TROLLING FOR GREAT PIKE 



Returning to lake fishing. I well remember a little 

 Wisconsin lake, surrounded by jack-pine crowned hills 

 and bleak, uncultivated and uncultivatable sand plains, 

 which was actually a great pike paradise. One side 

 of the lake was marshy, while the other was fringed 

 by a mass of water lilies. I make no mention of the 

 "ends," for the lake was so narrow that the "ends" 

 were but fingers of water. Where the lake emptied 

 into another and larger body of water were a forest of 

 cat-tails and a field of sawgrass. Early one morning, 

 skirting those cat-tails, my spoon spinning all of 130 

 feet behind the boat, I undertook to swing around 

 without taking in any line. Suddenly the bowing line 

 snapped taut, and I naturally supposed that I was 

 hooked to one of the waving cat-tails. Dropping my 

 oars in clattering disgust, disregardful of fish, I began 

 to reel. Imagine my astonishment and joy, when a 

 big granddad great pike lumbered to the surface with 

 a great splashing and aqueous racket. Setting the 

 drag on the reel, I replaced the rod in the holder, 

 grabbed the oars, and urged that boat out into the 

 lake. So interested did I become in the battle, once 

 I was in the center of the water, that I paid little 

 attention to the boat, in due time finding my fish safe 

 in the marging haven of reeds. And yet everything 

 held. I coaxed the fish out, with a mass of weeds and 

 rushes fast to its head, and finally vanquished and 

 gafTed him. At the tent he tipped the scales at two 

 ounces over eight pounds. Not a big fish, truly, but 

 one that had given me unlimited sport. 



That is one of the attractivities of great pike trolling. 

 The angler can find it almost anywhere, and the outfit 

 required, aside from the boat, is neither elaborate nor 



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