FOREWORD 



game fish as when he is a muskellunge. Unfortunately, 

 this matter will never be settled satisfactorily for all, 

 because certain anglers maintain that a lunge is a 

 better fighter than a great pike. Resort keepers are 

 insisting that their fish are lunge, when in fact they 

 are great pike. Now the truth of the matter is, there 

 is just as much sport in playing a thirty-five-pound 

 great pike as there is in playing a muskellunge of the 

 same weight. 



At first I proposed to call the common pike, the fish 

 most widely distributed of the whole family, Esox 

 lucius (Great Lake's pike), but a little reflection con- 

 vinced me that such a name would be too cumber- 

 some to be popular. Neither is it descriptive of a 

 fish so widely distributed, for lucius is the pike found 

 the world round. After much thought I came to the 

 conclusion that * 'great pike" would be descriptive, 

 dignified, easy to use, and altogether happy. In reply 

 to a question, Mr. Evermann, one of the authors of 

 "American Food and Game Fishes," said that he re- 

 garded "great pike" as a very good name indeed for 

 a fish regarding which there is more than a little con- 

 fusion. Perhaps, too, the name, being a wee bit more 

 high-sounding than mere "pike," will lead the anglers 

 to feel that in catching great pike they are catching a 

 fish worth while, and not a pickerel. A great pike is 

 a great pike from minnowhood up, even as a pickerel 

 remains a pickerel, and a 'lunge a 'lunge all the days 

 of their existence. 



What confusion there is regarding the whole pike 

 family! — a confusion that has been accentuated by 

 the entrance of a fish that absolutely has no relation- 

 ship with the pikes: I refer to the so-called "wall-eyed 



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