154 LAKE AND STREAM GAME FISHING 



the musky. Down in our heart we have a sort of 

 feeling that the bait is too large ; it looks mighty big 

 in the water. Then the strike, the rapid fight of the 

 wolf of the waters, the landing and finally the hero 

 stuff as you reach camp with a 3<>poimder. This 

 is the usual musky story, but along comes Ed. 

 Dressel, a light tackle enthusiast, who hooks a 30- 

 pounder on a small red Jamison bass fly and on land- 

 ing the musky Ed. is surprised to find the feet and 

 legs of a full-grown mud hen sticking out of the 

 fish's throat. He had not been able to entirely 

 swallow this water-fowl before he took a wallop at 

 a little old bass fly. And what shows him up as a 

 real hog of the first water is the fact that another 

 mud-hen was found in his stomach by the taxidermist 

 who stuffed him. 



What makes 'em do it? Here is a musky gorged 

 to the mouth on about 5^ pounds of eats and he 

 meets his Waterloo because he took a crack at a little 

 feathered hook about three inches long. Hunger 

 certainly did not drive him to it, that's a dead sure 

 bet, and a possible explanation is that he hit the fly 

 because his instinct is to attack. Then again, Ed. 

 might have tossed that fly all around him without 

 the musky giving it even so much as a glance. 



FULL OF FOOD AND FIGHT 



This fighting instinct is not to be credited to the 

 musky alone because it crops out strong in both the 



