Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-05-07
WALL-EYED PIKE
ARE CANN|BAlS
WHEN FRY GET TO BE LARGE
CIVIL WAR BEGINS BETWEEN
THEM AND OTHER FISH.

Inc Wall-eyed plke-Which re-
semble bass and are just as palatable,
are the cannibals of fishdom. When
the pike fry get to be large enough to
move about with ease, civil war begins
and the rate of determination is mea-
sured only by the gluttonous appetites
of the cOmbatants. When young
pike becomes hungry, he turns to his
nearest companion and proceeds to eat
him, taking a bite out of whichever
part he first touches. Activity of men
IN charge of, the Matching tanks does
not stop them, and the only way to
preserve the fry intact. Is to move
them to open waters where there is op-
portunity for escape or free-and-easy
room for an uninterrupted fight.
The female pike is the greatest pro-
fish in America. Large pike have been
taken from Minnesota streams and
lakes which produced one quart of
eggs. In this quart, there are ap-
proximately 100000 spawns Crews
sent out from the state fish hatcher
les catch the pike and strip the eggs
from them. Left undisturbed in their
native streams, the mother pike de-
posits her eggs nearly in the current,
and allows them to drift and lodge
where they will. In the Matching
tanks at a temperature of 4S degrees,
the eggs hatch in 10 to 20 days, and
by the time the little pike are IL to IA
days old, they playfully begin eating
each other. Then they are hurried
from the hatchery as rapidly as pos
sible. to their future homes in the
open waters.
BASS are not gathered till the fall"
said John Marty, foreman Of the state
fish hatchery at St. Paul. mo one
has yet found way to handle bass
spawn so they will develop. The bass
must be left undisturbed where the
and where the male may circulate
around in the waters, on guard. He Is
the faithful one. He is the most say
age Of all fish excepting the muskall-
onge, ard fight anything that comes
near the eggs he Is watching
The bass fry with which Minnesota
lakes are stocked are gathered from
sloughs along the Mississippi river
We take them when they are only
them with nets
and merely transplanting to the lakes
to be stocked The headwaters of the
Mississippi afford thousands Of these
little bass"
Minnesota is, fighting with all her
might to rid the inland waters of Ger
man carp and suckers. These are the
deadly enemies of game fish-not that
they are equal in a pitched battle, but
because either carp or sucker will
eat or mutilate million eggs Of the
game fish during the spawning season.
Having spent approximately three
quarters Of million dollars in main
her wonderful fishing oppor-
tunities, the state is natural enemy
of these egg-destroying species of fish
and has signed their death warrant.
Minnesota boasts of having the best
fishing lakes and streams of any state
in the union and the annual pilgrimage
to them each summer is becoming
greater. Not many years will 60 by
before the native waters Of America
will be "f1shed out" and the last of
this fine sport probably will be here
because Of the lakes in the big north
woods not yet reached by railroads
There are accessible places, however,
in the solitude of the woods. easily
reached now. which are not surpassed
by any game-1sh waters of America.