FOREST, LAKE, AND RIFER 



The blue pike is a variety, as stated, being blue 

 in general color instead of yellow. It is smaller 

 in size, rarely exceeding five pounds, averaging 

 about one pound, and when compared with the 

 yellow variety, is found to be shorter in length 

 and of much larger girth. Its original home was 

 in the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; but it is now 

 freely taken in the Great Lakes, and a few tribu- 

 tary waters, generally in depths of from twenty- 

 five to seventy-five feet. 



The gray variety is also an inhabitant of the 

 Great Lakes, as well as large adjacent lakes and 

 rivers that can be readily reached from them. It 

 is probably the most numerous of the several vari- 

 eties, and it certainly attains the largest size. The 

 record fish weighed in the vicinity of forty pounds, 

 while those from ten pounds to twenty pounds 

 are frequently taken. The majority of anglers, in 

 securing other than the yellow variety, class their 

 catch as a blue pike. The probabilities are that 

 the fish is of the gray variety, from the fact that 

 it is the more common fish of the two, and the 

 size usually taken exceeds in weight the average of 

 the blue. The color-distinction is not very marked, 

 unless both varieties are compared, side by side. 



The distribution of the pike-perch is much 

 greater than is generally supposed, and the area in 



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