Chapter V 



Casting for Great Pike with Artificial 

 Lures 



"Whence and what are you, monster grim and great? 

 Sometimes we think you are a 'Syndicate,' 

 For if our quaint cartoonists be but just, 

 You have some features of the modem Trust.' 

 A wide, ferocious and rapacious jaw; 

 A vast, insatiate and expansive craw; 

 And, like the 'Trust,' your chiefest aim and wish 

 Was to combine in one all smaller fish. 

 And all the lesser fry succumbed to fate 

 Whom you determined to consolidate." 



—Wilcox. 



AS HAS already been emphasized, the great pike 

 /-\ {Esox lucius) is the one cosmopolite of the 

 family. The rodster of Europe and the fisher- 

 man of Asia, no less than the angler of North America, 

 may take the "mighty Luce or Pike." Wherever found, 

 he is the same solitary, vindictive individual, a cruel 

 tyrant, and insatiable gourmand. The horrid gleam of 

 his malevolent yellow eye is a true index to his char- 

 acter. One finds it easy to believe that he kills for the 

 pure joy of killing, though I am not sure that he is 

 guilty of the crime. I am aware that great pike are 

 often taken with the tails of recently captured fish 

 protruding from their mouths, but so are wall-eyes 

 and bass taken on live bait when it would seem im- 

 possible for them to swallow another morsel. Indeed 

 even the aristocratic brook trout are found feeding 

 upon worms after a heavy rain, even though stomach 



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