OTHER FISH AND GAME 287 



which agree so thoroughly with my own observations 

 on the subject that I gladly adopt the following 

 extract : 



" A strip cut from the bell} 7 - of another fish with a bit of fin left 

 to wiggle as a tail is extremely effective for what is known as skit- 

 tering. Salt pork is used iu place of a bit of fish by the back- 

 woodsmen, and it is a telling bait. The live minnow of course is 

 not trolled, but cast among the lily-pads or weeds and left to swim 

 about freely, with usually a cork about five feet from the hook to 

 mark its movements. The greatest fault, and the most common 

 one, is not giving the pike time. A bass always seizes his prey 

 from behind. The pike never fails to snatch his crosswise in the 

 middle. He rushes from some shadowed lair, snaps the minnow or 

 bait in the middle, and begins to back or swim slowly towards some 

 spot where, unobserved, he can safely devour his catch. It is just 

 at this instant that eight out of ten men give the yank that is fatal 

 to their chances. Wait until he has moved off a few feet and 

 stopped, give him then just a moment to gorge the prize. Then 

 strike. In trolling late in the year a split buckshot should always 

 be used to keep the line down where it belongs. The big fellows 

 all lie deep, and will not even rise to feed." 



The consumption of small ouananiche by the pike 

 of Lake St. John waters has been already referred to. 

 These water-wolves are often found lurking about the 

 pools in the Grande Decharge, frequented by the 

 ouananiche. Many of the latter, as Mr. Creighton 

 observes, bear marks of the pike's teeth, and he re- 

 lates the following facts that came to his personal 

 knowledge, and that are here given in his own words : 



' ' I once saw a five-and-one-half-pound fish swimming about in 

 an odd and helpless manner, and found that his spine had been 

 broken by a pike, so that he could not use his tail. In 1887 I was 

 fishing off the rocks at the Grande Chute, and hooked a Wananishe 

 which proved to weigh just less than a pound. Not particularly 

 caring about such a small fish, I let him wander off while waiting 



