A useful book of hints to anglers is The Pike
Fisher, by Mr. Edward F. Spence (Black, Os.). Mr. Spence tells how to equip yourself, where to fish, all the ways of fishing for pike—how to strike your pike, how to play your pike, how to land him— and even how to let him go with the least possible damage to him and to you. Only one thing he omits : how to cook your pike. Evidently he has never eaten Supreme de Brochet at the Trois Faisans in Dijon : nor what is less known, the pauchouse of Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, a dish in which pike is the main ingredient, but tench, bream, and eel figure also. At all events one may agree with him that it is disgusting to litter a boat with corpses not intended for consumption. Also wet-fly fishers, if they are candid, will admit that bait-fishing prac- tised as Mr. Spence describes it is a far more difficult art than theirs. Only in one respect is his task *easier. He says there is no advantage in using light tackle for Face ; whereas with trout (and with salmon, too, three days in four), the lighter the cast the better the chance to hook fish, and the harder consequently to land-them.
* * * *.
Previous page
