CASTING FOR GREAT PIKE 



quick enough to shoot or spear my prey, though I 

 found fish in plenty. Honestly — and confession is said 

 to be good for the soul — I never succeeded in spearing 

 but one fish, and if the Red Gods will forgive me that 

 crime, I shall go down to my grave content. 



Hunting at night with a "jack" (some sort of artifi- 

 cial light raised above the bow of the boat so that 

 the spearsman, standing back of it, can see down into 

 the water) is uniformly successful. The fish has no 

 chance. Fortunately, and rightly, the method is out- 

 lawed in most of the states. Some of the catches 

 made during a night's spearing is passing belief. I 

 have known a single individual to return in the morn- 

 ing with a washtub full of lusty great pike, perhaps 

 but a fourth or sixth of the night's catch. Obviously 

 not only will true sportsmen frown upon the practice, 

 but will do all in their power to bring the offenders to 

 justice. Spearing is cruel and wasteful at any season 

 of the year, but doubly short-sighted in the spring, 

 when each female represents thousands of fry. Un- 

 doubtedly there is a certain attractiveness, romance, 

 about night spearing — the circumscribed area of bright 

 light with its wall of dense darkness beyond, the slow- 

 moving panorama below with its myriad forms of 

 strange life, the all-encompassing silence, deep and 

 audible — all this and more appeals to that innate love 

 of poesy to which every outdoor man is heir. Never- 

 theless, the practice is inexcusable, because short- 

 sighted, cruel — many wounded fish escaping to die a 

 lingering death — and contrary to law. It must cease. 



In a foregoing paragraph I mentioned the great 

 pike's solitary habits. Probably there are other reasons 

 than evil temper for the fish's dwelling alone. As has 



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