Pike or jack?

[jon atkinson]

Personally, I've always had a nominal notion that the 'cut off' is 5lb, but much like the Skimmer / Bream 'debate' I suspect that everyone has their own opinion, so out of curiosity...

 

[terry m]

Hmmm, controversial.

However 5lb would work for me.

 

[john step]

I think thats about right. A club I belong to has a rule that no pike over 5lb may be removed. Probably a forgotten rule from the days they were taken for the pot?

 

[terry m]

I am interested to know what the consensus is on skimmer/ bream.

For me about 1 1/2lb is a proper bream.

 

[jon atkinson]

I suspect that there will be more varied opinions on that one Terry - for me, it's not so much size / weight but more appearance and 'feel'... when they take on that deeper, less silvery hue and lose at least some of the slime, then it's a Bream in my book. Other opinions are available!!

 

[markcw]

I would say 5lb . I was in a club in the north west , that all pike under 5lb should be removed from a canal , needless to say the surrounding pools etc near the canal had them stocked . No one was going to throw them up the bank , A lot of angler just returned them back into the canal .
I am in one in Oxford that remove pike to let the Zander flourish . You couldn't make that one up .

 

[mikench]

I have never understood why a nickname for either pike or bream should cause so much discussion after all the young of both species are the same species. I would like to see someone successfully skim a small bream.

 

[S-Kippy]

5lb for a Jack feels about right as does a pound and a half for skimmer/bream….though I agree with Jon, it’s the look more than the weight that says skimmer or bream. Skimmers are much more silvery and at least 50% wallpaper paste

I doubt I’ve weighed more than half a dozen bream in 50 years and they were most definitely not skimmers. I’ve no plans to start now

 

[markcw]

I have never understood why a nickname for either pike or bream should cause so much discussion after all the young of both species are the same species. I would like to see someone successfully skim a small bream.

Small bream got their name skimmer because sometimes they skimmed across the surface when reeled in .

So the story goes

I am not included those that jump like demented trout when hooked.

 

[john step]

To add to the confusion I have seen silver bream referred to as skimmers ie. small bronze bream. I suspect many anglers catch silver bream and dont know the difference.
From a comment by Mark Whittle a while ago I dont think they are too closely related other than both being cyprinid.

 

[theartist]

The name Jack Pike makes sense as statistcially they are more likely to me male given the female's ability to grow well beyond 7lb, something the males lack, I think 7lb is the cut off for male's maximum weight (at least that's what It used to be) so that's where I call a pike a jack or not even if it still could be a young female.

Edit just read that male pike can grow to 10lb maybe more, be interesting to know both the average and the largest recorded male

 

[John Aston]

Terms such as 'jack ' and 'skimmer' belong to the distant past, and should stay there, together with (retch) 'prime redfins' , 'chavender' , 'willow blades' (Yorkshire name for bleak ) and 'idlebacks' (Yorkshire for rod rest ) . There's a perfectly serviceable name for pike and bream already so , y'know, why not use it , prefaced if necessary by 'small'? Terms like jack can also be used as humble bragging - 'Nah , mate, just a few jacks , up to a scraper double maybe' .

Nicknames are still being created and used - zeds, wasps , barbs , gonks, billies and so on . Avoid them like the plague is my advice. And as for the incredibly arch ' tinca ' or 'esox' - just NO !

 

[theartist]

Terms such as 'jack ' and 'skimmer' belong to the distant past, and should stay there, together with (retch) 'prime redfins' , 'chavender' , 'willow blades' (Yorkshire name for bleak ) and 'idlebacks' (Yorkshire for rod rest ) . There's a perfectly serviceable name for pike and bream already so , y'know, why not use it , prefaced if necessary by 'small'? Terms like jack can also be used as humble bragging - 'Nah , mate, just a few jacks , up to a scraper double maybe' .

Nicknames are still being created and used - zeds, wasps , barbs , gonks, billies and so on . Avoid them like the plague is my advice. And as for the incredibly arch ' tinca ' or 'esox' - just NO !

Couldn't disagree more, those nicknames are heritage and history, long may they continue to be used

 

[The bad one]

In the ichthyology world there is no difference between a jack pike or skimmer bream. They are Pike or Bream although smaller versions of their large brethren's. It is anglers' terminology, slang, for them. So, for me the ichthyology definition will do.

 

[nottskev]

Alternative fish names are a mixed bag, encompassing ancient dialect terms ie "snig" for eel and naff recent coinings, eg perch as "footballers", destined to fade away. Some are literally unspeakable - would you ever say you caught redfins and sergeants today? - and live on only in (bad) writing, often the sort of journalism where postmen deliver big roach and policemen arrest huge bream. Fintastic!

I have a special dislike for Ladies of the Stream, which pulls off the magic trick of making all three - fish, women and speaker/writer - sound naff. It's a name Swiss Tony might have invented: Catching a fish with a big fin is like making etc. Bertie Barbel shares childish alliteration with Donald Duck and is a truly Mickey Mouse way to name a wonderful fish.

