372 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



Is it any wonder I exercised all the cunning of a boys' 

 nature — all the budding ingenuity of a mechanical taste, just 

 developing, to circumvent these "varmints?" 



Another brood of ducks was being raised at this time. 

 A dead bunch of yellow down was brought out one morning, 

 causing a shout that rung through the house. "Mr. Pikee, I 

 am going to get you now!" I cunningly cut it open, inserted 

 a cork in the small duck, fixed my double hook inside, bent 

 the snood on my line, and was ready for business. Jumping 

 on a raft that I used for fishing, I drifted down-stream, letting 

 my line and the duckling float ahead of me. I dropped my 

 stone anchor and prepared for a surprise — pulling off my 

 shoes to be ready for a swim, if need be. Almost lOO feet of 

 line had run out with the current when — a plunge! and quick 

 as a flash my duckling had gone. I let him go for some time 

 without offering any resistance, for I wanted to be dead sure 

 of the long-snouted poacher. I allowed him ail the time he 

 wanted to taste his duckling, but at the first move he made 

 to run down-stream, I struck. I had a full hand! A mad 

 fish — especially a powerful Pike — is no light task for a boy 

 to handle. For some minutes he rushed up-stream, down- 

 stream, across — every way, to find a friendly stump. "Aha! 

 my long-nosed beauty! your duck-hunting days are over!" I 

 knew every hole in the tail-race, almost every yard of the 

 water, as well as the Pike, and had swam the whole length 

 of that tail-race too many times for any Esox to fool me. 

 Managing somehow to pull up the stone-anchor, and take a 

 turn of the anchor-line around one of the big spikes in the 

 raft, I drifted, yelling and shouting as any boy would under 

 similar circumstances. Some of the men employed in the 

 mill, seeing my Indian dance, had run down the river banks, 

 and were giving me plenty of advice. Gradually drawing in 

 the fish until close to the raft, I saw that I had him played 

 out, and taking the line into my fingers, I dropped my rod, 

 and quick as thought, plumped flat onto my stomach, slijiiicd 



