76 
FOREST AND STREAM 
THE NORTH WOODS PIKE 
HE IS ON THE JOB TWELVE MONTHS A 
YEAR AND IS WAITING FOR YOU NOW 
I SHALL try to describe one of the most 
interesting of all sports: the taking of 
game fishes through the ice in the North 
Woods, as taught by my ancestors of the 
Adirondack tribe, a brave race of Indians 
who could weather the blasts, rigors and 
deep snows of the coldest winters in our 
section, while their ancient foes, the Mo¬ 
hawks and other Central New York tribes 
were working south in search of warmer 
camping sites and shell fish. 
We were, indeed, a race of foresters, and 
when all other food failed, would devour 
the delicious “black birch,” now so rare, 
and other fragrant and healthful barks, or 
dig in the soft earth for the roots of fern 
or “brakes,” which were the nearest ap¬ 
proach to the potato that grows so splen¬ 
didly hereabouts. We fed at such times as 
did the half-starved wild deer which we 
mercifully spared that the supply of venison 
might not fail in the fall. On this account 
were we called by jealous enemies “Adiron- 
dacte,” the tree-eaters, like the great por¬ 
cupine whose flesh often saved our lives 
then as it does to-day those of lumbermen 
lost in the woods amid winter storms. Our 
fathers told us that this animal was sent 
by the Great Spirit to defy the Winter 
God and afford the people food. We ac¬ 
cordingly slew the porcupine only when di¬ 
rected by the old men, honoring his spirit 
and appeasing his wrath by decorating our 
finest buckskin clothes and moccasins with 
his beautiful quills. 
You see, the Indian was the first game 
warden in these parts,.and we looked upon 
the ravages of the lumbermen in the early 
days with horror. They only wasted the 
game and fish. They did not care for them 
except to gratify their love of slaughter, 
or killed them merely to boast about. 
A small farmer out here, we will say, 
gets his winter wood all cut and split, and 
wants a mess of fish. For large pike he 
must have minnows or shiners. The latter 
are swimming about in the lakes now un¬ 
der two feet of hard ice and three or four 
feet of snow, and to a beginner it would 
seem impossible to use this sort of bait. 
But this question presents no difficulty 
at all to the experienced woodsman. Off 
he goes on his snow shoes, treading lightly 
over the soft snow drifts, rifle on shoulder 
and the faithful little hound at his heels. 
For a bear, lynx or fox may cross their 
path and the proposed fishing excursion 
turn into a hunt instead. There is a small 
mountain pond four miles distant, where 
he has in previous years found the pickerel 
plentiful. He finds its outlet, a small brook, 
open in places where springs boil up and 
make freezing impossible. These are the 
cold “spring holes” beloved of trout in hot 
summer time, but the abode of dace, chub 
and minnows at this season. “But how can 
these little fish be taken there without angle 
By Sangemo. (Cuts-the-Bough) 
worms?” He has none. Neither has he 
a net or bread crumbs to tempt them. This 
is what our experienced angler does. He 
looks the ground over carefully and finally 
discovers in just the right locality, neither 
too damp or too dry, a rotting log. A blow 
with the hatchet and he reaches what he 
seeks, the pine borer, nesting in winter 
quarters, quietly preparing for its summer 
campaign against dry timber wherever 
found. 
O UR fisherman rapidly removes a quan¬ 
tity of these strange creatures, puts 
them into his bait box and goes back 
to the brookside. He inserts a black linen 
thread loop into the eye of a “rninnie hook,” 
cuts a slender sapling for a rod, baits up 
with a morsel of borer and casts into the 
pool. Instantly there is a commotion and 
every little starving fellow is after that 
dainty bit of food just as he would be in 
August. Out come the little dace, one by 
one, from three to five inches long, and the 
small, covered pail is soon well filled. 
