My Friend the Pickerel. 
(Concluded from page 298 .) 
In October, 1907, I was in Rutland, Vt., and 
an out to Lake Bomoseen to try my luck. Hav- 
ng in mind Judge Houghtaling’s ideas about 
arge spoons, I talked it over with Major Chand- 
er who is the expert fisherman and sportsman 
if that lake, and we took a pearl spoon with a 
ij^-inch blade and tried it trolling for a while, 
t was armed with a treble hook at least 7/0 
;ize. In trolling about a mile we caught five 
)ike. I hoped to get at least one of the big 
>nes. Pickdrel as they call them—they are 
lorthern pike—of twenty-seven pounds have 
>een taken from this lake. The largest we 
looked on this spoon was about one and a half 
rounds and the smallest was only twelve inches 
ong and was hooked through the top of his 
lead. I thought it was a weed on the hook and 
lulled in the spoon to remove it.. 
The major is a past master in catching Bomo- 
;een fish. He favors a minnow hooked through 
he lips and slow trolling as the best method 
if taking them. With a little reservation I am 
nclined to think he is right. I have seen a com- 
jianion use small dead minnows not over two 
nches long impaled on a hook so they would 
;pin like a top, and he was getting fish right 
dong while casting and all kinds of artificial 
hait were no good. We were fishing over a 
submerged weed bed. 
Another time when I was visiting Geo. Sweet 
ve caught a pail of live minnows and drove to 
Zopake Lake. Mr. Loop, who was running the 
Island House where we stopped, told us that 
ill the fish that had been caught lately were 
■aught by fishing over the weeds. Copake Lake 
s a good fishing lake and we were sure we 
■vould have a fine time. Now, I like casting 
,vith a wooden minnow and we tried that, but 
iould do very little with it because the weeds 
|,vere too near the surface when we fished the 
weed patches and fouled the minnow every cast, 
ind we could get no bites in the clear water, 
so we took our fly-rods and tried strip-casting, 
hrowing our frogs and minnows over the 
weeds. Then we got enough bites to satisfy any 
■easonable man, but after fishing about three 
lours we had only small fish. The large ones 
would strike and go down into the weeds to 
line off our bait. After an interval to allow 
hem to swallow the bait, we would strike and 
here would be “doings” down below and then 
we would draw up a half peck of “spinach” on 
lur empty hooks. Empty of fish, I mean. 
At the upper end of the lake we went ashore 
0 get a drink. There was a hotel there called 
Vfrs. Herder’s, if my memory is good, and they 
lad put up a frame building on the shore of 
he lake and served sandwiches, ginger pop, ice 
■ream, etc., to callers. We sat down and 
luenched our thirst and rested and talked a few 
ninutes when an acquaintance of George’s en- 
ered and he and George started talking on 
ome subject in which I was not interested; so 
sat tilted back in an arm chair with my feet 
on the rounds of another chair, listening to the 
hum of the flies and enjoying the little breeze 
drawing through the room. I purposely sat 
very near the door opening, with my back to¬ 
ward it, and soon felt sleepy and got into half 
a doze. A big spider, a very big spider, with 
an abdomen the size of a filbert, cruising on the 
rafters, above, noticed me, and thinking I would 
make a good anchorage for one of his guy 
ropes, fastened one end of a film of web al¬ 
most over my head and started to slide down, 
uncoiling it from his internal economy as he did 
A FAVORITE POOL. 
so. He came down like a streak and stopped 
with a jerk about an inch from my eyes and 
reached out some of his legs toward my face. 
I had sleepily opened my eyes just as he stop¬ 
ped, and startled I jerked back to avoid him. 
I was successful in this, but I went over back¬ 
ward out of the door and down three steps, the 
armchair about neck and neck with me in the 
race and landed on the shore. George and his 
friend swarmed out of the door with frightened 
faces. By the time I had landed I was fully 
awake and the humor of the situation striking 
me, I was laughing heartily before I had at¬ 
tained the perpendicular. 
I explained as soon as I was able and we 
went back, and found the spider ascending by 
the aid of his guy rope and settled with him. 
Then as George had lost the thread of his talk, 
we started after the fish again. George was 
strip-casting and after he had missed saving one 
or two good fish that took his bait and left him 
with a hook full of weeds, he turned to me— 
I was backing water and he was in the stern 
of the boat—and said: “I have had enough of 
this. The next one that takes my bait gets into 
serious trouble. Now you keep your eye on 
your Uncle George and do what he tells you.” 
Then after a few casts he had a bite. The fish 
dived and George payed out a few yards of line 
and laid the rod down in the boat and took the 
line, a strong, enameled silk, in his hands. 
After waiting a short time he told me to back 
water and he, handling the line very gently, 
gathered in the slack as we went along, giving 
me directions which way to go with the boat. 
A steel piano' wire leader three feet long con¬ 
nected his line and hook, and when he could 
see the small swivel at the end of the line he 
knew the fish was but three feet from it. Care¬ 
fully sliding his hand down the line he pushed 
it under the water way down, wetting his shirt 
almost to his shoulder until he could grasp the 
swivel, when he straightened up and with one 
long strong sweep of his arm threw a 2j/2-pound 
pickerel festooned with streamers of marine 
vegetation into the boat. “Now, by ginger, I 
know how to get them,” said he. 
When we hitched up to go home that night 
we had a good big basket full of nice fish and 
I had added to my knowledge of how to catch 
them. 
I spent ten days in September, 1906, at Rain¬ 
bow Camp. Four of us had a good time until 
Sunday, when three of the boys left and George 
Sweet arrived. With him I fished on Monday 
with meager results. The weather was warm 
and a hot sun was pouring down and the fish¬ 
ing had been poor all the week. We left the 
lake early and after eating and putting the camp 
in shape, we laid off in easy chairs and talked. 
We were soon deeply engrossed in our favorite 
topic of fishing and started earnestly to ascer¬ 
tain why we had no better luck. We went into 
the subject of our friends, the pickerel, very ex¬ 
haustively. I told George all I had ever learned 
about the subject and drew a lot of information 
from him. We analyzed the subject; we went 
over it with a fine-toothed comb. After we had 
pulled the subject apart we went at it syntheti¬ 
cally and built it up again and evolved a solu¬ 
tion. We recalled the fact that they, with all 
other true fishes, are cold-blooded and have 
no means of making or keeping their tempera¬ 
ture at any other than that of the water they 
inhabit. They are in good fettle and lively at 
a temperature of 32 to 39 degrees Fahrenheit. 
We had made a three-foot cubical car of wire 
netting and had put it in the lake so it rested 
on the bottom of the lake in three feet of water 
with the top just awash. Into this we put our 
fish to keep them alive. Every single pickerel 
died in it before he had been there twenty-four 
hours. I was certain they died because the 
water at that point was too warm, for none of 
the bass died. 
My theory was that the pickerel being happy 
at 32 degrees was not happy at 70 degrees, at 
U. W l. UWiSiiS'.-Jiiuustfmun 
