Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 392, June, 1848

Let us listen to Stoddart on pikes. It is proper, perhaps, to mention that we are legally informed that the "open and advised speaking" of our author about pikes is very constitutional, although very marvellous. It pleases him now to buffet these freshwater sharks with extremely hard words. Yet have we seen his nerves more fluttered by a dead pike, surreptitiously introduced into his nocturnal couch at Tibbie's – whom mortals, we believe, call Mrs Richardson, and whose green rural hostelry, on the margin of St Mary's Loch, is the sweet and loved haunt of every true brother of the craft – than ever was the heart of fisherman when a twenty-pounder has darted off like an express locomotive towards the foaming and rocky cataract. What horrid shriek is that, making night hideous? With bursts of laughter at this moment returns the scene when that grim visitor murdered the first efforts of the weary angler to woo repose, as his naked feet came into unexpected contact with the slimy mail of the water-pirate. Such recollections are part and parcel of the many hundred things which make the fisher's life a happy one. We shall hear, therefore, Mr Stoddart avenging himself on all pikes, dead or living, not excluding an incidental foray against eels; which latter are not surely, while they live, loveable.

"No one that ever felt the first attack of a pike at the gorge-bait can easily forget it. It is not, as might be supposed from the character of the fish, a bold, eager, voracious grasp; quite the contrary, it is a slow calculating grip. There is nothing about it dashing or at all violent; no stirring of the fins – no lashing of the tail – no expressed fury or revenge. The whole is mouth-work; calm, deliberate, bone-crashing, deadly mouth-work. You think at the moment you hear the action – the clanging action – of the fish's jaw-bones; and such jaw-bones, so powerful, so terrific! You think you hear the compressing, the racking of the victim betwixt them. The sensation is pleasurable to the angler as an avenger. Who among our gentle craft ever pitied a pike? I can fancy one lamenting over a salmon or star-stoled trout or playful minnow; nay, I have heard of those who, on being bereft of a pet gold-fish, actually wept; but a pike! itself unpitying, unsparing, who would pity? – who spare?

"Returning, however, to the point in my narrative at which I broke off. I no sooner felt the well-known intimation, than, drawing out line from my reel, and slightly slackening what had already passed the top-ring of my rod, I stood prepared for further movements on the part of the fish. After a short time he sailed slowly about, confining his excursions to within a yard or two of the spot where he had originally seized the bait. It was evident, as I knew from experience, that he still held the trout cross-wise betwixt his jaws, and had not yet pouched or bolted it. To induce, him, however, to do so without delay, I very slightly, as is my wont, tightened or rather jerked the line towards myself, in order to create the notion that his prey was making resistance, and might escape from his grasp. A moment's halt indicated that he had taken the hint, and immediately afterwards, all being disposed of at one gulp, out he rushed, vigorous as any salmon, exhausting in one splendid run nearly the whole contents of my reel, and ending his exertions, in the meanwhile, with a desperate summerset, which revealed him to my view in all his size, vigour, and ferocity; the jaws grimly expanded, the fins erect, and the whole body in a state of uncontrollable excitement. Being provided with a single-handed rod, and winch-line suited in respect of strength and thickness to light fishing, it was a marvel that either of these stood the test on an occasion so very trying. The worst, however, was over; and although the pike, as fish of its kind under similar circumstances always do, showed signs of remaining strength, coupled with great sullenness, it nevertheless, in the course of a few minutes, submitted to its fate, and allowed itself to be drawn ashore at a convenient landing-place, which fortunately was not far off.

