330 



OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



as green pike or jack, but more often as pond 

 pickerel. He is a big green fish, a golden lustre 

 on his reticulated sides and in colonial times he 

 was known as chain pickerel from this dark link- 

 ing on his golden green surface. I do not hear 

 the name now and I doubt if it is much, if any, 

 used. The pond pickerel waxes fat on minnows 

 and other small fry and in the course of a long 

 life grows to be two feet or more in length and 

 specimens have been caught weighing seven 

 pounds, perhaps more. It is rather interesting to 

 learn from the fishermen that certain ponds are 

 apt to contain pickerel of a certain size, in the 

 main, as if the conditions of food supply and the 

 freshness of the water or the amount of sunshine 

 were only sufficient to bring the most of them to 

 a definite period of maturity, where they stopped. 

 But this is, of course, only a general rule, with 

 many exceptions. One of these is the big fish. 

 Every pond contains him and every pickerel fish- 

 erman who aspires to dignity in his class has 

 hooked this big fellow and lost him and is able 

 to tell you circumstantially at much length just 

 how. Most of them know the exact location in 

 each pond where he lurks and are confident that 

 this winter they will win in the encounter with 



