But the regular game fish of the Upper Mississippi, are the muskalounge, pike, black bass, and trout; and of these it always affords me unfeigned pleasure to discourse. The two former varieties are so nearly alike in appearance and habits that I am disposed to speak of them as one and the same thing. Formerly I entertained the opinion that a muskalounge was only an overgrown pike, but within the past year I have compared them together, and am convinced that they are materially different. Their habits, however, are precisely alike. They are exceedingly abundant in the sluggish waters of the Mississippi, and vary from five to fifty pounds in weight. They are in season about nine months of the year, but in the spring, at which time they ascend the river to spawn, are in their prime. It is well known that these fish are bold biters; but the pike is unquestionably the most active and cunning of the two, and consequently the most valuable to the angler. The muskalounge is somewhat of a sluggard, and owing to his size and hyena-like character, the very fish of all others for spearing by torchlight. The handsomest pike I ever had the pleasure of capturing was a resident of Lake Pepin. I was sauntering along the base of one of the rocky bluffs of this beautiful sheet of water, and had spent most of the day without success, trying to take a trout with a mammoth fly. I had, thrown out my line for the last time, when, as I was carelessly winding it up, I was astonished by a sudden leap within twenty feet of me and in a moment more it was whizzing through the water
Torchlight Frontiers to Be Launched on Steam as Torchlight III This Summer
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