{"id":15935,"date":"2022-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=15935"},"modified":"2022-05-12T11:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T09:26:40","slug":"wolf-of-the-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2022\/05\/05\/wolf-of-the-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolf of the deep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WILDLIFE 2<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Wolf of the deep<\/h2>\n\n

Haunter of legends and anglers\u2019 dreams, the lurking pike is the perfect predator of our waterways, says Will Millard<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

Must catch <\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Bob and Paul hunt for pike in episode three, series three of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, <\/em>available on BBC iPlayer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

\"\"
The pike is built for efficient hunting, with a flattened snout and large mouth concealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, a long streamlined body with fins positioned for maximum acceleration, and markings for camouflage, that \u2013 like our fingerprints \u2013 are unique to each fish <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

I<\/span> can still remember the first time I laid eyes on a pike. Even as a five-year-old, I knew I was watching something special. I peered down into the water and felt a little tingle around the pit of my stomach. I was excited, but more than a little scared too: this fish had bad intentions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I gripped my grandad\u2019s hand. We fished together every week and often encountered creatures in the river\u2019s edges; but they would always flee the moment they became aware of our presence. This pike was untroubled by us though; confident in the camouflage afforded by a cover of reeds and its olive-green yellowflecked skin. It waited; for what, I did not know.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Pike have forwardfacing eyes and hunt by sight, hiding in vegetation to ambush passing fish, frogs or ducklings <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Suddenly, another tiny pike slid into view.\u201cOh, look grandad! It\u2019s a baby coming back to its mummy!\u201d was what I would have said, had the big pike not flashed forward in an instant and inhaled the baby pike inside its cavernous mouth. \u201cErm,\u201d began grandad, freshly flush with a brand of anxiety that I hadn\u2019t seen since I\u2019d asked him where babies came from. He didn\u2019t need to explain anything though: we both understood what had happened.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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A sandpapery tongue and rows of up to 700 backward-facing teeth mean prey rarely escape Photo: Getty, Shutterstock, Will Millard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The big pike resettled within its cover but that raw, explosive power left a deep impression on me. I was a full-time subscriber to the Pike Fan Club from that point forward; getting closer to that fish would later border on obsession.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

With its elongated, streamlined body tapering towards a blunt arrow-shaped head, the \u2018pike\u2019 name stuck with the fish from the Middle Ages, due to its resemblance to the thrusting spear used by the infantrymen of the time. The earliest fossils of the fish far predate its name, though. Pike were established on Earth some 80 million years ago, with Esox <\/em>lucius <\/em>(literally, the \u2018water wolf\u2019) making its major evolutionary leap sometime during the Cretaceous period, when an early descendent within the herringsalmon order developed jaws capable of swallowing far larger prey. This adaptation helped propel the pike forward through millennia, spreading its range across almost the entire northern third of our hemisphere and establishing itself as one of the most successful freshwater predators of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cPike are actually sensitive and fragile fish, which must be handled with care\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

I have no doubt, though, that for every patch of water that has pike present in any proximity to humans, there is a wild pike myth attached.In the years I have been researching pike, I have heard and read it all: from the woman who claimed to have lost her beloved dog during one stick-fetching exercise in the park pond, right through to the boy at my school who insisted his dad was admitted to hospital with a live pike attached to his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In 1922, The <\/em>Field <\/em>magazine reported the highly dubious story of a 14lb (6.3kg) pike caught with a whole piglet in its stomach, and even the celebrated angling historian Fred Buller was not immune to the intoxication of a good pike story. In his seminal work The <\/em>Domesday <\/em>Book <\/em>of <\/em>Mammoth <\/em>Pike, <\/em>Buller documented tales of the 250 largest pike caught in Britain, topped off with a mammoth fish snared in Ireland\u2019s Loch Derg in 1862. According to the record, two local anglers hooked the fish on a lure made from a shoe horn and, after an epic two-hour battle, landed a 1.7-metre leviathan that tipped the scales at a ridiculous 90.5lb (41kg). The Derg pike was almost double the weight of the verified British record and 30lbs (13.6kg) clear of the current world record.<\/p>\n\n

