The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1930-07-10

results, some of the lakes now
fairly teeming with bass.
Here is a sample of some of the
rash, ill-timed statements that Mr.
Surber will make. He says: 1.-THE
fact is that the largest muskellunge
on record does. not equal, or any
where near equal the size attained
by the great northern pike either
in North America or in European
and Asiatic waters. It has been
claimed that muskellunge have
been taken of a weight of eighty
pounds, but there is no authentic
record of such having been the
fact. On the other hand there is
an authentic record of great
northern pickerel, jackfish or pike
having been taken at Bregenty in
1862 which tipped the scales at 145
pounds, yet no European naturalist
describes this fish as distinctive
species or even variety of the
common pike" So much of what
Mr.. Surber calls IAN authentic rec
ord" which is nothing but so much
boSh and hear-say.
Some years ago I made intense
efforts of track down some of
these wind-jamming European stor-
les of big pike and was unable in
any instance in any way to verify
one of them as having any founda-
ton in fact. Mr.. Surber has read
OF this supposedly authentic re-
cord" and simply passes it on, al
though when called to produce the
proof he will find himself stumped
and with hands tied. The very
European naturalists that he COM
pliments for their shortcomings in
failing to study their fish compre-
hensively making species and sub
species of them, also failed to de-
scribe the fish, which, of course in
the eye-sight of Mr.. Surber was
something laudable, whereas it is
nothing save utter Indifference and
even ignorance. Had tremendous
outstanding fish of the sort been
caught in America it would have
been measured as to length and
girth, it's color, number of scales in
the lateral line, squamation of the
checks, number of rays in the gill
covers, etc ETC., ali, these things
would have been set down in black
and white-and that would have
been done even as early as 1924 in
this country.
Mr.. Surber's statement that no
musky has been caught that ever
equaled' the pike as to weight is
met by the request that he show
one authentic instance. of an hon
est-to-goodness pike, caught in this
country equal in weight to the
fiifty-three pound, prize-winning
Field and Stream" musky caught
in the Lake of the Woods last sum-
mer. He cannot show any anthem
tic pike of forty pounds on record
although I do note that later on he
reflects that many of our north
ern lakes produce on oldtime type
pickerel that reaches a weight of
upwards to forty pounds" It has
been my pet ambition to meet up
with thirty or thirty-five pound
er, but three years of patient, ex-
haustive fishing in the best of wat
ers in the country have failed to
produce this fish for me which it
has been my ambition to add to the
Smithsonian collection of fishes in
Washington. In fact, trip I have
just completed in the Lake of the
Woods region was mainly quest
for that one great northern pike
of outstanding weight. Undoubted-
ly there are some thirty Founders
in the Lake Of the Woods region,
but my contact with. commercial
fishermen who have seined most of
the lakes in the region Of Lake of
the Woods and waters in close prox-
unity have failed to lend much en-
couragement to the possibility of
landing that fish. actually believe
that as large if not larger great
northern pike exist in the lakes of
the Park Rapids region than any,
where in America.
We may round out Mr.. Surber's
argument with display of his
trump card. It follows:
"The young of all the pike fam
lily to which the so-called muskel-
lunge and the northern pike, pick
erel or jackfish belong, cannot be
distinguished apart, either by the