378 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



give them away! I want none of it! It's barbaric butchery! 

 In fishing with a single hook, you must insert the hook 

 through the gills, out of the mouth, and leave the gimp 

 snood to run along the side. A simple rubber band or piece 

 of silk will fasten the snood and fish, so that you can use the 

 bait for casting; but the best system is to use a lip-hook on 

 your snood, and then slip a rubber band over the tail of the 

 minnow, or to put the hook through the mouth and gills 

 then hook the fish through the back just behind the dorsal 

 fin, so that when a Pike seizes the minnow you can readily 

 hook him. 



While fishing in Pike Lake, near to Duluth, with a strong 

 line and a New York spring-steel hook, and fishing with green 

 frog bait, a big fish took my frog. His strike and rush were so 

 sharp — so surprising, that the spring of the rod in the recoil 

 drove the steel into his lower jaw. The break was so quickly 

 made that the reel gave one long scream; the fish threw 

 himself clean out of the water, within twenty feet of us — a 

 handsome fish almost three feet long. He gave a lash and a 

 plunge as soon as he struck water, and away he went, the 

 hook coming back to us in the boat almost straightened 

 out. We were fishing for Bass, and had just dropped anchor 

 in a bunch of yellow lilies; I got in my bait first; my friend 

 sat dumb and amazed; we did not dream we should find a 

 big Pike in these yellow lilies. 



Within a few days a northern Pike weighing eighteen 

 pounds was killed in this lake, whose jaws bore the marks and 

 scars of several hooks that he had broken from. He had 

 lived to be a noble-looking fish, but died an ignominious 

 death. Some moss-back speared him! 



A few miles back of Traverse City, Michigan, lies a chain 

 of lakes, famous amongst anglers as the home of the Esox. 

 The nobilor and lucius have been caught there in such sizes 

 and weight that seemed almost beyond belief. I saw a dead 

 one that bore marks of having been speared; his length was 



