Chapter XV: Pickerel

In some remarkable and incomprehensible manner the good old name of Pike has fallen into disuse, and is now applied in this country to a fish that is not a pike at all, but a perch, _Lucio perca_, the Pike Perch, Big-eyed Pike, or Glass Eye of the Lakes; while the name Pickerel, which is merely the diminutive of Pike, is appropriated to the most gigantic and ferocious monsters of the deep. There is no fish whose appearance is more appalling, and whose appetite is more ravenous than the Great Northern Pickerel, which is alleged to attain a weight of twenty pounds, and which, in its fury, will pounce upon and swallow almost any small moving object. Nor does it much surpass the common pickerel of our ponds, which has very similar habits, and sometimes weighs as high as ten pounds.

The pickerel family, like most of the fish of America, have never been properly classified by the scientific, nor named by the vulgar. In fact, they, with the exception of the mascallonge, appear to have no specific names in common parlance, while naturalists have vague or no acquaintance with their peculiarities. Sportsmen and others speak of catching pickerel, whether it be in the St. Lawrence, Great Northern Pickerel, which seem to

have had no scientific designation till named by Agassiz _Esox Lucioides_ or on Long Island, _Esox Fasciatus_, or on our principal inland waters, _Esox Reticulatus_, or in some of the lakes of the Eastern States, where a fish is caught, of which Dr. De Kay, in his “Natural History of New York,” doubts the existence, and which Dr. Mitchill has dubbed the Federation Pike, _Esox Tredecemradiatus_. In truth, the distinction between the Mascallonge and the Great Northern Pickerel is scarcely visible even to the eye of science, and to the unlearned is marked only by a slight difference in the shape of the head and the coloring of the sides. The light tint is yellow in the pickerel and white in the mascallonge, while in the latter at times the sides have dark spots on a white ground instead of the dark network of the pickerel. It has even been doubted whether these fish are not identical, and the differences of size and color produced by local habits; but the views of all practical fishermen lean the other way, and they can at once distinguish the smallest mascallonge from the largest pickerel, although they are unable to point out the precise distinctive characteristics; while scientific men do make out that there is a difference in the number of the fin-rays. For the latter, however, although I have given the most careful attention that could be expected from an amateur, my enumeration differs from that of all others as they differ among themselves. My computation of the fin-rays gave--

Dorsal 18; Pectoral 16; Ventral 11; Anal 17; Caudal 24.

While according to Dr. Mitchill they were respectively, D. 21; P. 14; V. 11; A. 17; C. 26.

And according to Dr. De Kay--

D. 21; P. 13; V. 11; A. 21; C. 19-7/7.

And according to Professor Agassiz--

D. 22; P. 18; V. 13; A. 20; C. 26.

This, goes to show that either it is very difficult to count the fin-rays, or that they differ; to the latter of which suppositions my belief inclines, as I think the older the fish the more fin-rays are formed, or so hardened as to be perceptible.

The habits of this class of fish are as similar as their appearance, and whether you capture a tiny pickerel with your fly in some shallow Long Island water, or entrap the huge mascallonge with a treble hook half concealed beneath red flannel and shining tin, they rush with the same eagerness and grasp with the same determination. I amused myself one evening on Long Island in casting over a newly-made shallow pond with my ordinary trout cast of flies, and seeing the ferocity with which pickerel, varying from four to nine inches in length, would dart upon their anticipated prey.

All pickerel inhabit sluggish water, and abound among the long, grassy pickerel weed that thrives upon a muddy bottom. The St. Lawrence, where it winds amid the beautiful Thousand Isles and forms innumerable deep and quiet bays, is their favorite home. The water, flowing from the immense lakes and holding suspended the seeds of aquatic plants, is favorable to the growth of the pickerel weed, and is in every way suitable to the fish themselves. The latter, however, have great power, and can unquestionably stem a strong current, for no doubt they ascend the rapids of that mighty river, being found in the eddies; but they prefer quiet water, where they can lurk among the weeds, watching stealthily for their prey, or bask near the surface in the warm summer sun. Both mascallonge and pickerel abound in the innumerable lakes of Lower Canada, and are so abundant in addition to being almost tasteless, as to be unsalable for food.

