398 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



exceed one hundred pounds in weight, and are frequently 

 five feet in length. The head of the maskinonge is large 

 and flat, and its mouth will open wide enough to swallow 

 prey of its own girth. It has a formidable array of keen 

 teeth, sometimes half an inch in length. These teeth will 

 dent a metal spoon and play havoc with an artificial 

 minnow. 



Maskinonge are invariably savage fighters, and will never 

 surrender as long as life lasts. They are full of tricks, and 

 will resort to endless experiments to relieve themselves of 

 the hook. No two maskinonges will act alike when hooked, 

 and in this diversity of tactics lies the great charm of the 

 sport. For a contest that demands the highest degree 

 of skill and adroitness this game fish is hard to beat, and 

 the fisherman in a canoe who meets one has a struggle with 

 one of the finest fighters in the fish world. Judging from 

 my own experience, it is as stubborn an opponent as the 

 tiger fish of the Zambesi. 



The maskinonge is found in most of the rivers and lakes in 

 the western portion of Quebec and in some of the large 

 lakes in the eastern part of this province, also in Lake 

 St. Louis and Lake of Two Mountains, near Montreal, the 

 Ottawa River at St. Anne de Bellevue and Lake St. Francis. 

 Among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River 

 many mammoth maskinonge have been caught. In 

 Ontario, Lake Nipissing, the French River and the Kawartha 

 Lakes, reached from Bobcaygeon, give excellent maskinonge 

 fishing. Of all of these the French River is the best.* 



BLACK BASS 



For sheer desperate energy the fight that this fish will 

 put up is perhaps unequalled by any other fish of its weight. 

 So fiercely will it contest every inch of the advantage gained 



* The maskinonge is in appearance like a pike, and is frequently alluded to as 



a pickerel. 