"This fish, the first I ever captured in Teviot, weighed nearly a stone, and preceded in its fate no fewer than four others, of the respective weights, or nearly so, of ten, eight, seven, and three pounds, all of which I took from about the same spot in less than an hour's time. Shortly after, three or four days intervening, I killed two pike of twelve pounds weight each, close to the place mentioned, and in the same season met with an incident which, as it has some connexion with pike-trolling, is worthy of being recorded in this chapter. It happened in the month of July, on which day, Teviot, owing to recent rains, was somewhat discoloured, and I had ventured as far up its banks as the Roxburgh pool, intending to trout with fly and minnow, and also to give the pike a trial. That I might not, however, consume much time upon the latter fish, I had provided myself with a couple of set lines formed of strong cord. These it was my intention to lay out in a portion of the pool hitherto untried, and to allow them to remain there, while I angled for trout higher up the river. With the view of doing this, I had secured, by desultory throwing in my progress, towards Roxburgh, several small trout, and when arriving at the spot where I had intended to lay the lines, was unable to resist an anticipatory trial for pike with the rod itself, which, on this occasion, was a double-handed one, and provided with a good-sized reel and line to correspond.

"Having affixed and baited a gorge-hook, I accordingly commenced operations, and in the course of a few throws hooked what I conceived to be a pike of extraordinary size. It pouched quickly, ran far, and forcibly crossed and recrossed the river, which, at the spot in question, is by no means narrow, – rushed upwards to a distance of at least a hundred yards and down again, seemingly without the least fatigue. Having regained, however, the spot from which it had commenced its run, all on a sudden the fish halted, and immediately, without any jerk or strain on my part, the line came to hand, neatly severed or cut through by the teeth, above the wire-fastenings to which the gorge-hook had been appended. No slight disappointment it was. I fancied of course that I had lost a pike of such uncommon size, as to have been able to engross, in pouching, the whole extent of arming in question, measuring nearly a foot. My sole resource therefore, or hope of retrieve, – and I was by no means sanguine of the result, – lay in the setting of the two lines I had brought along with me, at or near the spot where the fish had made its escape. Accordingly, baiting each with a trout of at least four ounces in weight, I threw them in not far from one another, with small floats attached, in order to show off the lure and keep it from the bottom. This done, I pursued my way further up the river, and commenced trouting. On my return, after the expiry of two or three hours, to the place where I had set the lines, I found that both the corks were out of sight and the cords stretched to the uttermost, but quite motionless. Drawing the nearer one, I was surprised to observe it, although made of strong and fresh material, snapped through at the middle. It was not so, however, with the other. There was evidently something attached to it of considerable weight and bulk, without, however, any live resistance. Imagine my surprise, when, on hauling it nearer the bank, I beheld a huge eel enveloped among the cords, quite choked and lifeless. Of river eels it was the largest I had ever witnessed, although I certainly have seen congers of greater size. About four feet and a half in length, and in girth fully eleven inches, I think it could not have weighed less than twenty pounds. This point, however, I wanted the ready means of determining, although I regret not having made an effort to acquaint myself with it. On examining the stomach of the monster, I found that it contained all the three gorge-hooks employed by me, and the trouts with which, individually, they had been baited. My experience in eel fishing has not been very great, but I have taken some hundreds of them in my time, and I do not remember above one or two that showed fight in the same manner this one did, while on the rod. In general, they waddle or twist about, betake themselves under rocks, stones, or roots of trees, but very seldom push out directly across or up the pool. With the gorge-hook indeed, and a small trout as the bait, I have often, both before and since the occasion above-mentioned, captured them; also while trolling for pike with gimp and swivel tackle, and that in mid water betwixt the bottom and surface; nor, indeed, will eels, when impelled by hunger, shrink from assailing the largest fish, should these happen to be sickly or in adverse circumstances. It is well known that what are termed river cairns, or heaps of stones raised by the tacksman of salmon fishings for the purpose of inveigling running fish into a certain description of net attached to them, afford shelter to large numbers of eels and lampreys, which, if the grilse or salmon happening to become entangled is allowed, through neglect or otherwise, to continue two or three hours in this state of thraldom, will, forcing an entrance through the gill or mouth, speedily disencumber it of its entrails; nay if allowed to pursue their work of molestation unchecked, absolutely hollow it out, until little remains but a sack or skinful of bones."

This is a horrible picture, – "a sack or skinful of bones," while the salmon, we presume, still exists in its ribbed transparency. The dreams of eels, who sup so full of horrors, must be very awful. But infinitely more awful must be the visions which people the slumbers of those mortals who, in their turn, eat those eels who have eaten those salmon. Our repugnance to eel-pies was never strong. It were better for us to think of something else.

