LITERATURE AND HISTORY 



nately the great majority of those who write for the 

 press do not possess even a smattering of scientific 

 training. Therefore, while their angling lore is good, 

 their scientific (?) dissertations are emphatically not 

 worth while. To illustrate: A writer in one of the 

 oldest and best of outdoor magazines takes the au- 

 thors of 'American Food and Game Fishes" to task 

 for saying that the muskellunge is native to all the 

 Great Lakes, and asserts that to his certain knowledge 

 no muskellunge were ever taken from those waters. 

 The fact of the matter is, if the author had been 

 better acquainted with his subject, he would have 

 known that the Great Lakes muskellunge and the fish 

 of Northern Wisconsin — which, to his provincial mind, 

 is the only true 'lunge — are not the same fish, though 

 both are true muskellunge. The book mentioned a 

 few moments ago, "American Food and Game Fishes," 

 is a safe guide, criticisms to the contrary notwith- 

 standing. 



The reason the American pike — and now I speak of 

 the whole family — is not more highly appreciated is 

 because we have so many more worthy fish in all our 

 lakes and streams, the doughty black bass, for instance. 

 Just the same, there is fine sport in angling for even 

 the despised pickerel, a proposition which I boldly 

 affirm and am going to undertake to prove in its proper 

 place. After all, the quality of the sport depends 

 almost as much upon the angler and upon his tools 

 as upon the fish for which he angles. The right sort 

 of a man, properly equipped, will get as much sport 

 out of angling for sunfish as others will fishing for 

 muskellunge with a hand-line. A "contemptible" — the 

 word is not mine — river pickerel taken on a fly with a 



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