FISHING 
developed wonderful methods of cooking the 
fish. After reading some of their descriptions 
one feels that the pike was but a small compo- 
nent of the dish. When you take a fish and 
stuff it full of chopped beef and herbs and then 
souse it with wine before serving, even a pike 
out of a muddy pond may become very respect- 
able eating. But it is about the fishing that we 
would write. You will never catch as many 
pike on a trolling spoon as you will if you use 
live bait. In most places a small frog is an 
excellent bait, and so is a minnow hooked 
through the lips. A large multiplying reel, a 
braided line and a good sized hook make the 
best combination. In some places a long strip 
of bacon rind is a very attractive bait, either 
casting or trolling. Often in summer a pike 
will rise at a big gaudy fly, but not always, and, 
moreover, the pike is then hardly fit to catch. 
I have heard of pike that were so gime that 
they leaped from the water and put up a tre- 
mendous fight before being mastered, but from 
my own experience I should say that a pike that 
did this was probably not a pike, but a masca- 
longe. All the pike that I have taken, and I 
have fished in some of the best pike waters 
of the continent, while they might put up a good 
fight for a few minutes, always ended by per- 
mitting themselves to be pulled in like a water- 
soaked log and never by any chance jumped. 
Sometimes when there was a great strain on the 
line and they had turned suddenly toward 
the boat, I have pulled them above the surface, 
and a person with a more vivid imagination 
than mine might have persuaded himself that 
they had jumped, but I never could. Yet the 
pike is not by any means a sluggish fish. For a 
short burst he can travel so fast through the 
water that the eye can hardly follow him; this 
is his method of catching his prey. He lurks 
among the weeds, motionless but alert, ready 
to dash out and seize any unfortunate fish that 
he can master. So, when you hook him, he 
makes one or two wild dashes for liberty, and 
then gives up the fight and allows you to tow 
him in without further resistance. 
Where they are found together, the pike- 
perch is invariably considered the better fish. 
In the towns bordering the St. Lawrence the 
pike-perch generally sells for several cents a 
pound more than the pike, in open market, and 
he is a very game fish and is found in more 
open water than the pike. The best bait for 
him is undoubtedly a lively minnow, though 
in waters where he is little fished he will take 
a small spoon admirably. 
I do not know what the record weight of the 
pike-perch may be, but I think I have seen, 
perhaps, one of the largest ever taken. This 
fish was captured in a net in Lake St. Louis, an 
273 
enlargement of the St. Lawrence River, and 
weighed 17 pounds. The usual run of pike- 
perch weigh from one and a-half to two pounds, 
and a three-pound fish is a yery large one in 
most waters. 
Although all the pike family are coarse fish 
they certainly afford a lot of fun and are by 
no means to be despised. The fact that they 
are at their best when the choice species are at 
their worst counts for much, and we should 
be sorry to see them diminish in numbers 
except where they interfere with other species 
that are more valuable. Happily there is very 
little fear that the pike will ever disappear from 
any water that suits them, for they are well 
able to take care of themselves. If they should 
get into a pond where there are trout, you would 
have to drain the water off and keep the bed 
dry for several weeks before you could be quite 
sure that you had got rid of the intruders. 
So be very careful to not let them get a finhold 
where they are not wanted. 

A Big Mascalonge 
One of the heaviest mascalonge taken of 
late was landed by a New York angler, Mr. 
W. P. Carveth, near Petersborough, Ont. 
The fish, which is now in the care of a local - 
taxidermist, weighed 40 pounds 8 ounces 
‘some hours after capture. Two pike, together 
weighing four pounds, were taken from it, 
showing the incarnate rapacity of the masca- 
longe. It is, indeed, the shark of the fresh 
ite It was killed on an 8-ounce trolling 
rod. 

Pickerel, Pike and ’Longe 
Mr. H. R. Flint, of West Union, Minn., asks 
for an explanation of the difference between the 
three varieties of fish known as the pickerel, 
the Northern pike and the mascalonge, saying 
many anglers in Minnesota are at sea as to 
how to properly distinguish them. 
In his “Bass, Pike, Perch and Others,’ of 
the American Sportsman’s Library, Dr. 
James A. Henshall distinguishes these fishes 
as follows: 4 
“The mascalonge (Esox nobilior) has the 
upper part of both the cheeks and gill-covers 
scaly, while the lower half of both cheeks and 
gill-covers is naked; it has from 17 to r9 branch- 
iostegal rays (the rays on the under side of the 
gill cover that, like the ribs of an umbrella, 
assist in opening and closing it during breath- 
ing). Its coloration is of a uniform grayish 
hue, or when marked with spots or bars, they 
are always of a much darker color or shade 
than the ground color. 
“The pike (Esox lucius) has the cheeks 
