July 26, 1902.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
71 
Pike, Pickerel, Mascalonge. 
A Revised Illustralion. 
By an extremely unfortunate, mortifying and regretted 
transposition of cuts and titles in the last issue, our well- 
intended efifort to illustrate the characteristic markings 
which distinguish these three fish was rendered nugatory. 
We accordingly repeat the illustrations, with the titles 
now given as they should have been printed last week, and 
we trust that the correction may undo the confusion 
caused by the error. 
The accompanying figures of heads show the charac- 
teristics that are constant in the mascalonge (which is 
sometimes called a big pickerel and great pike), the pike 
and the pickerel. 
Without regard to color or other markings, each of 
the fishes named may be identified from the peculiarity of 
scale formation shown in the accompanying cuts. 
The mascalonge, the pike and the pickerel have each the 
same number of fins, placed in the same position on each 
fish. The mascalonge has scales only on the upper part 
FIG. 1. — PICKEREL. 
Clieeks and opercles completely scaled. 
FIG. 2. — PIKE. 
Cheeks scaly. Lower half of opercles naked. 
FIG. 3. — MASCALONGE. , , 
IjOVt^V half of cheeks and opercles naked. 
of cheek and gill covers, as shown in Fig. 3. The fish may 
be the mascalonge from the St. Lawrence River, with 
round brown spots on a light ground, or the mascalonge 
from Chautauqua Lake with blotches or splashes of 
brown, or it may be without spots of any kind, and it may 
be called Chautauqua pike, or Kentucky River or Mtts- 
kingum River pike, and yet it will be a mascalonge and 
have scales on cheek and opercula, as shown in Fig. 3. 
The pike is commonly called pickerel in New York 
State : there is a marked difference between the two fish. 
The pike grows to a weight of 50 pounds and more, as 
one was recorded from Ireland of 54 pounds in weight. 
Our pike and the European pike are the same. The cheek 
and gill covers of the pike shown in Fig. 2 will explain 
how the scales are placed ; they cover the cheek and part 
of the gill cover. The pike is the fish sometimes called 
the great northern pike, although a claim was made a 
few years ago for this title for the mispotted ntascalonge. 
The pickerel, proper, is a small fish as compared with 
the pike, as it averages in weight from lyi to 2;-^ pounds, 
and one of 5 pounds is a very large fish. Fig. i will show 
how the scales are placed on cheek and gill covers, ex- 
tending over both. 
The fish are of the same species, and exactly alike 
structurally, but one fish is spotted with spots that are 
nearly rotmd, while the other has oblong spots, and the 
dark lines are more regular in the pond fish than in the 
river fish, 
The Chautauqtta Lake mascalonge, instead of having 
round brown spots on a light ground, has splashes of 
l:rown. quite irregular in shape, on a light ground. The 
Wisconsin fish, like the Ottawa River fish, is unspotted. 
Theresa, N. Y., July 19. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
"Ts it trtte there are no pickerel here?" The aboA'e ques- 
tion was asked me to-day by a party who had been told 
that I had said that the fish catight in this vicinity Avere 
not pickerel, but pike. 
In answer I reached for the current number of Forest 
AND Stream and showed him the article under the head- 
ing, "Pike, Pickerel, Mascalonge" (which I had not 
read). In examining the illustrations given, we con- 
cluded that the names under the full-length cuts were as 
mixed tip as is usually done by the typo. I do not claim 
TO be an ichthyologist, nor even an angler, as Forest and 
Stream well knows. But I could not make the head cut 
XmascaJonge) fit only on (He jUiastration of pickerel, which 
WESTERN BROOK PICKEREL (EsOX UmbfOSUs). 
PICKEREL {Esox recticu-latus) . 
^iKE {Lucius lucius). 
MASCAtdNGE {Esox nohilior)^ 
without doubt shotdd be mascalonge; and the pike head 
would not go with pike (L. Indus), which I th'nk must 
be intended for "western brook pickerel {Esox tim- 
brosus)" {which I have never seen), while the head 
"Pickerel" Avould go only with the illustration "Masca- 
longe (£^-0.1- nobiiior)," which should have been pickerel 
{Esox rexticulatus) , I think. 