A crust of statistics may ward off sickening and remorseful qualms. The indiscriminate destructiveness which characterises pikes, is unfortunately and disgracefully displayed by other queer fish. It is not necessary to enumerate the perplexing multiplicity of devices which human ingenuity has invented and constructed for annihilating salmon. As of the kings about whose deaths their royal brother Richard tells sad stories, so of salmon, however various may be the manner of their dissolutions, it is safe to affirm that they are "all murdered." Statutes kill myriads of them; poachers, in spite of statutes, kill myriads more of them; honest anglers, who sport in the seasons, and with the weapons proper to sportsmen, kill a few individual fishes; and it will be demonstrated that pikes are the powerful and natural allies of statutes and poachers: —

"With regard to the ravages committed among the fry of the salmon, I may mention that almost every pike captured by me during the months of April and May contained in its stomach, or disgorged, on being landed, the remains of one or more smolts. These frequently were quite entire – to all appearance, indeed, newly killed; they were sometimes also in a partly-digested state, and on other occasions presented to the eye little more than was sufficient to distinguish them as having been small fish. I have taken five or six salmon-fry, in the stages above described, out of the stomach of a single pike. Two, three, or four, is a matter of common occurrence. Such being the case, and if it be true, what many ichthyologists affirm, that fish dissolve their food with such astonishing rapidity as to rival in some instances the action of fire; nay, allowing that the stomach of the pike occupied a couple of hours in completing the digestive process, the amount of havoc committed by this ravager on Teviot during the smolt season is quite astonishing. Confining my calculation within very moderate bounds, I shall presume that each pike, on the average, as his daily meal, during the months already referred to, engrosses four salmon or bull-trout fry. This, in the course of sixty days, gives an allowance to every individual in Teviot of two hundred and forty smolts; and supposing there are from Ancrumbridge downward, a stretch of water nine or ten miles in length, not more than one thousand pike, the entire number consumed by these, in less than one-sixth of the year, amounts to two hundred and forty thousand, or nearly a quarter of a million of salmon-fry, – a greater number, there is no question, than is killed during the same extent of time by all the angling poachers in the district put together."

We acknowledge that we must be indiscreet to involve ourselves again in an offensive topic. A hint, however, of our opinion, and we pass away from the subject. The abominable slaughter of "FOUL" fish, perpetrated by people whom we are obliged to repudiate as sportsmen, and whom we are not obliged to recognise as gentlemen, is a shocking, dirty, disreputable mal-practice, to be condemned with unmodified severity of language. Apologies, explanations, palliations, are in vain. The filthy mass which is unrighteously dragged out of the water is not then a fish. It is against the use of nature for the hand of man to touch it. And yet the same man who would with easy indifference "leister" a salmon in that state, teeming with ten thousand thousand lives, shall, on the morrow, in a jury-box, violate his oath by acquitting the guilty in the face of the clearest evidence, because he thinks capital punishments unlawful. Phaugh! Call Mr Stoddart into court as an authoritative witness.

"I find a number of anglers at one with me in opinion upon this subject; and all who have witnessed night-leistering on Tweed during the autumnal or winter months, will acknowledge that even the romantic character which torch-light and scenery invest it with, fails as an apology for the ignoble, wasteful, and injurious nature of the occupation. In nine cases out of ten, it is pursued, either during the spawning season itself, or when the fish are heavy with roe – when they are red or foul, having lain a considerable time in the river, and, moreover, when they have lost all power of escape, or are cut off from exercising it, both by the lowness of water, and by the circumstance of their being hemmed in, at the head and foot of the pool or place of action, by nets and other contrivances stretched from bank to bank.

