Pike
Pike are probably one of the oldest of the freshwater fishes of this country. More legends are told about them than any other fish, and they have certainly helped to obtain a reputation for exaggeration on the part of anglers. I have not yet caught a large pike. I hope to. Mrs. Beeton's advice was sought when I caught my first one or two. I had fillets fried; 1 had steaks boiled and thought the flesh something like halibut, but, as with trout, the kitchen and my stomach are far from my mind when I set out to fish. A favourite haunt of mine is a lake on high ground where the reeds are tall and duck rise and fly often. Here, on a late September day last year, I caught seven pike in an hour. Long-snouted, green-backed and white-flecked along the flanks, they fought and splashed as I brought them in, but, although they looked reptilian and prehistoric, none was the fish that I spun so hopefully to catch. When he comes to my lure, that torpedo-shaped, fierce old master of the reed-bed' will be twenty to thirty pounds in weight, but I fear it will not be soon. The season is ending, and my only consolation is that he has time to grow an inch or two more as he takes his quota of succulent ducklings and fat perch.
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