580 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERmS. 



Other waters where smelts abound have shown that the trout as readily takes the fly 

 there as where there are no smelts. When the smelts are running, it is not the usual 

 fly time. When through with their spawning, the smelts go into deeper water. The 

 trout do not seek those waters until the approach of warm weather, when fly fishing 

 ceases, except on some cool pond or at the mouths of cool streams or in the streams 

 themselves. 



It may be aflBrmed that the only fish that has been wisely introduced into Rangeley 

 Lakes is the smelt. It has directly and indirectly been the savior of the trout by 

 aff'ording the trout requisite food and detracting to some extent the attention of the 

 salmon from trout by furnishing sufficient natural food. 



PICKEREL (Esoxreticulatus). 



This species is the only representative of the pike family in New England waters 

 except in the St. Lawrence drainage or where it has been introduced. It is the only 

 species in Maine. Its geographical range is stated to be from Maine to Florida and 

 Louisiana; common everywhere east and south of the Allegheny Mountains. Origi- 

 nally, or perhaps it should be said aboriginally, the pickerel had a very restricted 



Fig. 22. — Pickerel {EsoxretictUalus), 



natural geographical distribution in the State. Since early days it has from time to 

 time been transplanted to other waters, and from such sources it has made its way into 

 still other waters, so that at the present time there is scarcely a congenial pickerel 

 abode in the State that is not inhabited by it. 



Of the Rangeley chain of lakes, Umbagog is the only one inhabited by the fish, and 

 there it was not indigenous. The precise date, maimer, and reason of its introduction 

 into Umbagog Lake are uncertain. But there is a sort of tradition among the older 

 inhabitants of the vicinity of the lake that early in the sixties or some time before some 

 inhabitants of the lake shore, having been prosecuted for violating the trout law, out of 

 revenge placed pickerel in Umbagog Lake, where they rapidly waxed great in numbers 

 and size. It is now apparently restricted to Umbagog Lake, being unable to get beyond 

 Middle Dam. It has made its way up the Magalloway River, it is said, as far as Azis- 

 cohos Falls, beyond which it can not go of its own accord. 



The pickerel sometimes attains a weight of 7 or 8 pounds, but as usually met with 3 

 or 4 pound fish are considered large ones. There seem to be no records of the sizes 

 attained in Umbagog, but the writer remembers from personal experience that 3-pound 

 fish were very common there in 1883, and the complaint then was that pickerel were not 

 as large as they once were. The largest obtained in 1 905 weighed abou 1 4 pounds, measur- 



