NAMAYCUSH AND OTHERS in 



agree as to the proper rod move to make when a game 

 fish takes the air. The preponderance of experience 

 and advice suggests the advisability of slightly lowering 

 the rod tip. Usually, unless the angler is very cool and 

 also a rapid thinker with a very swift reaction from 

 brain to hand, the fish, salmon, black bass, or musky as 

 the case may be, is back in the water before the angler 

 makes any counter play at all. However, it is always 

 best to ease a leaping fish back into the water by 

 slightly lowering the tip. When a fish leaps far away 

 from the boat, lowering the tip is perfectly useless as 

 there is always a long belly in the line and the move- 

 ment of the rod does not carry through. 



Anglers often find it difficult correctly to differen- 

 tiate a large pike from a mascalonge (in some cases, 

 possibly, because the wish is father to the thought), or, 

 say, an unusually large pickerel from a pike. The 

 following key, quoted from Dr. James A. Henshall, 

 will afford the means of rightly identifying and dis- 

 tinguishing the most fished-for members of the pike 

 family. 



"The mascalonge has the upper part of both the 

 cheeks and gill-covers scaly, while the lower half of 

 both cheeks and gill-covers is naked ; it has from seven- 

 teen to nineteen branchiostegal rays ( the branchiostegals 

 are the rays on the under side of the gill-cover, that, like 

 the ribs of an umbrella, assist in opening and closing 

 it during breathing). Its coloration is of a uniform 

 grayish hue, or when marked with spots or bars they 

 are always of a much darker color or shade than the 

 ground color. 