So, off again goes the happy sportsman, 
now “well heeled” for future victories. He 
selects a location on the sunny side of an 
island in the middle of the pond away from 
the cutting north wind, where pickerel 
often took his spoon and bait last sum¬ 
mer. The island is the fall hunting camp 
of a friend, and he searches in the secret 
cache until an ice chisel is unearthed, hav¬ 
ing a stout handle four feet in length. 
With this he goes to work upon the thick, 
icy covering, which he has previously 
cleared of all snow, cutting a circular hole 
about eight inches in diameter down to 
the clear water below. 
G ETTING down upon hands and knees 
and somewhat shading his eyes, he 
can see many perch swimming about, 
but no pickerel. This is the first disap¬ 
pointment of the day, but even this con¬ 
dition may be overcome by care and skill. 
Minnows are too costly a bait to be wasted 
upon such beggars, he thinks. He must get 
rid of them all somehow. But first try a 
dace and perhaps a great pickerel may be 
attracted by the novel visitor to his realm. 
A “tip-up” is then arranged over the hole 
with a red bandanna tied at the signal 
end. The little brook captive is quietly let 
down into the depth. There is no bite 
felt. So the angler goes to work with the 
chisel a little further around the island near 
a point of land, where the big ones may be 
wintering. 
Suddenly the red flag waves wildly in the 
air and he rushes to see what luck. In 
comes a big fat yellow perch, fast held, 
that would make a breakfast for a city 
man. That settles it. There will be plenty 
of pan fish for dinner at the farm, any¬ 
way. But he wants two or three big pick¬ 
erel for the Sunday baked fish dinner and 
to “top off” the string with. He knows just 
how to get them out of those two holes— 
if they are there at all. Of course those 
perch must all be fed or caught out before 
the brook fish can have any chance to at¬ 
tract the Messrs. Pickerel as a novelty. 
These gentlemen are absolutely satiated 
with a perch diet and one or two of these 
small deer are now lying nice and quiet in 
their voracious maws. “But,” the inex¬ 
perienced will exclaim, “how can this plan 
be carried out without exhausting our 
friend’s little store of borers and minnows?” 
Now, no Indian or the descendant of an 
Indian would have asked such a question. 
He would know how to meet that very 
simple problem. That would have been a 
part of his “college education.” It would 
have been explained to him time and again 
by his father or he would have learned if 
from the conversations of the old men 
around the lodge fires. 
The angler simply removes with his sharp 
pocket knife one of that perch’s large bril¬ 
liant eyes, first killing the fish with a stroke 
of the knife across the backbone; puts the 
eye on the hook and drops in, whereupon 
another perch instantly takes, and is 
promptly brought out and thrown over with 
his comrade. 
One after another come out the yellow 
denizens of the clear water, until a pile 
of thirty or forty, some weighing more 
than a pound, lie flapping at a safe distance 
from the hole. Finally, there are no more 
responses from below. The perch have 
been exhausted. Following a mere whim, 
as anglers often do, a belly fin is cut from 
a small perch and put on the hook. Things 
remain quiet and work is resumed at the 
second hole, as there seem to be no large 
fish at the other one. The eye bait is now 
being tried at the new opening but with 
no success. Then again a rush must be 
made after the bandanna line and after a 
smart struggle up comes—what? another 
perch? no, indeed; but a great, handsome, 
speckled trout, a big brook one, too, weigh¬ 
ing more than two pounds at that. Our 
sportsman well knows the law against tak¬ 
ing these beauties through the ice, and with 
much regret returns him to the lake. He 
was ignorant of the presence of such fish 
there and now knows that the State has 
been stocking these waters. Then follow 
one or two more smaller trout. He re¬ 
turns them both, and then decides to make 
a final throw for a big pickerel, as the short 
afternoon is waning and the sun is getting 
low. “They may be hungry now that I 
have gotten all their food out, or perhaps 
a pair of big ones will happen along, just 
for luck,” he says. 
The point hole line is felt and a small 
perch is coming out, when with a rush 
some enormous object “makes a grab” for 
it, and then lets go after feeling the hook 
