In 1876 JM Heathcote describes the use of a stalking sledge on Whittlesea Mere and at the same time related a curious way of pursuing pike when the water was frozen:
The mode of stalking after wild birds was curious. It may be worth while to compare the practice of the Fen man with an account given in the ‘Gentleman’s Recreation’… my illustration represents a man kneeling on a long raft or sledge about sixteen feet long by three or four feet broad. Four marrow-bones are fixed to the bottom of the sledge. In front is a fence of upright reeds, kept together by two or three cross-sticks. The barrel of the long duck-gun projects through the reed fence about three or four feet. The stock of the gun, at the extremity of which is a boss of soft leather, rests on dry sedge. A coarse piece of brown leather covers the lock. A man dressed in a leather coat, a fur cap, and a pair of large fen-boots, kneels at the hinder part of the sledge and punts himself along by two short sticks terminating in iron prongs. Long narrow lines of islands of sedge stretched for many yards across the Mere, and of these ducks and wildfowl frequently rested. By means of the sledge the birds could be approached without alarming them. The gun discharged a pound of shot, and a great number of birds were frequently killed. The following is from the ‘Gentlemen’s Recreation’ chap5, page 127: ‘Forasmuch as fowl do frequently lie remote from shelter, so that the fowler is deprived of a shot; therefore by the assistance of stalking-sledge he may command a shot at pleasure.’ I need not enter into the minute details which are given relating to the stalking-horse, the artificial barrow, and the stalking tree. The stalking-hedge approaches nearest to the stalking-sledge on the Mere. The stalking-hedge should be two or three yards long, a yard and a half high, and made in small wands and bushed out in the manner of a true hedge, and certain supports or stakes to bear it up from falling, when you take your aim to shoot, and this is to be carried before you, for your shelter from the fowl. To conclude the chapter, observe the caution that these several sorts of engines are to be used early in the morning and late in the evening, and they are more proper for water than for land fowl, for when the sun is up its reflections soon discover the imperfections in your engines which the water better hideth.
Before I finally quit the account of this frozen period, I will mention one circumstance related to me by Mr. Richardson of Peterborough. When the ice was very clean and transparent he remembers to have watched a large pike swimming beneath it. The fish seemed frightened and moved onwards. He followed and after a long skating chase the pike was tired. The ice was broken, and he was taken out of the water. He was found to weigh twelve pounds.
It has to be understood that Whittlesea Meer prior to it being drained in the 1850’s was a considerable area of water to the South West of Whittlesea that was navigable from both the River Nene and several smaller tributaries and was therefore a different environment to the later Whittlesea Wash and Cowbit Wash.
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