PICKEREL. 177 



fishers endeavor to remedy by allowing the pike or jack, 

 as they call him, to gorge the bait. A pickerel, like a 

 trout, rushes up, strikes his prey, and immediately returns 

 with it to his haunt ; he then ends it round, having gen- 

 erally struck it crosswise, and swallows it. This he takes 

 much longer to do than a trout, and the English works 

 on fishing direct you to wait five minutes or till he runs 

 again, and then, by striking smartly, you can fix the 

 hook into his gills or stomach, from which nothing but 

 the knife will remove it. The disadvantage, however, is 

 that the pickerel often eject instead of gorging the bait, 

 and when the fisherman, having impatiently awaited his 

 five minutes, comes to strike, he strikes naught but the 

 thin water or the stem of a water lily. After a few such 

 disgusting results, he will probably determine, as the 

 writer has, to strike at once, unless, by one of those 

 exceptional cases to all good rules, some peculiar diffi- 

 culty forces him to proceed otherwise. The word spoon, 

 that has been so frequently used, is derived from the use 

 originally of the bowl of a pewter table-spoon, into one 

 end of which was fastened three hooks, and into the other 

 a swivel attached to the line, and which, by playing and 

 flashing through the water, attracted the fish ; the old- 

 fashioned spoon is now out of use, and entirely super- 

 seded by Buel's patent. Pickerel, especially the smaller 

 varieties, will take a fly, but not very readily ; and this 

 can hardly be said to be an established mode of fishing 

 for them. 



There is another style of pickerel fishing which is 

 amusing, to say the least of it, and is practised exten- 

 sively throughout the State of New York. You take a 



8* 



