Bass, Pike, Perch, and OthersHenshall, James A. (James Alexander)
Science
Bass, Pike, Perch, and Others
Henshall, James A. (James Alexander)
Fishes; Fishing
The foregoing remarks apply to fishing on lakes and quiet, weedy streams
of the Northern states. In the clear and swifter waters of the upper
Ohio, and its tributaries, the mascalonge lies in the deep pools during
summer and fall, where it is taken by still-fishing. A large sucker,
weighing from half a pound to a pound, is the favorite bait, with
suitable rod and reel. The fish is given plenty of time to gorge the
bait before striking, and this is quite important with so large a bait.
Many large mascalonge, there called "pike," have been taken in this
manner in those waters, events to belong remembered and talked about,
while the head is carefully preserved for the admiration and envy of
future generations of anglers.
Once when returning from a fishing trip to northern Wisconsin when
mascalonge were much more in evidence than at the present day, I was
carrying the head of a forty-pounder that just filled an ordinary tin
bucket. At Appleton, while waiting for the train to Green Bay, the big
head was the centre of an admiring group of anglers. Then came the
natural and inevitable query, "Where did you catch it?" In order to
avoid a long recital, which only could have done justice to the subject,
and expecting the train at any moment, I replied, "An Indian speared it
on Lake St. Germain." They looked at me as if I had seven heads; then
one said: "Well! well! It requires an awful lot of moral courage to make
such an admission." But I killed it, all the same, on a nine-ounce rod,
and my Indian canoe-man gaffed it.
THE PIKE
(_Esox lucius_)
The pike is more generally known in the United States as "pickerel," and
sometimes as the great northern pickerel to distinguish it from the
pickerel, properly so-called. In England the young pike is a pickerel,
an older one a jack, and the mature fish a pike. In England and
continental Europe the pike (_E. lucius_) is the only species of the
family inhabiting their waters, while there are five species of the
family in America, which makes it all the more confusing when the name
"pickerel" is applied indiscriminately to all,--even the mascalonge
being sometimes alluded to as an "overgrown pickerel."
The range of the pike in America is from Lake Champlain, the Great Lake
region, and the upper Mississippi River, north to Alaska; it is rare in
the Ohio Valley.
Next to the mascalonge the pike is the most important and largest member
of the pike family. It has a long body, somewhat compressed, its length
being a little more than five times its depth. The head is large,
somewhat more than a fourth of the length of the body, with a long,
flattened, and projecting snout; the teeth are similar, but not quite so
large or numerous as in the mascalonge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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