128 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



undersized fish, he should be required to cease amgiing. The majority of 

 longe anglers are, however, out after the large fish, and regard the small 

 fish as a nuisance which they would gladly avoid, and seeing that 

 angling for longe is apt to be a strenuous pleasure if a large fish is 

 hooked and that the spirit of the sport itself is a hard tussle with a 

 strong and vigorous fish, only those who enjoy the exercise of a pro- 

 longed and exhausting fight will in general indulge in it to any extent. 

 To obtain tliis sport many of them will have come from afar and will 

 have but a limited time at their disposal to enjoy it, so that in as much 

 as the majority of them can be counted on not to cause any undue waste 

 by deliberately angling for undersized fish, it would appear inexpedient 

 to penalize them to the extent of forcing them to abandon angling for 

 the day should they be unfortunate enough to hook and land a few 

 undersized fishes which, after all, would afford them but poor sport for 

 the money they were expending. It would seem, therefore, best in the 

 case of the undersized mascalonge to allow the present law to stand 

 unaltered in its literal sense. 



Finally in regard to pickerel, the catch of which is limited to 

 twelve, and the legal size placed at fifteen inches, it is to be noted that 

 in the majority'' of waters in which pickerel are to be found it will not 

 often occur that more than twelve of the fish of legal size will be taken 

 in a reasonable day's angling, for it lives, as a rule, in the deeper waters 

 and trolling for it over a considerable area is the only and somewhat 

 uncertain means of securing it. There are, of course, exceptional in- 

 stances of localities in which it is particularly abundant, Avhere angling 

 for it can be carried on successfully from the shore, or catches in ex- 

 cess of the legal number made within a short space of time, but even in 

 such cases the bait most frequently in use would be the trolling spoon 

 or imitation minnow, with its gangs of hooks, and consequently, 

 although a very hard}^ and robust fisli, it would be liable very often to 

 suffer material injury when the bait was being removed, even had it 

 escaped serious damage while in the water. In view of these facts, and 

 seeing that the capture of twelve of as sporting a fish as the pickerel, of 

 a greater length than fifteen inches, should under any circumstances be 

 considered a good day's sport by anyone, it would seem advisable that 

 angling operations should be brought to a close when the legal limit 

 has been landed, even though, perchance, some specimens may have been 

 returned uninjured to the water. 



In regard to the question of returning the undersized fish to the 

 water, it is plain that where they swallow a bait intended for a larger 

 fish they will be all the more likely to be seriously injured. On the 

 other hand, the danger of catching great quantities of such undersized 

 fishes would not appear to be great, except, perhaps, in isolated in- 

 stances, so that as the loss to the fisheries would not be very serious 

 even in the event of a large percentage of those returned to the water 

 subsequently dying, it would, perhaps, be more advantageous to allow 

 the present law to stand than to attempt to amend it. 



