THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



towing my capture at the stern, I paddled to the 

 marshy shore and dragged the heavy body out upon 

 the grass. To those who can see no beauty in the fish 

 nor sport in its capture I only say, I wish you had been 

 with me that morning. The battle had been great, 

 just great, and I have been in at the finish of many a 

 mighty bass and weighty rainbow. As to beauty, 

 well, that spotted greenish-gray body, irradiant, 

 scintillating, was not devoid of beauty. His had been 

 a good fight, and he had surrendered only to the 

 inevitable, and that would have been enough for me 

 had he been as ugly in appearance as a bullhead. 

 I wish to emphasize two points regarding the end of 

 the fight: First, that I did not attempt, to lift the 

 fish into the canoe; second, that I killed the great 

 pike with a well-directed shot before attempting to 

 use the gaff. A fish of fifteen pounds and upward is 

 something of a problem upon a gaff, unless stunned 

 with a shot or blow before pricked with steel. Many 

 a capsized canoeman and angler mourning loss of 

 record fish will bear me out. Always play the great 

 pike until exhausted, and then for two or three min- 

 utes, "just for good measure," before attempting to 

 gaff. 



What was that? "What did I do with the fish?" 

 Foolish, foolish. Baked great pike is not to be sneezed 

 at, as will appear when we reach the chapter upon 

 cookery. 



My excuse for narrating the foregoing incident is 

 twofold: Its suggest i veness ; and then, "It is not all 

 of fishing to fish." If one could collect and publish 

 the just-as-it-happened stories of anglers in various 

 parts of the country, what a wealth of authoritative 



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