50 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July rg, 1902. 
Pike, Pickerel, Mascalonge. 
We teprint for the benefit of several inrittirers tliese 
illustrations of the three fishes, with enlarged cuts of the 
heads, showing the markings so clearly that there should 
be no difficult3' in distinguishing one from the others. 
The most marked difference, perhaps, in the pike and 
mascalonge, that is constatit is the scales on cheek and 
' gill covers. In the case of the mascalonge the scales cover 
the upper half only (generally about eight rows of scales) 
of the cheeks and gill covers ; while in the case of the pike 
the cheeks arc entirely covered with scales, and the lower 
half of the gill covers is bare the same as the mascalonge. 
The coloring of the pike is more constant than the color- 
ing of the mascalonge. The pike of this country and 
Europe are the same, and always it is found with lemon- 
colored, bean-shaped spots on a darker ground. 
Something about the three fishes is told thus by Fred 
Mather in one of his "Fresh- Water Angling" chapters in 
Forest and Stream : 
Here are three good American game fishes which 
somehow seem to be mixed up in the minds of anglers 
who fish, but do not read. They know the three names, 
and in a vague way attach them to the fish found in 
their local waters. To readers of Forest and Stream 
the ditferences have been pointed out in print and in 
picture many times, but these things require .to be ham- 
mered at aiW reiterated year after year before a few anglers 
in separate localities are well enough informed to begin 
the education of their neighbors. There is no good reason 
nCKEREL. 
Cheeks and opercles completely scaled. 
PIKE. 
Cheeks scaly. Lower half of operclcs naked. 
MASCALONGE. 
Lower half of cheek? and opercles naked. 
for confounding the three species, for they are not only 
distinct in points of structure, but their colors differ so 
greatly that there should be no confusion, and color is 
more regarded by the angler than by the ichthyologist. A 
man should not only know how to catch fish, but also how 
to name them correctly. 
Pickerel. 
In portions of Canada this njutie is applied to a hard- 
finned member of the perch tribe, and in parts of the 
United States it is used properly,^ and also improperly, 
for the great pike. The pickerel, 'E. reticulalns, gets its 
specific name from the Latin reticular a net, on account 
of a inore or less distinct black network on its yellowish 
or greenish sides. This should be a sufficient guide to 
the angler, but in some water.s" where this and the next 
species exist there are anglers and fishermen who do 
not separate them, or if they do they call the larger 
species mascalonge when they ard simply pike. 
In the three species of which this paper will treat 
the .shape and position of the fins is the same. Except 
in large specimens tlrere is no aldermanic abdomen, the 
lines of the back and belly being nearly parallel, with 
the soft dorsal fin set far back, near the tail, and Intt 
slightly in advance of the anal fin. which, with its fewer 
rays, comes out about even behind. 
The pickerel is called "jack" in Virginia and Southern 
waters, and as they have no other species there we can 
get on understandingly. It is found in the clear, grassy 
streams and ponds of the Atlantic coast from Maine to 
Alabama, but not west of the Alleghanies, nor in the 
Great Lake region. It was introduced into the Adiron- 
dacks from Fulton county, N. Y., in 1842, and they 
have spread from the "south woods" north to Meacham 
Lake, ruining many good trout lakes and streams, for 
worms, insects and their larva do not enter into the 
diet of this family to any noticeable extent; they live 
pjl fish ^nd are the sharks of fresh water. The pickefel 
seldom exceeds 6 pounds in weight, and 8 pounds is be- 
lieved to be the limit of its size. 
Pifce. 
The pilce grows to a weight of 40 pounds and over^ and 
this fact makes some fishermen confound it with its big 
brother, the mascalonge. Its color is a bluish gray, 
with oval white spots about the size of a white bean. As 
the mascalonge is black spotted, plain or slightly barred 
the confusion in names can only exist among those who 
have not seen both species. The fact that it has no scales 
on its cheek and none on the lower half of its gill cover 
would not be noticed by the average angler. 
