60 FISHES OF THE CONNECTICUT LAKES. 
known to us in which the pickerel occurs is in Back Lake, a tributary 
of the Connecticut River. 
The pickerel in some waters attains a weight of 7 pounds, but its 
average weight is much smaller; probably 2 or 3 pounds would be the 
average weight of the general run of large ones. 
The habits of the pickerel are in most respects similar to those of 
other members of the family, the pike and the muskellunge. It has 
an unenviable reputation for fierce voracity and destructiveness. In 
many places it is despised and is almost universally anathematized by 
anglers and fishceulturists. There is scarcely a body of water in which 
trout once lived and where pickerel now occur that the depletion of the - 
trout has not been ascribed to the pickerel. In many instances the 
fish has undoubtedly been unjustly maligned. It is true that it will eat 
other fish if it can get them—there are few fish that will not do this. 
The highly esteemed and much-lauded trout and salmon are of the 
same sort, and the lunge rather than the pickerel should have the 
appellation of “ fresh-water shark.” During most of the year the 
pickerel resorts to waters uncongenial to trout, and at all times it pre- 
fers such waters. A warm, muddy pond or stream with profuse 
growth of aquatic vegetation is its favorite abode; trout can not exist 
long in such surroundings. In weedy waters where trout manage to 
exist, pickerel also will thrive, but trout will he in the cooler, clearer 
portions while pickerel seek the water plants and shallow water. In 
most instances it would seem that the pickerel is not the whole, though 
possibly an accessory cause, of the disappearance of trout, and that 
the harm done by the pickerel is overestimated. The injurious effect 
of pickerel upon trout and salmon is more often indirect than 
direct, especially when it appears in congenial waters where trout or 
salmon are barely maintaining themselves or are decreasing. The 
indirect influence is upon the food supply, and this reverts upon the 
pickerel itself ultimately. It is an almost invariable rule that pick- 
erel in time, after a period of increase in number and size, begin to 
decrease, owing to a diminution of the food supply. The pickerel 
is a very desirable and worthy game fish in suitable waters, but for 
reasons already given its indiscriminate distribution is not advised. 
It eats, and in eating deprives other and better fish of food; a har- 
mony or balance of natural conditions might by this means be upset. 
The same may be said of any introduced fish. 
The food of the pickerel is fish and other small aquatic animals. 
The young feed upon insects and the aquatic larve of insects. It 
spawns in the spring and early summer, but we are unacquainted with 
its spawning habits. 
As a game fish the pickerel is highly esteemed by many. It will 
not always bite, the most attractive lure being often regarded with 
contempt and immobility. Then, again, it will voraciously strike at 
