Unfair attacks on pike fishermen

As liaison officer for the North of Scotland for the Pike Anglers Alliance for Scotland, I find the remarks made by Bruce Sandison surprising, as most of the waters he named are in his well-defined book Trout Lochs of Scotland. I find it intriguing that he mentions illegal transfers of fish, as most waters in Scotland have indigenous stocks of pike and references have been made to them being in existence long before humans roamed Scotland.

The co-existence of pike, char, salmon and trout is well documented. I find Ron Greer’s remarks surprising, as a few years ago he and others accepted an offer from the Loch Tummel Riparian Owners Association to carry out nettings to evaluate what effect pike had and where they cohabited with trout and char. These findings were never made public to my knowledge. I wonder why?

Another point I would like to make is that Loch Ness has had pike for many years, as I have relatives in Inverness who caught pike back in the Fifties whilst out trolling for salmon.

Steve Tapley, the Pike Anglers Alliance for Scotland

YET again the pike is described as a "ferocious" predator, "the fearsome pike", and "the freshwater equivalent to the great white shark".

Mike Doughty of WWW Scotland states "pike are ferocious and very hungry, they continue feeding way past being full". In experiments with the Freshwater Biological Association on Lake Windemere a few years ago, it was found that a 10lb pike could be kept alive on an annual food intake of just 14lb without any increase of weight. They also found the 10lb pike, offered as much as it could eat, consumed as little as 35lb in a year, just three times its own weight.

If some idiots are introducing pike into northern waters then I would condemn this without reservation. However, the idea that pike are not native to large areas of Scotland, I find hard to believe. The Rev W B Daniel mentions in his book Rural Sports, published in 1801, the capture of a 72lb pike from Loch Ken.

Pete Conway, Calvine