THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



Our outfit was the simple one mentioned in the first 

 of this chapter — coiled lines, weighted with two sinkers 

 and strong, well-made hooks. A small pail of shiner 

 minnows provided the needful bait. The lunch oc- 

 cupied more place than the outfit. 



Before I ask you to step with me out upon the ice, 

 I must pause to pay tribute to the winter shores, so 

 different from those of midsummer, yet in a way no 

 less attractive. The transforming miracle of draping 

 snow is something to wonder at and exclaim over. 

 A high bank, with its overhanging cornice of wind- 

 blown snow grotesquely gargoyled, rivaled the finished 

 work of Old World sculptors. A hideous black stump, 

 mute reminder of a vanished forest, had become a 

 pulpit of wonder and beauty, covered with an altar- 

 cloth of immaculate loveliness. It is easy for the ice 

 fisherman to "see things," if he visit the fishing ground 

 after a fall of clinging, wet snow. 



I cut the first hole for two reasons: That I might 

 warm my sluggish blood, and also demonstrate to my 

 companion that there is more to cutting a hole in the 

 ice than first appears. Always in magazines you see 

 pictures of round holes, the idea being to cut a trench 

 around a solid block of ice and lift out the block or 

 core intact. But unfortunately that block usually 

 breaks into a thousand pieces long before the chopper 

 works his painful way through eighteen inches or more 

 of solid ice. The plan might work if the ice were under 

 a foot thick; not otherwise, unless the hole were made 

 too large for fishing. No fancy round hole was my 

 goal. I simply cut a long gash in the ice sixteen or so 

 inches wide and three or four feet long. No barked 

 fingers for me by jamming them against the sharp 



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