Making a fishery by Halford Frederic M. (Frederic Michael) 1844-1914

Author:Halford, Frederic M. (Frederic Michael), 1844-1914
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fish-culture, Fishing
Publisher: London, H. Cox
Published: 1895-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII.

Difficult places to net.

WIRING.

S shown in the last chapter, although netting is the most efficacious method of destroying pike wholesale, yet a certain proportion of these pests do manage to elude the nets. There are also places where netting is almost, if not quite, impossible; places where the growth of weeds is too dense, or the stream too rapid or too deep for the nets. Then, too, the reaches flowing past gardens of cottages or small houses, where from time immemorial the river bed has been used as the receptacle for every worn-out or broken article of hardware, crockery, or glass, until it has become a perfect chevaux de /rise, over which a net dragged for a few yards would be quickly destroyed.

Then, again, in the hatch holes, which generally harbour some of the largest pike, there are sometimes stakes studded with tenter

hooks or other obstructions, which would tear the nets to pieces, and the depth is occasionally too great to be successfully manipulated by nets designed for use in the shallower part of the stream. Besides, at all times of the year the pike in greater or lesser numbers are to be found in carriers, ditches, and even the narrow irrigation ruts cut across the water meadows, many of which, being only a few feet wide, cannot be dragged by the wide nets used for the main stream. If, however, it is intended to do the work thoroughly, nowhere and under no conditions must efforts be slackened, nor should a single day's relaxation be permitted from the continual warfare to be waged on the pike.

A few pike can be captured by spinning over Use of spin-likely places with natural or artificial baits, and spear. " the only objection to this method is that an occasional trout will take the minnow and dace, and get so badly hooked that its life has to be sacrificed. On some days, too, when they are basking in the sun, a few can be shot, but if they are more than two or three inches below the surface, it is scarcely worth while wasting a cartridge on them, as the water deflects the shot, and breaks the force to so great an extent as to render them comparatively safe. Spearing is advised by some authorities, and the spear should be a heavy, three-pronged one, as

I

shown on sketch (Fig. IV.) It should be screwed on to a strong ash handle, or, better still, on the point of an old, stiff, three-jointed jack rod. Extermina. According to the experience, however, of the

tion of pike ...

impossible. best keepers, a combination of nets, trimmers, and wires, each persistently used in the place and under the conditions best suited to it, will be found the most efficacious means of keeping down these pests. The details of the netting were fully explained in the last chapter, and in this it is intended to give the necessary

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