"It can scarcely be credited, but I relate a fact known to many on Tweedside, that, about four or five years ago, upwards of three hundred breeding fish, salmon and grilses, were slaughtered in the course of a single night, from one boat, out of a stretch of water not far from Melrose, two leisters only being employed; and of this number – I allude to the fish – scarcely one was actually fit to be used as food, while by far the greater part of them were female salmon, on the eve of depositing their ova. In the neighbourhood of Kelso, upwards of ninety have frequently been butchered with this implement during a single night, from one boat, – all of them fish in the same rank and unhealthy condition above described. In September 1846, according to the most moderate calculation, no fewer than four thousand spawning fish, consisting chiefly of full-grown salmon, and comprehending the principal breeding stock of the season – those fish which, from their forward state, promised the earliest and most vigorous supply of fry, were slaughtered in Tweed, with the consent, and under the auspices, of the upper holders of fishings, in the manner I speak of. Need it be said, that the injury done to the salmon-fishings in general by this malpractice on the part of two or three lesser proprietors, is incalculable, and, when linked with the doings of poachers during closetime, to which it unquestionably gives encouragement, and the system pursued on Tweed of capturing and destroying the kelts and baggits, it must operate most prejudicially against every plan devised to further the breeding of this highly-prized article of food."

Simply we shall say, that any body who so leisters fish from this day forward is a BRUTAL BARBARIAN, fit for the society of a Burke or a Hare, who did not venture to immolate their victims till gross physical corruption – the heavy prostration of drunkenness – rendered them in general the easy and stupid prey of a disgusting assassin. Let the leisterer of foul fish be accursed in the sporting calendar.

Under all circumstances, to be quite candid, we remonstrate against the leister. It is not a fair way of going to work – the fish has no option. There is too much of the tinge of the Venetian bravo in the blow. Less apology must there always be for striking a salmon than for striking a man behind his back. The man who detects the stealthy thrust may turn and smite his enemy. The fish, vigilant happily of the descending trident, can but shift its quarters and swim away. Basking, too, at the moment under the broad beam of the all-rejoicing sun – as motionless, as tranquil, as bright, and as beautiful, as the silver pebbles in the river's bed – why should idle human violence invade and extinguish that unsuspecting repose? At this very instant, while he is in such attitude and mood, fling, if you can, with delicate precision, over his snout the most attractive mottled wing in your book, and then – if the pensive Zoroaster of the stream quits his meditations to swallow your temptation – then hook him, play him, land him, and encreel him; but do not, without any warning, plunge a barbed steel fork into his heart. Or, at this very instant, let the seduction of the triple worm travel athwart his ruminations, and if the glutton shall overcome the sage, then, even in his voracious throat, strike home, and overcome the glutton; but do not hack the noble form with ruffianly prongs of rusty iron —

"Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds."

Pr'ythee permit the leister, for the future, to decorate a museum along with other implements of the Cannibal, not the British islands!

Mr Stoddart must feel neither anger nor surprise if we deliberately avoid not merely any discussion, but even any notice whatever, of theories or speculations, directly or collaterally referring to the breeding or propagation of fishes. We have not been, as the pages of Maga prove, unwatchful of what conjectural philosophy might propose, or ingenious experimentalism might exhibit. We hold some piscine opinions, so curious but so true, that if we could enunciate them in a language intelligible to fish (which ought to be the Finnish dialect,) the liveliest salmon in Norway could not execute summersets sufficiently numerous to express his astonishment at our knowledge. We could likewise put such puzzling objections to the most elaborate and seemingly satisfactory systems, as to demonstrate irrefragably that, in spite of every thing which every body has said about every variety of the salmo race, nobody knows any thing certain as to the age Of Old Parr. But, for one good reason, we shall be discreet and silent. Nobody cares a straw, or a horse-hair, or a thread of gut, whether Stoddart is overthrown, or Shaw is predominant, – nobody, whose sole and laudable object is to enjoy a day's good fishing. The great fact remains – the waters are full of fish. What matter is it whence the fins came or come? The question is not how they got into, but how they are to be taken out of the burn, the river, or the lake? It is not we who mean to go

"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave;"

but up out of it we hope to draw many dozens of its peopling swarms. And we desire to learn from Mr Stoddart how best we may, by baits and guileful spells, reach and inveigle, them —

"In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers."

