46 LARGE LAKE PIKE. 



than in any other water we wot of. They are caught 

 here chiefly with the seine, but occasionally with the 

 hook, in trolling; arid when you do get fairly hold 

 of a twenty-pounder, look out ! Ten to one unless 

 you are a thorough expert, and give him a long play, 

 wearying him out, and foiling his prodigious efforts 

 at escape, with your gaff-hook or dip-net at hand 

 he snaps your line, or breaks your hook and escapes 

 forever ! This fish is an acrobat for feats of agility. 

 He no sooner feels the barbed -steel in his gullet, than 

 he commences a series of writhings and contortions 

 that would astonish an " India-rubber man." He 

 makes a semi-circle of himself, and then springs back 

 to a " normal" position as suddenly as a tense bow 

 when the string is cut. He zig-zags horizontally, 

 darts upwards, darts downwards, spins round, turns 

 somersaults, and finally, if all these dodges fail, 

 launches his lithe body, with a quiver, six feet into 

 the air, and coming down head foremost, darts off at 

 a right angle like a streak of lightning. If this last 

 manoeuvre does not break the tackle, the muskellunge 

 gives in, and suffers himself to be lifted out of the 

 water without betraying the slightest emotion. But 

 for all that, in dislodging the hook from his mouth, 

 look out for the clivvaux dc frise that guards the en- 

 trance the spikes are sharp. A sharp customer is 

 your muskellunge, but a more delicate fish flesh 

 white as snow, and savory as an oyster, well boiled, 

 and served upon the dinner-table with proper sauces 

 does not exist 



