NAMAYCUSH AND OTHERS 107 



place for the Eastern angler who wishes to have a try 

 at the mascalonge is Chautauqua Lake in New York 

 where the unspotted mascalonge, Esox ohiensis, is some- 

 what abundant. 



Undoubtedly were it not for the black bass, a game 

 fish unknown to the English angler, fishing for the 

 various members of the pike family, particularly the 

 mascalonge and Great Lakes pike, would be far more 

 popular in this country and more seriously undertaken, 

 quite as much so as in England. As a matter of fact, 

 the mascalonge, of course, the pike, and even the pickerel 

 are worthy of any angler's steel. But the extensive 

 range of the large- and small-mouthed black bass, and 

 their undoubted game qualities, to say nothing of the 

 various species of brook trout, serve to relegate the pike 

 and pickerel to the class of less-desirables, while the 

 comparative scarcity and inaccessibility of good masca- 

 longe waters tend to keep this fish by many considered 

 the gamest and the finest fish of American fresh-waters 

 in the background. 



Although individually the most important members 

 of the pike family differ greatly, treated collectively, 

 their habits are much the same. All are shoal-water 

 fishes, "using" principally in the weed beds along-shore 

 and on the bars of lake or river; all are habitually and 

 most destructively piscivorous, always seeking whom 

 they may devour. Owing to the similarity of habits 

 angling for mascalonge, pike, or pickerel differs intrin- 

 sically more in means than in ways the methods em- 

 ployed are quite similar, the tackle varying to suit the 

 occasion and the quarry. 