In other waters pickerel are found in the summer months among the lily-pads, often in water scarcely deep enough to cover their backs. The federation pike I have never taken, except in some of the remote ponds of the wild woods of Cape Cod, near Sandwich and Wareham, especially in the Little Herring Pond. And although at the time I had no knowledge of the scientific distinctions of fish, I at once recognized the description which I saw for the first time afterward, but had often sought in vain among our works on ichthyology. All the pickerel family are readily distinguishable by their having but one dorsal, and that opposite the anal fin and near the tail, and the sportsman acquainted with one will readily recognize all the tribe.

There are many ways of capturing this fish, and he is not the least particular if he is offered anything that has the semblance of food. He may be trolled for with dead bait, generally a minnow, or better, a yellow perch, on a gang of hooks, or fished for with a live bait and a float, and he will readily take a frog, provided the latter shall not, as described in the “Angler’s Miseries,” have the intelligence to creep out upon a stone and watch the fisherman, while the latter watches his float; but the true way in open water is to fish for him with a spoon. The last is objected to as being too destructive; but as it is clean, requires no bait, and is little trouble, and as the fish are utterly worthless either for sport or the table, the sooner they are destroyed and replaced by nobler substitutes the better.

Among the water-lilies the only mode is to use a long, stiff rod and short line, loaded with one buck-shot about a foot from the hook, and baited either with a minnow, the belly of a yellow perch, or better than all, a slip of the skin of pork cut into something resembling a small fish. The latter never wears out, and can hardly be torn off, while it often is preferred to more natural food. The bait is dropped into the opening among the lily-pads, and sinking rapidly, by the weight of the shot, toward the bottom, is started up again by a twitch of the rod, and goes bobbing up and down till the pickerel, rendered frantic by such an absurd performance, can stand it no longer, and with one furious rush determines to end the gyrations of such a silly creature. Never wait for pickerel to gorge the bait, discard such old fogy notions, and by the aid of a strong rod and line, pull him out at once. At least one-half the time fish eject the bait instead of swallowing it, and no one who has ever eaten pork can question their taste. Waiting five or ten minutes, or till they make two or three runs, will not do in our rapid country. I have seen fish that were corpulent with over-feeding, and surrounded by their favorite food, young herring, taken by a piece of themselves being spun in this manner, when they would touch no other bait.

But the most wonderful mode of all is that practised in the St. Lawrence, and generally among the larger waters of Canada and the northern States. The fisherman places himself in the stern of a light canoe-shaped boat, with his face forward, the oarsman sits near the bows, of course facing aft; on each side of the fisherman are pegs like row-locks, or grooves, in the gunwale, with corresponding round holes in the stretchers on the opposite sides; two short, stiff rods are laid across the boat, projecting on each side like wings, kept in their places by the pegs, and their buts supported by the holes. A long line is let out from each rod, say forty yards, armed with a spoon bait; while the fisherman holds an ordinary trolling-line in his hand, and is thus rowed about till either he, or more frequently his oarsman, perceives from the bending of the rod that he has a bite, or he feels a dead drag on his hand-line. If it falls to the share of the rod, he takes the latter up, ends it round till he can reach the line, when he pulls the fish in by hand. If he uses a reel, it is a good plan to take one or two turns of the line round it, so that it will just render. By so doing he might save the rod from breaking, which would be apt to happen with a heavy fish. Mascallonge invariably stop perfectly still when struck.

In landing a fish by hand, which is always the preferable mode, the reel only being used for an emergency, hold the line very lightly between your fingers and give to every jerk or rush. Innumerable large fish are lost by an endeavor to pull them in by force, and I have seen men, with their hands cut by the line, complaining that they had lost a mascallonge of forty pounds. Pickerel never make many nor long-sustained rushes, but they give powerful jerks and flounces that, if resisted, will tear out or break any hook; otherwise, they can ordinarily be drawn through, or more properly over, the water like a wet rag. The person who pulls them in as though it was a question of strength between him and the fish, deserves to lose them and have his fingers cut besides. The moment, however, the fish is at the side of the skiff, he should be either gaffed or lifted over the gunwale at once, as more are lost then than at any other time. Their jaws are mere skin and bone, the skin tearing away at once, and the bone forming no substance in which the hook can imbed itself, the latter sometimes slips out or more frequently is broken off. If you value your fingers, never put them in a pickerel’s mouth or gills, which are armed with innumerable sharp and even venomous teeth. The best weather for trolling is a light, southwesterly breeze, and in large and deep waters a bright sky; in a heavy wind, it is impossible to manage the boat.

