Aug. 23, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
231 
Two Weeks with the Bass and Pickerel 
At Intermediate Lake, Antrim County, Michigan 
B ESIDES bass and pickerel, mascalonge are 
occasionally taken in this lake, and a few 
others of the chain, but they are not 
plenty, and it is a feather in the lucky fisher¬ 
man's cup who succeeds in capturing one. 
We were told of one weighing forty pounds 
tiiat was speared last spring at the mouth of 
the little stream connecting Cedar and Inter¬ 
mediate lakes, which made us the more eager 
to handle one, but we were disappointed, as all 
our lures failed to induce one to strike. I fished 
along through the steadily falling rain nearly a 
mile from camp and had taken but two bass, the 
pair weighing perhaps six pounds, when I got 
into a fight with a pickerel that induced me to 
believe my early education in that line of sport 
had been neglected, and largely increased my re¬ 
spect for them as a game fish. I was sitting 
with the butt of the rod resting on the seat 
under my leg, watching a pair of loons out in 
the lake, when he struck the frog, and the jerk 
was so sudden and powerful that rod, reel and 
all came near going overboard. 
He must have fastened himself the first 
dash he made at the bait, for I did not strike 
at all, but just stopped the reel with the thumb, 
and when I got to my feet and the line tight¬ 
ened up, he was a hundred feet away and going 
strong as a horse. 
For a minute it was uncertain whether he 
would go his way or come mine, but with the 
rod well up, the strain soon brought him around, 
head to the boat. He came slowly in, surging 
from side to side with a strength that was aston¬ 
ishing. When he got sight of the boat he shot 
off out into the lake with a velocity that made 
the reel whistle, but with a pressure on the spool 
that nearly blistered my thumb. I stopped him, 
and as he turned he leaped into the air like a 
bass and spitefully shook himself. I worked 
him back near the boat again, and lie lay quietly 
for a moment or two close to the top of the 
water, which was so clear I could see every 
movement of his fins, and I fancied I could tell 
what he was thinking about by the expression 
of his eye. His long countenance wore such a 
resigned look that I thought he had given up the 
fight, and I reached for the gaff, but he v r as only 
playing ’possum, for he suddenly dashed under 
the boat with a rush it was impossible to check, 
and it was only by a prompt dip of the rod and 
leading the line quickly around the stern of the 
boat that it was prevented from fouling, in 
which event he would have smashed my tackle 
and flitted his tail at me in derision. 
When he finished his rush—aided by the ex¬ 
cellent temper of the rod—he sculled gently off 
down the lake, pretending not to remember any¬ 
thing about what had just taken place; but all 
the time I knew he was studying over a new 
scheme to get rid of the steel in his jaw. 
Fresh trouble was brewing, and it behooved 
me to study closely all the points in his tactics. 
I held an easy line on him for half a minute, 
By KINGFISHER 
(Continued from page 195.) 
and then gave a smart pull to wake him up, 
when, turning with a quick swirl, he threw his 
broad tail out of the water and started straight 
for the boat. A frantic whirling of the reel 
handle kept the line out of his way, but left 
no time to settle with a stray deer fly that had 
come in under my hat rim out of the rain and 
camped on the side of my nose. When within 
three or four yards of the boat he came to the 
surface with a rush that sent him four feet out 
of the water, and after a vain effort to shake 
out the hook, his vicious-looking jaws came to¬ 
gether with an audible snap-snap, evidently in¬ 
tended to part the line, but the wire-wrapped silk 
snell was made especially for such customers, 
and he fell back in the water, bursting, no doubt, 
with wrath and disgust. The failure of this 
scheme seemed to take the starch out of his 
dorsal, for I noticed as he plunged under the 
boat (a favorite bit of strategy with a pickerel) 
that he had a worried, demoralized look on his 
long face that said plainly, “Where am I now?” 
But the fight was not all out of him yet. An¬ 
other rush and he came around under a strong 
pull, and this time started in a circle around the 
boat, drawn nearer at every turn of the reel. He 
had apparently made up his mind that the heft 
of his trouble lay in that quarter, and gathering 
all his failing strength for a final effort, turned 
and came straight at me, and when ten feet away 
left the water and struck one of the oars hang¬ 
ing over the side as he fell back. This last fail¬ 
ure to circumvent the enemy, coupled with the 
rap he got from the oar, bewildered him, and 
he lost heart in the struggle. Another feeble 
and aimless rush, and I reeled him alongside, 
and with rod in left hand, thumb on reel, ready 
to let go at the first stroke of his tail, held his 
head partly out of water, jerked the gaff in his 
jaw and lifted him into the boat. He thrashed 
furiously around for a minute, and finally lay 
gasping and utterly spent, yet with a sullen 
gleam in his eye that admonished me to be on 
my guard when extracting the hook from his 
mouth. 
As I wished to take him to camp alive to 
show the boys, I did not knock him on the head 
with the club provided for the purpose, but in¬ 
serting it between his jaws held him down with 
one knee, released the .hook and strung him on 
a piece of strong cord at the same time. The 
long, brave fight was over, fought with dogged 
courage and fine generalship on the part of old 
longface, and serious doubts as to the final re¬ 
sult on mine; but as victory had perched on my 
banner I was exceedingly comforted, and sat 
down to relieve the tension on my nerves and 
put on another frog. 
Many similar battles afterward, with both 
smaller and larger fish than this one, inclined 
us to the opinion that the fighting qualities of 
the pickerel are greatly underrated; at least, we 
“WE SAW A LIKELY PLACE AHEAD.” 
Photograph by O. VV. Smith. 