PHENOMENAL PREDATOR<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

Anyone who has encountered a large pike at close quarters will fully understand why it is a ripe target for a good campfire yarn. The size of the jaws are one thing, but inside the mouth a truly hellish fate awaits. Up to 700 needlesharp, sickle-shaped, backward-facing teeth fill the jawline, alongside two further pads of smaller teeth lining the roof of the mouth. What goes in there very rarely makes it out, and that includes many creatures that swim: fish, ducklings, amphibians, crayfish and even the occasional rat. The pike has an appetite as varied as it is voracious, but dogs and piglets?<\/span>I highly doubt it.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
A large pike is powerful and not easy to catch. The biggest pike caught in the UK was from Llandegfedd Reservoir inSouth Wales, weighing46lb, 13oz (22.2kg). However, a bigger pike was found dead in Yorkshire in 2020, possibly weighing over 53lb (24kg)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

There is far more to the pike than meets its coal-black eye. They are stealth-based hunters but they are pragmatists, too. They don\u2019t tear chunks from live prey: they grasp it lengthways, turn it in their jaws, and swallow it head first and whole. A large portion of their diet is made up of dead and decaying fish, and they are well known to scoop up tiny invertebrates in their thousands, too. They are actually sensitive and fragile fish, which, if caught by anglers, must be handled with real care, especially around their gill rakers and the softer, fleshier parts of their throat. The larger fish are territorial, but they hate any form of angling pressure and will seek quieter areas away from human disturbance.<\/span>That isn\u2019t to say you will never see a pike in built-up areas \u2013 some of the best fish I have caught live deep within urban canal systems \u2013 but it does mean they are almost certainly not going to be found anywhere near the activities of your local wild-swimming group.<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

THE POET\u2019S PIKE<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.<\/em>Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.They dance on the surface among the flies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poet laureate Ted Hughes (right) was one of the best writers of his generation and also a keen fisherman, who cast his fly on Devon\u2019s Taw and Torridge for 40 years. His eye for the beauty in the natural world is there in his poem \u2018Pike\u2019, inspired by childhood fishing in a lake in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The poem is divided into three parts: the first, a description of the pike, its habitat and an introduction to its behaviour; the second, his experience of keeping small pike in a tank and learning of their cannibalistic tendencies; the third, the haunting feeling of fishing for such a predator. That final piece speaks to us all as pike anglers, where the giants command respect and, occasionally, some degree of fear. This winter, I fished with a friend who brought an immense pike to his lure from a \u201clegendary depth\u201d. \u201cThat fish actually terrified me mate,\u201d he remarked, white as a sheet and visibly shaken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read \u2018Pike\u2019 in Collected <\/em>Poems <\/em>of <\/em>Ted <\/em>Hughes <\/em>(Faber Poetry, 2005).<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

\"\"
Young pike, called jacks, develop their first teeth at one month old, then start feeding and growing rapidly, reaching a length of 30cm in their first year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The problem with a killer\u2019s reputation, though, is that false accusation leads very quickly to actual persecution. For many generations, pike were culled from our waterways, mostly due to the mistaken belief that they were responsible for the decline in salmon and trout. In reality, we now know the problems in our fresh water run far deeper than a rogue predator, with pollution, manmade barriers and habitat decline allcontributing to a general downward trend in our salmonid species. History tells of the dangers of removing apex predators from any ecosystem and the culls of larger pike only ever saw an explosion in juveniles of the species. The cannibal pike I saw as a child, it transpires, was simply self-regulating her territory: naturally culling her competition and doubtless also removing the weaker and sicker specimens across the wide range of her prey.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

PIKE ON A PLATE<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

Outside the UK, there are many cultures that catch pike \u2013 using lures, live baits, forked spears or nets \u2013 to bring the fish to the table, but our island nation is too small and densely populated to handle anything other than angler\u2019s catch and release. The pike needs our protection and attention and, in those places that have been afforded careful management, this winter has seen more 30lb (14kg)-plus fish reported than at any other point during my lifetime.<\/p>\n\n

The Loch Derg yarn may turn 60 this year, but the chances of us mortals ever seeing a fish half that size is extremely remote. Still, if you do find yourself next to a forgotten corner of water, thick with cover and with prey fish flying, don\u2019t be afraid to look down. You may discover that your own monster myth might just be real.<\/p>\n\n

ANATOMY OF A PIKE<\/span><\/h4>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Will Millard<\/strong> was taught to fish by his grandad at the age of four. A writer and the presenter of BBC series Hidden Wales, <\/em>he has written a book on fishing: The Old Man and the Sand Eel. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

Illustration: Chris Shields. Photo: Getty <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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