292 GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



automatically hoists a little signal flag on the upright. Another 

 contrivance is to plant supple saplings at the sides of the fishing 

 holes, and when the fish is on he is detected either by the motion 

 of the sapling or by its being bent low by dead weight. 



Spearing pike in winter is an entertaining pastime much in 

 vogue. By inverting a sugar hogshead over a hole already cut in the 

 ice, one can see plainly the minutest pebble on the bottom twenty 

 feet below. An artificial minnow attached to a yard of line made 

 fast to a short stick serves as bait, and when lowered into the water 

 through the hole, and skillfully played, attracts the fish very read- 

 ily. As the fish approaches the bait, have ready a spear, and 

 strike. Practice will make one dexterous. The spear-head should 

 be made to detach itself from the handle when the fish is struck, 

 the same being held by a line to which it is fast, instead of by 

 the handle, so that the fish is played or hauled in by the line and 

 not by the handle, the latter being used merely to effect and give 

 force to the blow. The line to which the spear-head is fastened, 

 should also be fast to the handle, and should not be less than 

 twenty yards in length. The pike should not be confounded with 

 the pickerel, which is quite a different species, and hardly worth 

 the attention of the angler. It can readily be distinguished from 

 the mascalonge by its dental system, its lower jaw being filled with 

 teeth, while the anterior half of the mascalonge is toothless. 

 Spawns in spring. Best fishing is in mid-summer. 



Pond Pickerel. — Doree (Canada) ; Esox reticulatus. — Lesueur. 



The common pond pickerel thrives wherever he can get a foot- 

 hold, and is found in nearly all the ponds and streams of the north 

 that have not been jealously guarded against his intrusion. He 

 seldom attains the weight of a pound, and is caught very readily 

 with a red ibis fly on a light rod, affording a very fair amount of 

 sport, but he is so bony and so small that he is hardly worth cook- 

 ing when caught. His back is of a greenish grey, sides yellowish 

 green, reticulated with oblong irregular markings, fins of a deep 

 yellow or red color. Spawns in March and April. 



In Lake Champlain is a pickerel that seldom exceeds seven 

 inches in length, found in- schools in great numbers, and known as 

 E. fasciatus ; a very beautiful fish with back of olive brown, 