Some exist only as " ....or" extensions to names, as in "the chub, or chavender", which is about as useful as "the car, or horseless carriage". Latin names - esox, barbus, rutilis - trail a whiff of boarding school insider chumminess, a self-conscious Yates' Mates tone.

We already have a beautiful set of names for our coarse fish, rooted, grounded, pithy. Witty ephemera comes and goes - slabs, dog chub, zoo creatures, pasties - but the real names are the real heritage.

 

[The bad one]

Alternative fish names are a mixed bag, encompassing ancient dialect terms ie "snig" for eel and naff recent coinings, eg perch as "footballers", destined to fade away. Some are literally unspeakable - would you ever say you caught redfins and sergeants today? - and live on only in (bad) writing, often the sort of journalism where postmen deliver big roach and policemen arrest huge bream. Fintastic!

I have a special dislike for Ladies of the Stream, which pulls off the magic trick of making all three - fish, women and speaker/writer - sound naff. It's a name Swiss Tony might have invented: Catching a fish with a big fin is like making etc. Bertie Barbel shares childish alliteration with Donald Duck and is a truly Mickey Mouse way to name a wonderful fish.

Some exist only as " ....or" extensions to names, as in "the chub, or chavender", which is about as useful as "the car, or horseless carriage". Latin names - esox, barbus, rutilis - trail a whiff of boarding school insider chumminess, a self-conscious Yates' Mates tone.

We already have a beautiful set of names for our coarse fish, rooted, grounded, pithy. Witty ephemera comes and goes - slabs, dog chub, zoo creatures, pasties - but the real names are the real heritage.

Agreeing with all of this Kev but this line was brought home to me in a stark way when traveling throughout Russia about 20 years ago. "Latin names - esox, barbus, rutilis - trail a whiff of boarding school insider chumminess, a self-conscious Yates' Mates tone." I was in the company of a fellow Russian Angler, his English was poor as he'd admit to you, my Russian even worse! We got on the subject of Grayling; the rivers are full of them in Siberia. Me using the English name Grayling. Clearly, he hadn't a clue of what fish I was talking about until I reverted to the scientific name Thymallus Thymallus. Whilst using the scientific names can seem pompous at times, particularly in an English fish mag, the use of the scientific is a universal langue understood by many or can be referenced by them in a book, the internet, etc, in the aid of understanding.

 

[theartist]

Echoing the above I sometimes get contacted by foreign buyers who will ask for a fish by latin name alone, also as an artist if I have multiple drawings of the same species I have to expand regarding the title of each piece, similarly with writing, calling all fish by just one name not only is bland but goes against everything the English language is about, multiple words for every meaning, multiple words for every animal, same goes for fish.

 

[The bad one]

On the subject of traveling as an angler, the above brought it home to me, that it always worth taking a pocketbook of European fish with you, You can use it to show both the fish itself and scientific name to fellow anglers that may not understand you or yours or their langue.

 

[nottskev]

Agreeing with all of this Kev but this line was brought home to me in a stark way when traveling throughout Russia about 20 years ago. "Latin names - esox, barbus, rutilis - trail a whiff of boarding school insider chumminess, a self-conscious Yates' Mates tone." I was in the company of a fellow Russian Angler, his English was poor as he'd admit to you, my Russian even worse! We got on the subject of Grayling; the rivers are full of them in Siberia. Me using the English name Grayling. Clearly, he hadn't a clue of what fish I was talking about until I reverted to the scientific name Thymallus Thymallus. Whilst using the scientific names can seem pompous at times, particularly in an English fish mag, the use of the scientific is a universal langue understood by many or can be referenced by them in a book, the internet, etc, in the aid of understanding.

Absolutely. Use of Latin as an international language of classification is impeccable. Not so when a certain type of angler writes about how he and the Wing Commander went for the Barbus while his friend Rodders set off in search of Rutilis. What ho, old bean. Affectation, whimsy and recycling silly names for fish are a different matter.

It's true that there are more words than things. But languages rarely carry the baggage of redundancy. Synonyms are differentiated in several ways. By formality: commence/begin. By technicality: cranium/skull. By connotation: look/gaze. By dialect: sandwich/butty. And so on. With three big vocabulary streams feeding into English, there can be options from Anglo-Saxon, Latin and French. If you swing that way, Charles may strike you as kingly, regal or royal in bearing. But none of this redeems Bertie Barbel and the rest. Naff names are naff names. Bertie Barbel is exactly the sort of thing the recent coining the "ick" was made for. .

 

[S-Kippy]

So which of the many made up names really irritate you ?

As a former would be zander angler I paricularly dislike the term "zed" , I am not fussed about tench being referred to as " tincas" or even worse as " judies" but the one that really, really annoys me is "beards" for barbel.