On catching this fish

WHEN the female wishes to lay her spawn, she does it after withdrawing a long way from the place she normally frequents, so that her offspring are no hindrance to her own hunting. This is either through her natural savagery, or her reluctance to share her food or plunder. ¹ There are many ways of catching pike. You may use a broad hook of brass or reddish copper, made for this purpose, to which you attach a white coloured fish. Or in the hours of darkness you can take an iron-pronged fork and lighted torches coated with pitch. ² When the fish come to gaze in rapt wonder, you spike them with your iron weapon. Again, the pike frisks about beneath the ice at the close of March, for this is the time it lays its eggs, when it makes such a noise in the water with the powerful threshing of its head that of its own accord it gives a signal to anglers and helps them to catch it. ³ It can also be caught in little cages built of long sticks and set firmly among the reeds; once it has entered, it ferociously attacks any fish that are there to be devoured. ⁴