THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



going statement will stir some anglers to wrath, may 

 even bring me acrimonious letters by the dozen. 

 Nevertheless I am ready to stand by my guns, or rather, 

 fry-pans. Quite recently I was out with a friend, a 

 despiser of all pickerel — to most people any pike under 

 fifteen inches is a pickerel — and at noon we took two 

 small fish, real river pickerel, which I fried for dinner, 

 and my friend not only pronounced them good, but 

 went so far as to say they were "almost as delicious as 

 trout." The fact of the matter is, I would about as 

 soon eat pickerel as rainbow trout when both fish 

 came from the same water, were it not for the fine 

 bones in the former. Naturally, a pickerel from a 

 warm, sluggish slough, thoroughly impregnated with 

 decaying vegetable matter, will be "off flavor." Upon 

 the other hand, the same fish taken from clear, cold 

 rivers will possess firm, sweet flesh. The great disad- 

 vantage of the pickerel or any small pike, from the 

 eater's viewpoint, as has already been pointed out, is 

 the numerous bones. Just why all fish cannot be built 

 on the framework of a trout, it is hard for a lover of 

 fried fish to understand. So far as I can see, a trout 

 handles itself as well as the sucker, say, and the latter's 

 flesh is often nothing but a sort of animated pin- 

 cushion of small, sharp bones, sometimes bound up 

 into little bundles, as it were. 



Any fish is better food immediately upon taking 

 from the water than after standing exposed to the air 

 and sun or even being placed on ice. If this be true of 

 such cold-water lovers as the trout, how much more 

 must it be true of soft fish like the pikes. Upon taking 

 from the water, if intended for food, any fish should 

 be killed quickly and mercifully; not allowed to flop 



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