into midstream and freed herself of the spawn. Anywhere 

 from one to half a dozen males would have met her and 

 sought, each one, to fertilize this spawn. Probably cnly a 

 sn all portion of the eggs would have been fertilized out there 

 in that swift current in midstream. All the eggs would have 

 drifted down stream to ledge here arid there close by the 

 shores out -in the lake. 



Fish scientists say it is impossible to tell how large a per- 

 centage of this spawn is fertilized in this haphazard manner. 

 Seme say 5 per cent, others 10," All admit they are guessinz. 

 But all are sure that but a fraction of that which is fertilized 

 ever turns into fry. 



For pike spawn is an appetizing dish for white fish and 

 suckers and spring times they are lurking close by to gob- 

 ble what they can grab of it as the fly or what they can find 

 lodged here and there under rocks or wherever it ledges. 

 This all means that nature allows but a small percentage of 

 the many eggs of the wall-eyed pike to hatch. 



But here is 'what happened when man stepped in this spring, 

 much as he has been doing in the perscn of the game and 

 fish commission for a number of years past. Once in the 

 pond the pike were dipped cut by the men. By merely touch- 

 ing a female the state game and fish commission workman 

 detects whether the fish is ready to give up her sp^wn. If 

 she is not, she is tossed immediately into a netted off por- 

 tion of the river, to be tried once more in a day or two. If 

 ripe the workman "strips" her. This process consists of a 

 pressure with the thumb and forefinger which takes the spawn 

 from her. The female instantly is placed back in the water, 

 where <she is free of all nets, free to f relic about and snao 

 at any old hook until next spring. 



In the same manner the male is stripped. The fertilized 

 eggs are washed and shipped in cases to the state hatcheries 

 at St. Paul, Deer River and Glenwood. 



Within ten days or two weeks they hatch and shortly after 

 the state has millions of pike fry to distribute throughcut its 

 irany lakes. Mr. Cobb says tha.t while nature, estimating lib- 

 erally, hatches 5 per cent of the eggs of the female, the state 

 hatches 60 per cent at a conservative estimate. 



11 



