The Best of Pikelines [antikvár]

ForewordWhen Barrie Rickards asked me if I would write the foreword to The Best of Pikelines I accepted, but over the following weeks began to think, as 'a dreaded maggot strangler', what could I say? After forty years of fishing my memories of the Freshwater Shark are few and mixed, and certainly not planned. When I first started fishing the Romney Marsh Drains in Kent, in the early seventies, I remember having a keepnet of bream attacked by a pike. My fishing partner of many years, Tony Curd, chucked out a herring deadbait on the off-chance. I took little notice.About 10 minutes later he shouted 'It's off.' I thought he meant that the bait had pulled off the hooks. We spent a few heated moments in a rather disjointed shouting match, him trying to persuade me that something had taken the bait and me lecturing on the finer points of hooking deadbaits.A well-bent rod resolved the argument. A 13-pounder, I seem to remember. How ill-prepared we were: one pair of small forceps between us. One of us volunteered to hold its mouth open. You've guessed right, me. Well, Tony's a big bloke and I don't argue with him. The result? Badly lacerated fingers, a very unhappy angler and an even unhappier fish.My next trip was some fifteen years later. In 1986 I was invited to the N.A.S.A. Pike Match at Thorpe Park. Not realising the golden oppormnity of fishing a premier pike water I elected to drown a few maggots. This I did all morning, without a bite, before drifting back to sit behind Bill Rushmer and friends who were catching. After a natter and numerous cups of coffee I was soon sitting behind borrowed tackle. How 'my pike fishing' had changed. What impressed me most was how this branch of our sport had progressed. Sensitive bite alarms and tackles, almost scientific unhooking procedures, and careful and swift return of the fish to the water.These techniques were applied to fish large and small.The P.A.C. must be praised for its hard work in educating anglers and dispelling the Medieval Myths surrounding the Pike. The Pike has earned our respect. It has an important role to play in many of our fisheries. The P.A.C. has not sat in isolation but gone out and educated anglers at all levels on fish care and protection. Their work is not complete. There are still those who