The hook should always be on wire or gimp, the former preferable as the latter is so rarely what it professes to be, and of course should be attached to the line by not less than two swivels. The best spoon is the so-called Buel’s patent, with three hooks, either in one piece, or soldered firmly together, and a small elliptical piece of tin, copper or brass, made to revolve round them by means of a shoulder on the shank. This may be tin on one side and red on the other, or copper and brass, or copper or brass alone, to suit the angler’s fancy, and the shank of the hooks is wound with scarlet flannel, or covered with the ibis feather, or left uncovered, as experience shall dictate. Bright spoons are preferable on dark days, and for mascallonge the oldest and most successful fishermen use no feathers or flannel. Avoid purchasing any spoon with small, dangling hooks, or with more than three or less than two, or with any fastening of any kind except wire or gimp. Nothing else will for a moment stand the terrible teeth of these ferocious monsters. I once had an expensive imitation pearl fish, that was fastened with thin brass wire, bitten off by the first pickerel that touched it. If you use a reel, you will of course use your ordinary bass line; if not, purchase a common stout hand-line, and troll with from forty to fifty yards out. Your trolling-rod must be short, stiff and strong, not over ten feet long, and can be readily made by adding a stout top to your but and second joint; while, for weed fishing, you must have a long, stiff rod, and when the fish are heavy and tangle themselves in the weeds, which their first rush will often do, you must reach your line and draw them out by hand; by taking hold of the wire or gimp, you can readily land a ten-pound fish.

These fish, both pickerel and mascallonge, can be captured in immense numbers in the St. Lawrence, at Cape Vincent, Clayton, Alexandria Bay and many other places; in Lake Champlain, near Rouse’s Point; and in all the lakes of Canada; but they are dull sport in the catching and poor food in the eating. Believe no one who boasts of the fine flavor of the mascallonge, cook him as you will, he is nothing but a dirty, flabby, tasteless pickerel. And as for the sport, carry a blanket with you, take a turn with the hand-line round your leg, and stretching yourselves as best you may in the bottom of the boat, sleep comfortably till either a call from your oarsman or a tug on your leg rouses you to the dreary work of pulling in a worthless, unresisting log. When you strike and lose one fish, remain rowing round and round; if he is not much hurt, he will bite again, and where there is one there are more; remain at that spot till, by passing over the ground once or twice without a strike, you are thoroughly satisfied you have exhausted the supply. There is sometimes great beauty of scenery, and if your guide has anything to say, which he rarely has, you can, as you should be able ever to do in the open air, enjoy yourself.

The mode of fishing among the pond lilies that I have described is much more exciting, requiring continued activity, some skill and no little judgment, while there is greater risk of losing your prey. To avoid the latter casualty, if the fish weigh not over four pounds, lift him out at once, and proceed in the same way with larger fish to the extent your rod will stand. As for snap-fishing, that is, using a hook so constructed as to spring open or shut the moment it feels the bite, and thus grasping the fish or imbedding an extra hook in his jaws, I have only tried it sufficiently to be disgusted with it, although probably it may work well in open water. If, however, it touches a weed, it will be sprung, and then you cannot catch a fish at all till it is reset. It was invented to avoid the hook’s coming out of the pickerel’s mouth, which, from the nature of the latter, it is apt to do, a difficulty which old, slow, poky, English puntfishers endeavor to remedy by allowing the pike or jack, as they call him, to gorge the bait. A pickerel, like a trout, rushes up, strikes his prey, and immediately returns with it to his haunt; he then ends it round, having generally struck it crosswise, and swallows it. This he takes much longer to do than a trout, and the English works on fishing direct you to wait five minutes or till he runs again, and then, by striking smartly, you can fix the hook into his gills or stomach, from which nothing but the knife will remove it. The disadvantage, however, is that the pickerel often eject instead of gorging the bait, and when the fisherman, having impatiently awaited his five minutes, comes to strike, he strikes naught but the thin water or the stem of a water lily. After a few such disgusting results, he will probably determine, as the writer has, to strike at once, unless, by one of those exceptional cases to all good rules, some peculiar difficulty forces him to proceed otherwise. The word spoon, that has been so frequently used, is derived from the use originally of the bowl of a pewter table-spoon, into one end of which was fastened three hooks, and into the other a swivel attached to the line, and which, by playing and flashing through the water, attracted the fish; the old-fashioned spoon is now out of use, and entirely superseded by Buel’s patent. Pickerel, especially the smaller varieties, will take a fly, but not very readily; and this can hardly be said to be an established mode of fishing for them.

