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Pike Fishing Esox Indux.
Fishing for Pike - Esox Indus The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid,
The scourge and terror of the scaly brood. AUSONIUS.
Although there is but one species of pike (i.e. Esox Indux} found in the waters of Great Britain, and recognised in those of Europe, the rivers and lakes of North America produce a great many varieties, all possessing more or less distinct charac teristics. Into the details of these it is not necessary to enter ; but the following is a list of the principal species which, accord ing to American writers, appear to have been clearly demon strated to be distinct : The Mascalonge (Esox estor) and the northern Pickerel (Esox lucioides), both inhabitants of the great lakes ; the common Pickerel (Esox reticulatus], indigenous to all the ponds and streams of the northern and midland States ; the Long Island Pickerel (Esox fasciatus\ probably confined to that locality ; the white Pickerel (Esox vittatns\ the black Pickerel (Esox niger), and Esox phaleratus, all three inhabiting the Pennsylvania!! And Western waters.
Of the species above enumerated the first two are the types, all the others following, more or less closely, the same formation as to comparative length of snout, formation of the lower jaw, dental system, gill-covers, etc.
As regards the European pike, it seems probable that there may be varieties yet to be discovered, as Dr. Genzik assures me that he has found some specimens which had teeth like the fangs of the viper capable of being erected or depressed at pleasure, a circumstance all the more remarkable as the jaws also of the fish are furnished with extra bones to increase the size of the gape, very similar to the corresponding bones in the viper conformation.
We have, however, in the British Islands and on the Con tinent, only ' one recognised species ; ' which species, according to the author of ' British Fishes ' and some other writers, has probably been 'acclimatised.' Personally I am rather disposed to believe it to be indigenous ; but I willingly leave the point to the researches of the curious in such matters, and to the students, if such there be, of mediaeval ichthyology. If the fish was really an importation, it could not, at any rate, have been a very recent one, as pike are mentioned in the Act of the 6th year of Richard II., 1382, and also by Chaucer in the well-known lines :
Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe,
And many a breme, and many a Luce in stewe. . . ,
One of the names by which the pike was formerly known, now obsolete, or at any rate used only as a diminutive, is ' pickerel;' which again, when arrived at a certain, or rather un certain age of discretion, becomes a 'jack;' to be finally inducted into the full dignity of pikehood. The term 'pike' has been supposed to take its origin in the Saxon word piik, sharp pointed, in reference to the peculiar form of the pike's head, thus, by the way, furnishing an argument in favour of the indigenous character of the fish, in contradiction to Yarrell's ' importation ' theory. Skinner and Tooke would derive it from the French words, on account, they say, of the sharpness of its snout. It is the brocJiet or brocheton, lance or lanceron, and becquet of France, the gtidda of the Swede, and the gcdde or gei of Denmark, which latter term is nearly identical with the lowland Scotch gedd. Ingenious derivations of all these names have been discovered by philologists, but they arc, for the most part, somewhat fanciful. The luccio or luzzo of the Italians, and the term luce or lucie ('white lucic ' of Shake speare and of heraldry) are evidently derived from the old classical name of the fish, Indus. Here again, however, we get among the philologists, and I will only give one illustra tion from Nobbes, who has been called the father of trollins, to show how much, notwithstanding the proverb, can be made out of how little. This remarkable author suggests that the name lurius is derived ' either d lucendo, from shining in the waters, or else (which is more probable) from lukos, the Greek word for lupus: for as,' says he, ' the wolf is the most ravenous and cruel amongst beasts, so the pike is the most greedy and devouring amongst fishes. So that lupus piscis> though it be proper for the sea wolf, yet it is often used for the pike itself, the fresh-water wolf.'
The pike is mentioned in the works of several Latin authors, and is stated to have been taken of very great size in the Tiber ; but it has been doubted by naturalists whether this fish the Esox of Pliny is synonymous with the sox, or pike, of modern ichthyology. One of the earliest writers by whom the Pike is distinctly chronicled is Ausonius, living about the middle of the fourth century, who thus asperses its reputation :
Lucius obscuras ulva coenoque lacunas Obsidet. Hie, nullos mensarum lectus ad usus, Fumat fumosis olido nidore popinis.
The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid, The scourge and terror of the scaly brood, Unknown at friendship's hospitable board, Smokes midst the smoky tavern's coarsest food.
It seems as if from the earliest times the character, so to speak, of the pike has commended itself especially for treat ment both in prose and verse, and the number of quaint anecdotes, mythical legends, and venerable superstitions which have clustered round it give the pike a special and distinct interest of its own. I confess that to myself there has been always something singularly attractive in the very qualities which have made its chroniclers more often detractors than panegyrists. The downright, unadulterated savagery of the brute attracts me ; he is no turncoat, vicious one day and repentant the next.
Nothing that swims, or walks, or flies does he spare when his appetite is whetted by the sharp wind sweeping
The half-frozen dyke, That hungers into madness every plunging pike.
Woe be to his children, or his brother, mother, or cousin, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, should they cross his path ; and I have not the slightest doubt, speaking ichthyo phageously, if not ichthyologically, that under sufficient provo cation he would tackle one of his own ancestors, even to the third and fourth generation. This is all ' thorough,' and is in keeping with the grim muzzle and steely grey eyes which fix upon the observer with unwinking and ferocious glare. The very rush and flash with which he takes his prey has in it a fascination, and I have more than once seen a man drop his rod from sheer fright when a pike, that has been stealthily following his bait, suddenly dashes at it by the side of the boat or at the moment it is being lifted out of water.
The pike, I am happy to say, is daily rising in the estimation of anglers as a game fish and, in the largest sense of the word, sporting fish. This is partly owing, no doubt, to the difficulty, with an ever-increasing army of anglers, of obtaining decent trout or, still more, salmon fishing (in fact, a good salmon river has now r become almost as expensive a luxury as a grouse moor or a deer forest), and partly also because the art is now pursued with greatly improved appliances.
It used to be that people lived in times were no 'well in formed pike is to be ensnared by such simple devices as those which proved fatal to his progenitors in the good old days of innocence and Izaak Walton, and were we now to sally forth with the trolling gear bequeathed to us by our great grand fathers of lamented memory, we should expect to see every pike from John o' Groat's to Land's End rise up to repel with scorn the insult offered them. No ! Depend upon it the dwellers in what Tom Hood called the ' Eely places ' have come in for their full share of the education movement, and the troller who at the end of the nineteenth century would expect to make undiminished catches must devote both time and attention to refining to the very utmost every part of his equipment.
' Every hook in the spinning flight, every link in its trace, becomes in his view an object of importance, because it is not only positive but comparative excellence which he must aim at. Other trailers will take advantage of the latest ' wrinkle,' if he will not, and the art is not only to fish fine, but, if he wants to make the best basket, to fish finer than anybody else, at least on the same water. It is perfectly true that when the pike is sharp-set he is, as I have said, practically omnivorous, but where fine fishing and perfection of tackle come in is on the occasions when he is not regularly on the feed, and when his appetite is dainty and requires to be tickled. At these times the man who fishes fine will fill his creel, whilst he who uses coarser tackle will, in all probability, carry it home empty.'
' But it is not only as regards the basket that fine fishing is an object worth aiming at. It is the only mode of fishing that really deserves the name of sport ; to haul out a miserable pike with an apparatus like a barge pole and a meat-hook neither demands skill nor evokes enthusiasm. There is no " law " shown to the fish, and not the slightest prowess by the fisher man; it is simply fish-slaughter, not sport.'
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