Only last week I had occasion to decide the identity of 
a mascalonge caught in Red Lake, near this village. A 
party of six, of which I was one, was spending the day on 
the lake at the Lotus Club house. About noon a man liv- 
ing on the lake brought some letters which he wished 
niailed at the village. I had seen some one trolling near 
his house all the morning, and asked him what luck he had 
fishing. He said that he had caught two "pickerel" 
(pike) and a thirteen-pound "tmiscalunge" (mascalonge). 
I asked him how much he would sell the mascalonge for. 
He said, "A dollar." I told him that I would take it. 
He then said that he had cleaned it all but cutting off the 
bead. I got into his boat and went to his house. I was 
a little skeptical about the fish being a mascalonge (as I 
am not an ichthyologist nor an angler), and frankly told 
him so. He then brought the head of the two pickerel 
fiiike) he had cleaned. I saw the difference between 
them and the head that was on the larger fish, and imme- 
diately gave him a crisp new $1 bill and took the fish, 
which I think was the smallest mascalonge taken from 
Red Lake in several years. More have been caught 
weighing over forty potinds than under twenty. Last 
year one of sixteen was taken. A few weeks ago a young 
friend of mine living on the lake found a dead one on 
the beach that measured four feet and three inches, that 
would have weighed nearly fifty pounds alive. I saw the 
lower jaw bone. The teeth were an inch long; the first 
tooth on the right side was gone and the bone seemed 
to be diseased; the fish had probably carried a trolling 
bait for some time. In 1882 about two hundred pike 
v.-ere put in Indian River here, which undoubtedly caused 
the extermination of the mascalonge and to a certain ex- 
tent of the black bass, although there is very good bass 
fishing yet. A Mr. O'Harra, of Syracuse, came up from 
Red Lake yesterday with twenty-five good bass and 
"pickerel" (pike). J. L. Davison. 
All communications intended for FoitEST and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., l>few 
Yofk, an4 flO* 1» in4ividual coiviie9te4 with the paper. 
Jottings of a Fly-Fisher. 
M.ANY anglers are delightful companions, not only 
those who can tell a good story, but others who narrate, 
when in congenial society, a few of their thoughts and 
experiences. Very few have time or inclination to write 
for publication, and the sporting press is thus deprived 
of mttch material of great value. I can think of no 
pttblication at present devoted exclusivel}^ to angling, 
but some of my friends complain of the comparatively 
small space giA'en to this subject in our periodicals. 
This could easily be remedied hy sending reports of 
interesting experiences to our favorite paper. Chat 
about rods, flies, new wrinkles, etc., w^ould, no dottbt, 
be welcome. 
These remarks were suggested by one of the friends 
aforesaid, who, alter complaining of the dearth of fishy 
news, proceeded to give me a*tew details of his own 
sport, which, if written down as told, would have made 
a very interesting article. How he lost two 4-pound 
trout, for instance. We always relish these stories of 
the big fish that got away. 
This gentleman is one of the comparatively few who 
use Pennell eyed hooks for fly-fishing, but he has snells 
lashed to them. This seems entirely unnecessary, when 
a good knot would answer the purpose, and it does away 
with nearly every advantage possessed by the eyed hook. 
Convenience of storage and carriage in a small box. 
durability and strength, bj^ reknotting gut when worn 
and rising any strength of gut required for a particular 
(,)ccasion. 
I had used these hooks for two years, both up-eyed and 
down-eyed. The former. Hall's eyed hooks, were made 
of very fine wire, and failed me several times with large 
fish (one glorious "rainbow" I shall never forget), as 
the wire sprung or broke. This may have been the 
fault of this particular manufacture, as in England these 
hooks are used for the largest chalk (limestone?) stream 
trout. The Pennell hooks gave perfect satisfaction when 
the real thing was got. Pennell's hooks should have 
his signature— H. Cholmondeley Pennell — on every pack- 
age of 25, or box of 100. The eye is small, and the 
jam knot never failed me, as I left a scrap of surplus 
gut pointing downward in the hackle. 
As dry fly-fi-shing is being more and more practiced 
every year, these hooks will probably become more 
popular, as ther^ ?an be no dotibt of their great ad- 
