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
[Illustration: NORTHERN PICKEREL--_Esox lucioides_.]
[Illustration: THE PICKEREL--_Esox reticulatus_.]
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.
[Illustration: YELLOW PERCH.--(_Perca flavescens_)]
[Illustration: PIKE-PERCH--THE WALL-EYED PIKE--_Lucio perca_.]