The pike, Lucius lucius, has probably the greatest range 
of any fresh-water fish. It is found throughout northern 
Europe and as far south as Italy. It occurs in Asia, 
and we would not be surprised to find it scooping in 
the smaller fishes in some of the lakes and streams of 
Africa, when the British angler explores that Gonti- 
iient in search of new fields and fishes. Ah me ! if I 
were only twenty now, with the spirit of adventure that 
once raged, and" the geographical knowled.ge and possi- 
bilities of travel of to-day, the streams of Siberia, South 
Africa and India would be a mine of fishy wealth to ex- 
plore. 
In America the range of this fish was originally from 
Lake Champlain to northern Indiana and the northwest 
to Alaska, according to Jordan. It has been extended 
to the Adirondacks of New York by vandals who placed 
it in the trout lakes there for reasons best known to 
themselves ; let us hope that it was in ignorance of 
the destructiA^eness of the fish. In places where the 
pike occurs it is commonly mistaken for the mascalonge 
because it is larger than the pickerel, the exceptions be- 
ing where both of the larger species are found. How any 
man who has once seen these two great pikes can con- 
found them is a great puzzle. 
The MascaIoDge« 
The range of the mascalonge is tjuite limited. It docs 
not exist in the Adirondacks. although the St. Lawrence 
River and Lake Ontario are its home. It is found in the 
Great Lakes and in Chautauqua Lake, in the southwest 
corner of New York, which, althougb near Lake Erie, 
drains its waters into the .Alleghany River through Cone- 
wango Creek, and thus the fish gets into the Ohio Valley. 
Curiously, this isolated branch of the sp.ecies is not spot- 
ted, »or does it grow as large as in the Great Lalces, 
where there are legends of its having obtained a weight 
of :oo poinids. I have seen this fish among the Indians 
about Crow Wing and Mille Lacs, Minn., in the fifties, 
but never saw one that would weigh over ten pounds with 
them. These were black-spotted, and as these waters flow 
into the Mississippi River, the only reason that they differ 
from their brothers of the upper Ohio Valley seems to 
be that there must be impassable water in the rivers iaefore 
they join. 
The pike will go on mud Bats in spring freshets, and in 
hot weather is found in shallow, warm water among the 
weeds, while a mascalonge loves deep, cool lakes or 
swift, clear waters. Floods do not tempt him to roam 
over lands that are temporarily flooded, and with this 
knowledge we may find a key to the problem of distribu- 
tion and of the isolation of some members which by in- 
terbreeding have lost the spots. The Wisconsin fish are 
spotted, 
P ckerel Fishing. 
The angler for pickerel may take his fish in many ways, 
/^^^^^?-', 
and with as little consideration for his game as the pick- 
erel has for a toothsome trout. The fish is the worst 
kind of a cannibal, and one that weighs twice as much 
as another thinks of his smaller relative merely as some- 
thing to decorate his interior. This is the best trait in 
the" character of this whole family — they destroy each 
other — and as a fishculturist I wish they would emulate 
the famed Kilkenny cats. The world would be better 
without them. Therefore any kind of a mouthful of steel 
is pardonable to vise on the brutes. I took one of about 
four pounds weight which had three small trout in its 
pouch, and which wanted my chub to add to its collection. 
Three trout to feed a durned pickerel ! From my point of 
view these three trout were sadly misplaced in the 
economy of natiu'e, for they should have met a better 
fate ; they were "lads of high degree," and they went to 
sustain a fish which Adirondack guides call a "snake- 
eater," 
In tfolling for pickerel, if you use a spoon, and it is as 
good to troll with as a minnow gang, and less trouble, 
let it be suited to the size of the fish which you may 
reasonably expect to strike. A pickerel has an eye for 
fish which will fill his bill, and seldom makes the mis- 
take of tackling a fish which >s too big, although in the 
South Kensington Museum, London, I saw a plaster cast 
of a twenty-pound pike which had choked to death in 
trying to: sw&Uw oiie .tqj(x flear ifs sazg^ and had been 
