In the early part of 1905, Major Mainwaring verified in _The Field_, two pike gaffed in Lough Mask—one 42 lb., the other 48 lb.; the latter had just spawned; otherwise, as the Major wrote, it might very easily have brought down the scale at 60 lb. Then there is a record of a pike weighing 61 lb. being caught in the River Bann in Ireland, in 1894, measuring over four feet, and containing over 7 lb. of spawn; and we have English records, mainly from the Norfolk Broads and the Lincolnshire Fens, of pike netted during the spawning period and weighing full 40 lb. We are face to face with the fact, therefore, that we can verify the capture of a pike 37 lb. by an English angler, and that by netting or gaffing, pike up to 60 lb. or thereabouts have been taken out of Irish waters.
It is necessary that these figures should be stated, because they are useful as a standard to compare the pike caught in the early months of 1905. The record for the season weighed 33½ lb. Quite a number over 30 lb. were caught, more so than for a number of years past. But, to my mind, the two facts of greatest importance which emerge from a study of my pike records are these: first, that February is the very best month of the year for catching pike; and second, that spinning is the deadliest method. Take the first of these propositions. In February last Mr. Oliver Procter and two friends had a day’s pike fishing on a private water in Nottinghamshire. The name of the place was not given, but internal evidence in their narrative tells me that it was the private lake at Clumber, the Duke of Newcastle’s place. In one day these three rods caught, by spinning, fifty-six pike, weighing 468½ lb. The best fish weighed 31 lb. and the smallest was actually 6 lb. One rod got 32 fish, weighing 275 lb.; another rod had 17 fish, weighing 119½ lb.; the other rod, Mr. Procter himself, had seven fish, weighing 74 lb. The latter average is very high, but it included the best fish of the day, the 31-pounder. As each rod could only keep three fish, all the rest were safely returned to the water. I have asked the reader to note that this was a February catch and that they were caught spinning. A few days later, in the same month, three Nottingham anglers had a day on this same water. By spinning they accounted for 52 pike, weighing 425 lb. The heaviest was 33½ lb., was the record pike of the year, and was caught by Mr. F. W. K. Wallis, of Nottingham. I have not yet done with February, nor with spinning. In the same month two Wolverhampton anglers, one of them a clergyman, fishing a water not named, caught 52 pike between them, all by spinning. The total weight was not recorded, but they gave away over 2 cwt. to the deserving poor of Wolverhampton. Another February case was that of Mr. R. C. H. Corfe and Mr. M. R. L. White, of the Fly Fishers’ Club. Spinning, they caught 55 pike in a day’s angling. The largest was only 18½ lb., but they touched bigger fish, for as they were landing a four-pounder it was wrenched off the hooks and carried away by a pike which Mr. White estimated at 30 lb. or thereabouts. They were all caught by spinning dace or sprats on an Abbey Mills spinner. Again, in that same February, a college student reported to _The Field_ how, in two hours’ spinning, during a snow-storm, using a silver Devon on the Wye near Hereford, he caught four pike, 27½ lb., 15 lb., 8 lb. and 6 lb. These records, all from 1905, surely establish February’s claim to rank as the premier pike month of the year. Going further back, I find that other years substantiate this claim. Mr. Jardine, in his book on pike-fishing, gives a list of sixty record fish, and thirty of them belong to the end of January and the month of February.