It used to be that fishing stories weren't allowed any more than entries by politicians or lawyers, but I suppose standards have been lowered here just like everything else such as the hemlines on womens' skirts.

Did I ever tell you about the Monster Pike of Wast Water?

One spring morning Lanty Grayson was counting the lambs in his flock when he noticed that two of them were missing. Naturally he suspected the old grey fox that had taken some hens from Joss Wilson's yard a few days earlier, and that night he mentioned his suspicions to the company at the Wasdale Head Inn. Leal Joe Bellman was the huntsman of the Wasdale Hounds, and he said he would bring his pack round in the morning.

At dawn the next day Joe and a few followers turned up in hopes of a good chase since the "Auld Grey" had a good reputation as a crafty sporting fox. Joe lowsed his hounds as usual but none of them, not even Melody his champion bitch, could pick up a scent. Joe got a bit prickly as the same thing happened after several more attempts, and he cursed something fierce at young Jim Nelson for laughing at the sight of a few of the less disciplined hounds splashing in the waters of the lake. "Reckon Auld Grey 'as larned te swim," Jim chuckled, and the rest of the hunt thought he was lucky to escape a touch of Leal Joe's whip, never mind the lash of his tongue. Joe called off his hounds and they all made their way back to the Inn for a few drinks and some songs as well.

The following day Joss Wilson himself reported a missing lamb, so that night he and Lanty along with a few others sat up with their shotguns to keep watch. The Auld Grey was starting to cost them some money after all. Around two in the morning they heard a terrific commotion from the shore of the lake; Joss fired a shot at a a large black shape which he swore was twice the size of Betty Youdell's bull. The shape, or whatever it was, fell back into the lake, but search as they would they could find no trace of it. Young Jim said he saw a big fish swim away but he was still suffering from the few drinks he'd had the night before.

There were a couple of anglers from London staying at the Inn who took a boat out into the lake later that morning. Usually they were content to spend the day puffing on their pipes and admiring the views of the mountains all around them and occasionally catching a small bream or char which they threw back anyway. This morning they cast their lines as usual and settled back to smoke their pipes. Their peace was rudely shattered by a sharp tug on one of the lines which nearly pulled the boat itself under. They both grabbed hold of the rod as the line stretched taut and the whole reel ran out their boat was towed around the lake by their catch. The sight of the two city folk being taken for a rough ride by an invisible fish soon attracted a lot of spectators on the shore.

Joss, whose uncle had been to sea, declared that it must be a whale, while Lanty swore that it was definitely a crocodile. However the thrashings of the strange beast grew weaker and weaker and at last the boat came to a standstill out in the middle of Wast Water. The London anglers looked extemely pale, and they were far too weak and shaken to row back to the shore so Joss had attach a line to haul them in. Even so it took a team of his best heavy horse to bring the boat and its catch to the shore.

Once they were landed they could at last look on the beast of the lake. It was a 20 foot long pike with a nasty bullet wound in its side. When they opened it up they found Joss and Lanty's lambs as well as a few chicken bones. As soon as the landlord of the Inn heard of this he cursed out Joss Wilson something rotten for shooting it dead since he reckoned that The Wast Water Monster would have brought tourists in for years to come.

That monster pike had thrived in the deep and cold waters of the lake for years, living on the smaller fish until at last it had grown so big that it needed larger prey that it could only find on land. If it had lived a few more years who knows what else it might have preyed upon? And that's my story without a word of a lie.