The companion we want is the Angler's Companion. Now the angler is an individual who sallies out at early dawn, rejoicing, not only in his own strength, and, haply, the strength of a glass of whisky, but in a fishing-basket, or pannier, or bag; in a fishing-rod, or three or four fishing-rods; in a fishing-book, more voluminous in its single volume than the Encyclopædia Britannica; in wading boots and water-proof cloaklets; in a reel, and a gaff, and a landing net, and sometimes a boat; in gut, and in horse hair; in hooks and hackles; in feathers and silk thread; in wax and wire; in leads and floats; in tin boxes of worms, and earthen pots of salmon roe; in minnows, and parr-tails; in swivels and gorge-hooks; in lobs, and in bobs; in ferrules, and in rings; in a brown paper parcel of four large sandwiches, and a pocket flask of six large glasses of sherry; in a dingy coat, and inexpressible unmentionables; and finally, in the best humour, and a shocking bad hat. Is it imaginable that all this can be done, as it is done every day, by any body who has not made up his mind, or who thinks it necessary to know, what fish are, and where they came from? There is no such humbug within him. He goes to the Tweed or the Tay; the Don, or the Conan; to Loch Craggie, or Loch Maree; to Loch Awe, or Loch Etive; to the Clyde, or the Solway; to Loch Doon, or Loch Ken; because all over broad Scotland there is plenty of fish; and because, where-ever he goes, Stoddart can tell him how there most readily, most surely, and most pleasantly to encreel them. Of all the Caledonians who, in countless crowds, daily leave their native homes in the flesh, and return to the domestic hearthstone in the evening, with their flesh more or less fishified, there are not twenty to whom it is not a point of the utmost indifference, whether the fish in the Tweed, or any other river where they have been angling, are rained down once a month from the clouds, or are brought over as ballast in ships once a-week from Denmark. The fish are there. We are going to catch them. Hand us Stoddart's Angler's Companion.

As a teacher of practical angling in Scotland, we look on Mr Stoddart to be without a rival or equal. To call him a good instructor in the art, does not properly describe him. He is strictly and literally a manuductor. Nature has given to him what Beddoes terms "a well organised and very pliant hand," which for more than twenty years, as we can honestly testify, has waved the osier over all the streams of his native country. We exaggerate nothing in declaring angling to have been, during that long period, Stoddart's diurnal and nocturnal study. And the result has been what it ought to be. Nobody else, for example, (we affirm it without fear of any contradiction or cavil,) could have written, as it is written, the sixth chapter, – "On fishing with the worm for trout."

"To a perfect novice in the art of angling, nothing appears simpler than to capture trout with the worm, provided the water be sufficiently muddled to conceal the person and disguise the tackle of the craftsman. A mere urchin, with a pea-stick for a wand, a string for his line, and a pin for his hook, has often, under such favourable circumstances, effected the landing of a good-sized fish. But to class performances of this description among feats of skill were quite ridiculous, and they are just, to as small an extent, samples of successful worm-fishing. It may perhaps startle some, and these no novices in the art, when I declare, and offer moreover to prove, that worm-fishing for trout requires essentially more address and experience, as well as a better knowledge of the habits and instincts of the fish, than fly-fishing. I do not, be it observed, refer to the practice of this branch of the art as it is followed on hill burns and petty rivulets, neither do I allude to it as pursued after heavy rains in flooded and discoloured waters; my affirmation bears solely upon its practice as carried on during the summer months in the southern districts of Scotland, when the rivers are clear and low, the skies bright and warm. Then it is, and then only, that it ought to be dignified with the name of sport; and sport it assuredly is, fully as exciting, perhaps more so, than angling with the fly or minnow. In the hands of a skilful practitioner, indeed, there is no mode of capturing well-conditioned fish with the rod more remunerative; – I say well-conditioned, for in the spawning months, lean, lank, and unhealthy trout may be massacred in any number by means of salmon-roe or pastes formed from that substance.

"In the present chapter, I shall attempt to make plain the principal points to be attended to by the worm-fisher desirous of success. These I class under the following heads: —

1. The rod and tackle to be employed.

2. The kind of worm, and how prepared,

3. When and where to fish.

4. How to bait and manage the line."