FLY-FISHING FOR GREAT PIKE 



land, the abandoned mouth of a river. Now, that 

 slough is deep and marged with pickerel weed, water 

 arum, and other aquatic plants. Naturally, it is the 

 home of numberless great pike and pickerel, for while 

 perhaps it is not generally known, Lake Superior's 

 sloughs or bayous, as they are sometimes called, 

 afford excellent great pike fishing. Some of the finest 

 catches of great pike seen by me in recent years have 

 come from Kagagan, not far from Ashland, Wisconsin. 

 What is true of the sloughs visited by me is true, I 

 think, of the great majority of those along the South 

 Shore of that Great Lake at least. I am constantly 

 surprised that this section is not more often visited 

 by the lovers of the giant Esox. The fish run large. 

 Where the waters have not been fished hard, I have 

 seen them weighing in the neighborhood of forty 

 pounds, and I have reason to believe that larger fish 

 may yet be taken. 



One cool September morning just as the tardy sun 

 was rising from his watery bed I set out for the slough, 

 crouched in my light canoe, for I am one of those 

 fellows who like to add a spice of danger to great- 

 pike fishing by employing a canoe, though I do not 

 want to be understood as recommending the craft for 

 the sport. I had left my casting rod in the cottage — 

 for the temptation is always to use that efficient tool 

 for great pike — taking instead a nine-ounce fly-rod, 

 nine and one-half feet long, rather thick in the waist, 

 but possessed of sufficient backbone to shoot a heavy 

 fly remarkably well. The reel was an aluminum 

 quadruple, built for fly-fishing, without the balance 

 handle. (I understand that only a few of those reels 

 were made, but I cannot understand why they might 



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