“Suppose we take a hack at both,” suggested Dick.  “I’ll get out the spoon bait and try for pike and pickerel.  You and Bert can use the live bait and see what luck you have with the bass.”

A careful search revealed the canoe, so cunningly hidden by its owner under a heap of brush and sedge-grass, that only the explicit directions they had received enabled them to find it.  It was in good condition, about eighteen feet in length and two paddles lay in the bottom.  Tom got in, pushed off from the shore, and with deft strokes brought the slender craft down to where his friends were waiting.

Bert eyed the frail boat dubiously.

“A canoe is a dandy thing for cruising in, especially if you want to get somewhere in a hurry, but it was never meant for a fishing party,” he commented.  “We’d have to be so careful in moving about that we couldn’t keep our mind on the sport.  You couldn’t play a bass from one without danger of upsetting.  I tell you what we’d better do.  Let one of us fish from the shore for bass, while the two others in the canoe troll for pickerel.  Two lines can be put out over the stern and one can paddle gently while the other keeps a sharp eye on the lines.  Between us all we ought to get a mess in less than no time.  We’ll toss up to see which shall do the lonesome act while the others use the canoe.  At noontime we’ll have a fish fry right here on the shore to help us out with the lunch.  The one who catches the first fish gets out of doing any of the work.  The one who gets the next will have to do the cooking and the one that trails in last will have to clean the fish.  What do you say?”

There was no dissenting voice, and the spinning coin decreed that Tom and Dick should do the trolling, while Bert remained on shore and tried for bass.

With the polished spoons twinkling in the water behind, the canoe shot out to the center of the lake.  Bert carefully baited his hook and cast it far out from shore.  Then, with the happy optimism of the average fisherman, he settled back and waited for results.

Contrary to the usual experience, those results were not long in coming.  Tom was the first to score.  The spoon at the end of his line dipped violently, and, hauling it in rapidly, he yanked in a big pickerel.  He did not dare to shout, for fear of scaring the wary denizens of the lake, but he held it up for Bert to see, and the latter responded with a wave of the hand in congratulation.

The next instant he had to grab his own rod with both hands, while the cord whistled out over the reel.  He had made a “strike,” and the frantic plunges at the other end of the line told that he had hooked a fighter.  Back and forth he darted, until it seemed as though the slender rod would break under the strain.  Bert’s fighting blood responded to the challenge, and he played his opponent with all the skill and judgment in which he was a past master.  It was fully ten minutes before, carefully shortening his line, he was able to land on the bank a magnificent striped bass.