The Pike Family 131 



firm and flaky, more so than that of the pike or 

 pickerel, and it commands a ready sale in the 

 markets. 



It grows occasionally to an enormous size. I 

 have taken it up to forty pounds, good weight. 

 The late Judge Potter, of Toledo, Ohio, an angler 

 of the old school, informed me that he had seen, 

 in early days, many that weighed from fifty to 

 seventy-five pounds. Mr. L. H. McCormick, for- 

 merly of Oberlin College, Ohio, saw one taken in 

 a pound net that weighed seventy-two pounds. 

 The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, formerly of Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, a contemporary of Judge Potter and 

 the late Dr. Garlick, the father of artificial fish- 

 culture in America, told me of one he once 

 speared in Lake Erie that weighed eighty 

 pounds, and said that those of fifty to sixty 

 pounds were common in the forties. 



The mascalonge is the best game-fish of its 

 family. When of large size, from twenty to 

 thirty pounds, it exhibits a bull-like ferocity when 

 hooked, making furious dashes for liberty, and if 

 not stopped in time will eventually take to the 

 weeds. It exhibits great powers of endurance, 

 but little finesse or cunning in its efforts to 

 escape. It depends on main strength alone. 



