2o6 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 



and towed through tlie Champlain Canal and feeder to the Big Bay, where they were 

 liberated. The fish were nearly ready to spawn, and the next day one of them was 

 taken five miles below the place of planting. They were lake- spawning fish and were 

 evidently seeking the lake, for all disappeared and none have been 

 found in the upper river since the plant was made. Pike-perch 

 are no more suitable for small waters than black bass, but planted 

 in large lakes and rivers, where they will not work injury to less 

 predaceous fish, they will prove a most excellent food and game 

 fish, for they are caught by trolling and in still fishing. In Lake 

 Champlain a favorite method of fishing for pike-perch, and by 

 which large numbers are taken, is by weight- 

 ing the reel line with a sinker that will go to 

 the bottom, and a little above it is attached a 

 snelled hook, baited with live bait or earth 

 worms. This is slowly trolled in water forty 

 to fifty feet deep, where the bottom is com- 

 posed of sand or gravel. In lakes pike-perch 

 are usually found in water deeper than that in 

 which it is customary to fish for black bass, 

 but they are taken with trolling spoon and 

 minnow bait in waters of varying depth, for, 

 as I ha\e indicated, no hard and fast rule can 

 be laid down as to where and when the pike- 

 perch will bite best. 



In arranging the illustrations in this report 

 it has not been possible in all cases to place 

 them where they would fit the text. For in- 

 stance, the " tools of the hatchery " and the 

 " egg tweezers " are implements used chiefly 

 in hatching trout eggs, pike-perch eggs being 

 hatched in automatic hatching jars. In the 

 value of its product as a commercial fish from 

 the interior waters of the State the pike- 

 perch shouUl stand near the head of the list. 



A. N. CHENEY, 



A GOOD FISH, •5^"/'- f's'' Cnlturist. 



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