsequently caught a pike at the very spot. What we know of the propensities of the pike is sufficient to make us believe anything which throws light upon the ferocity of his nature. Most anglers have had their hands gashed by the snapping brutes during the operation of releasing tackle on waters where most of the fish have to be returned. I have seen an oar deeply bitten by a 10 lb. pike; and one of my heavy fishing boots has marks on the heel where a small pike once caught on like grim death. Indeed, my companion had to kick him loose. For my own part, I believe Dr. Robertson’s story. He had no motive to embellish it, and there were so many parties to it that exaggeration would sooner or later have been discovered. As it is, the incident is a striking corroboration of the remarkable stories collected by Mr. Pennell in the Badminton volume on Pike.
Now, the orthodox stories of pike “voracity” divide themselves into two clearly-defined sections. The first of these is concerned with its gluttonous appetite—its onslaught on smaller fish, its appetite for rats, ducks and kindred morsels. I have collected some thousands of these incidents. But why reproduce them? We all know that the pike has a fearful appetite, that his swallowing powers are enormous, and that sometimes, to use an expressive Americanism, he bites off more than he can chew. Thus, we read of a 3½ lb. pike choked trying to swallow a 1¼ lb. trout; of a 9 lb. pike containing a 1½ lb. perch; of a 28 lb. pike containing a 6 lb. grilse; of a 2 lb. pike taking a spoon when he was so full that the tail of a pound trout was protruding from his mouth; of an Irish pike of 3½ lb. containing a trout of 1¼ lb.; and of others containing ducks, rats, waterhens, and even stoats. The plain fact is, of course, that the pike is a creature of prey, and like all creatures of prey, he is savage and implacable. He eats till he is full, and even then he takes good care not to refuse any tempting morsel which comes within range of his fearful jaws. His destructiveness can hardly be estimated in figures. If he eats his own weight per week, which is surely under the estimate, he requires a fish colony for his own table purposes alone.
A pike of 25 lb. was this season netted in the Lune, a first-class northern trout-stream. By his look he was an old fish, and he was well fed. How many tons of trout had he got through in his long lifetime? It is bad enough when they confine themselves to big fish, but when they get among the fry it is even worse, for they are destroying the very sources of a stream’s productiveness. And, alas, they have a liking for young and tender fish, as the keepers of our best waters know to their cost. Last year a pike of 4 lb. 11 oz. was caught by a Birmingham angler, and on opening it at the clubhouse its stomach was found to contain no fewer than 274 small fish of an inch to an inch and a half long, the fry of roach and bream. No wonder that in trout and salmon waters the pike is regarded as a pest and is kept down by every method the wit of the harassed keeper can devise.
To my mind, the most interesting pike stories are those which centre round its capture. What must Mr. White’s feelings have been like when his 4 lb. pike was snatched off the hooks and carried away by a 30-pounder just as he was about to gaff it? Or that of the angler in Tyrone, who, reeling in an 8 lb. pike, had it attacked by a much larger pike, which, though it could not pull the fish off the hooks, scored it with wounds five inches long, and half an inch deep.
Most of us have had similar experiences, if on a small scale. In a trout stream where pike abound, it is a common thing to lose your trout just at the supreme moment through a pike thinking he has a greater right to him than you have. But it is not often that the angler is so fortunate as was a correspondent who wrote to the Fishing Gazette. His 2 lb. trout was seized by a 5 lb. pike. The pike held on while the angler reeled in towards the boat; then the attendant slipped his net beneath them and landed the pair. Thus was piracy adequately punished. Sometimes, ignoring the bait, a pike will seize the float or the lead, and his teeth becoming entangled in the line he will be landed.
Once an account appeared in The Field of a good-sized pike caught in a most remarkable fashion. A net of fish as bait was hanging over the side of a boat. A pike attacked these fish, and becoming involved in the mesh was drawn aboard and killed. I think there can be no reasonable doubt about the fact that pike do not feel pain. Else why do they repeatedly go for the same bait? I was once minnowing for trout and hooked a big pike. He broke me and sailed away with a yard of gut, to say nothing of three triangles somewhere about his jaws. I put on another minnow and resumed fishing. Two or three times that pike followed my bait to a yard of the side, irresolute. At last he took it. He was more than I could manage, and again he broke me, and again he sailed off with minnow, hooks, and half my cast. He had now two minnow tackles about him, representing six triangles, or eighteen hooks in all, and if they caused no pain they at least must have produced discomfort. But note what happened. In my bag I found by accident I had put in an old spoon on gimp. I put this on my trout line and cast again. Would it be believed, that pike came once more and took my spoon. Surely, thought I, he is mine this time. I played him ten minutes and then drew him to the side, but somehow, my line fouled and we parted company, myself minus a spoon and triangles. Altogether that pike had twenty-four hooks of mine in his possession. I returned next day with a pike rod and tackle, but he had had enough. Now, although this is an extreme case, it is almost paralleled by other experiences. An angler last season on Frensham Pond, Surrey, using two rods, hooked a pike and lost it on one tackle, the line breaking. Within five minutes the same pike took the other bait and was landed on the other rod, with the first tackle securely fixed in his jaws. A very curious instance was reported from the Thames. In March, 1903, a Mr. Wilton hooked a pike which broke away and took his Archer spinner with him. On February 28th, 1904, eleven months later, Mr. Wilton and his nephew were fishing in the same spot. The nephew hooked a pike, and, on taking it out of the water, Mr. Wilton’s spinner was found in his lower jaw. There was no doubt about it being the same spinner, as Brookes, the fisherman to the Guards Club at Maidenhead, supplied it and was there when it was recovered, and identified it by his wrappings. The lapse of a year had dulled the pike’s memory of the earlier encounter, but there are innumerable instances of pike going for bait twice within a few minutes. Thus a Thames reporter tells how a trout spinner, in March, 1905, saw his bait taken and his line broken by a pike. He put on another bait and tackle. At the very first cast he hooked and landed the same pike, and thus recovered intact his first flight. Obviously the fish had felt neither pain nor discomfort from his first experience, otherwise he would never have been rash enough to repeat it five minutes later. One other similar instance out of many. In August of this year an angler caught a pike of about a pound in the Medway. He put it back, but first cut off part of one of its fins to test its rate of growth if ever it were caught again. Then he baited again, and in less than a quarter of an hour caught that identical pike a second time. So I might go on telling of pike that have gone for two baits at once and been hauled in by a couple of rods simultaneously; of pike that—but hold, enough! Surely I have fulfilled the purpose with which I set out, and that was to demonstrate the interest and excitement of winter pike-fishing, and to show that no branch of the angler’s art is more surrounded by incident and anecdote than the quest and capture of the king of all the coarse fish.
Ernest Phillips.