io8 THE FINE ART OF FISHING 



Scientific details concerning the range, formation, 

 coloration, and other matters dealing with the natural 

 history of the pike family, have been very fully given in 

 almost every angling book, while the more practical 

 phase of the subject, the question of methods and tackle, 

 has not been so completely treated. For this reason It 

 would seem well to confine the present discussion prin- 

 cipally to the ways and means of fishing for the masca- 

 longe and its lesser relatives in preference to rehearsing 

 again the already thoroughly detailed nature and life 

 histories of the game fishes mentioned. 



For either mascalonge, pike, or pickerel it seems a 

 little improper to thus class the pickerel, or, for that 

 matter, the pike, with the mascalonge, but the fact 

 remains that they are "birds" of the same feather 

 still-fishing is little done by those who understand the 

 game. It is far better to fish exclusively by casting or 

 trolling. The boat, when trolling, should be worked 

 so that the bait, either artificial or natural, plays along 

 from three to six or eight feet outside the line of weeds 

 or rushes, and it is not necessary that the spoon qr 

 minnow be fished at any considerable depth ; surface or 

 near-surface fishing is the rule with any of these fish as 

 they will all rise freely on seeing the bait. 



When casting, the boat should travel parallel with 

 the margin of the weed beds, from forty to eighty feet 

 away it depends somewhat upon the skill of the caster 

 and the method oi casting and the bait should be cast 

 in so as to fall at the proper distance from the weeds, 

 taking pains not to cast so far in as to become fouled 

 in the weeds or so far away from them as to render it 



