PIKE FEVER. By Jens Bursell, with contributions from Theis Kragh and others.

(2019) 2019 1st English Language edition. 4to (213 x 276mm). Pp376. Good colour photographs throughout. Pictorial laminated boards, issued without a dust-wrapper.

This is a comprehensive manual of the state of the art in Scandinavian pike fishing. Chapters include: Part 1, Finding The pike: Biology of the pike - their menu, the changing seasons, wind and weather, striking periods throughout the day; Strategy - searching, from land or boat, bank fishing, boat fishing, marine electronics. Part 2, Fishing methods: Trigger the take; All-round tackle; Using artificial bait - spinning, vertical fishing, trolling, fly fishing; Fishing with natural bait (i.e., live baits) - choice of natural bait, all-round agnfiskertakler (live-bait rigs), floats - from bank or boat?, fishing from the bank, bait fishing from a boat, ice fishing; Strike, fight and landing - the bite and the strike, the fight, landing and landing gear, catch and release. Part 3, The Last 50 Percent: Lose less, catch more - all those pike that you lose, how do we solve the problem, doing less harm to the pike, how does it look?, the story of the release rigs, how to make release rigs, practical fishing using release rigs; The future of pike fishing. Part 3 discusses a recent Scandinavian advance, "release rigs": "Using traditional techniques you will land only some 45 percent of all the pike contacts, be you a fly fisherman, a spinning devotee or a natural bait addict. But if you take the time to learn how to fish with release rigs, you will increase your landing rate to 85 percent. Even the most experienced fishermen will increase their success significantly." Lots of good stuff here, and numerous pictures of impressively large pike. Mostly on the Baltic, a sea which is conspicuously low in salt, the more so, the further in you go from the Kattegat.