THE PIKES AND THEIE O U S I l^T S 



For if our quaint cartoonists be but just, 



You have some features of the modem " Trust." 



A wide, ferocious and rapacious jaw, 



A vast, insatiate and expansive craw ; 



And, like the " Trust," your chief est aim and wish 



Was to combine in one all smaller fish, 



And aU the lesser fry succumbed to fate, 



Whom you determined to consolidate.' 



Wilcox. 



It is the king of the tribe ; savage, a veritable wolf, having- 

 all the savagery of the jack or pike with aU the latter's faults 

 eliminated. In a word, the fish is game in every sense of the 

 word, a hard-fighting fish that never gives up until it is in the 

 boat. Its home is in the great American lakes from which it 

 wanders into the St. Lawrence and the lakes and tributary rivers 

 of these lakes and streams. It attains a length of eight feet and 

 a weight of over one hundred pounds in favourable localities and 

 conditions,^but the average fish taken is, I believe, under twenty 

 pounds, due possibly to the fact that the fish is eagerly sought' 

 and followed by the fresh- water anglers who enjoy the big game 

 of the sea. In appearance the muscaUunge resembles a large 

 pickerel. Ifearer examination shows that there are differences,- 

 but the principal one is the black spots or tiger-like markings- 

 on the fish not found on the pickerel ; so there is no mistaking it. 

 In the young, the spots are round and black ; as the fish attains 

 maturity they coalesce and form bands or stripes. It has all. 

 the variety of the pike and a hundred times its courage. It 

 spawns in the spring, the female depositing about two hundred, 

 and fifty thousand eggs, which hatch in fifteen days. 



I have had an unfortunate experience with these fish. I have 

 followed them, day in and day out, with incredible patience^ 

 but I have never landed but one, and that only of suflBcient size 

 to enable me to say that I have taken a muscaUunge. When 

 pressed as to its size (and there are persons who display this- 

 obnoxious curiosity) I try to change the subject to tunas or almost 

 anything ; but I have hooked several and have seen several 



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