There is another style of pickerel fishing which is amusing, to say the least of it, and is practised extensively throughout the State of New York. You take a small piece of flat board about nine inches across, and pass a stick through a hole bored in the centre so as to project above and below it; the lower end is then loaded, and to the upper is attached a line of some twenty or thirty feet, that is baited with either a live or dead minnow. The line is coiled on one side of the wood, and leaving sufficient end for the bait to sink to a proper depth is fastened slightly in a slit cut in the wood like the thread of a spool. As many as you please to use are then placed in the pond and left to fish while you row about or otherwise employ yourself. If a pickerel takes the bait, the line is jerked out of the cleft, and uncoiling, allows him to carry off and pouch the bait, but when he undertakes to move away he is hooked by the resistance of the wood against the water. The motion of the float can be seen from some distance, and it is quite interesting to chase one after another that go “bobbing around,” as fish after fish is hooked. A plan somewhat similar to this is described by Walton and other writers, and it is merely a modification of an old invention.

The best season for pickerel fishing is after the first of September, although they are taken at all times, including their spawning seasons of February, March and April, and are quite good, voracious and abundant in July and August. The English pike is reported to show an abstinence from food in Summer that our fish never exhibit, and, indeed, differs from ours in many particulars, and none more to his credit than his scarcity. In Summer our fish resort to the shallow water, as they are also said to do in their spawning season, and at both times they are shot or speared without mercy. In fact, the quick eye, ready hand and steady foot required for spearing renders it an exciting and reputable sport, worthy of, and often unattainable by, the best of us. In Winter, pickerel seek the warm, deep water, and are caught through a hole in the ice by a live bait on a hand line. This is said to be very exciting, provided a rude hut is built over the hole, and a fire made in the hut, end provided the fisherman, seated in a comfortable chair, provided with a book, a segar and a glass of hot punch, has an assistant to pull out the fish. It is alleged that these fish are, “during the height of the season,” brilliant and beautiful; if that is so with any, except the Long Island Pickerel and the Federation Pike, the height of the season must have been too high for me to reach.

The family of the _Esocidæ_ are truly typified by the voracious and terrible _Esox luceus_, wolf-fish, the true pike, from which they take their name, and include among their numbers the formidable Gar-pike, _Esox osseus_ of the Southern waters. Although their flesh is hardly fit for the table, they are universally abundant, and their capture affords that kind of pleasure always derived from taking many and large animals of any description.

The principal species known in this country are:

THE MASCALLONGE, _Esox Ester_.

THE NORTHERN PICKEREL, _Esox Lucioides_, both of which inhabit the great rivers and lakes of the North.

THE COMMON PICKEREL, _Esox Reticulatus_, of the middle and northern States.

THE LONG ISLAND PICKEREL, _Esox Fasciatus_.

THE WHITE PICKEREL, _Esox Vittatus_, of the West.

THE BLACK PICKEREL, _Esox Niger_, of Pennsylvania and of Saratoga Lake, New York, which Dr. De Kay presumes to be only the young of the common pickerel.

THE FEDERATION PIKE, _Esox Tredecem Radiatus_, of the eastern States.