Now, the orthodox stories of pike “voracity” divide themselves into two clearly-defined sections. The first of these is concerned with its gluttonous appetite—its onslaught on smaller fish, its appetite for rats, ducks and kindred morsels. I have collected some thousands of these incidents. But why reproduce them? We all know that the pike has a fearful appetite, that his swallowing powers are enormous, and that sometimes, to use an expressive Americanism, he bites off more than he can chew. Thus, we read of a 3½ lb. pike choked trying to swallow a 1¼ lb. trout; of a 9 lb. pike containing a 1½ lb. perch; of a 28 lb. pike containing a 6 lb. grilse; of a 2 lb. pike taking a spoon when he was so full that the tail of a pound trout was protruding from his mouth; of an Irish pike of 3½ lb. containing a trout of 1¼ lb.; and of others containing ducks, rats, waterhens, and even stoats. The plain fact is, of course, that the pike is a creature of prey, and like all creatures of prey, he is savage and implacable. He eats till he is full, and even then he takes good care not to refuse any tempting morsel which comes within range of his fearful jaws. His destructiveness can hardly be estimated in figures. If he eats his own weight per week, which is surely under the estimate, he requires a fish colony for his own table purposes alone.
A pike of 25 lb. was this season netted in the Lune, a first-class northern trout-stream. By his look he was an old fish, and he was well fed. How many tons of trout had he got through in his long lifetime? It is bad enough when they confine themselves to big fish, but when they get among the fry it is even worse, for they are destroying the very sources of a stream’s productiveness. And, alas, they have a liking for young and tender fish, as the keepers of our best waters know to their cost. Last year a pike of 4 lb. 11 oz. was caught by a Birmingham angler, and on opening it at the clubhouse its stomach was found to contain no fewer than 274 small fish of an inch to an inch and a half long, the fry of roach and bream. No wonder that in trout and salmon waters the pike is regarded as a pest and is kept down by every method the wit of the harassed keeper can devise.