Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1891 — HERE’S A FISH STORY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HERE’S A FISH STORY.

} A TALE RELATED BY WISCONSIN FARMERS. The Great Pickerel of Twin Lakes and How He Was Finally Shotcuted—A Place Where . Very Large Between the Eyes—Fanner Bundy and a Festive Pickerel. Biggest of the Season. Ti e Twin Lakes of Wisconsin lie eighty miles west of Chicago. On the wes; shore of the smaller lake and within a stone’s throw of a field of w i d rice ana wild celery is a ridge, and upon this ridge was the recent home of a camping party. The spot is one where legends grow large between the eyes. .Every night, when the moon was painting a luminous j athway n; on the lake, farmers in hickorv sh rt< and hats that had been drawn to a i eak at tho crown ■would tramp over the ridge and sit dawn by the camp fire and talk about these legends which not only relate to the fish in the lake’ but to the things that fly over the lake. One of the farmers’ stories, according to a writer in America, of the lower lake is associated with a pickerel. And when it is told by the farmers, who have now finished their harvesting, they roll their eyes and expectorate with a vehemence that Is calculated to carry conviction to the mind of every listener. The other legend relates to a mosquito of enormous size and strength, and an insect of fiendish pertinacity when engaged in his business Farmer Bundy carries the pickerel legend back to the time of the war, when he was a boy in the house just over the crest of a yellow s*ubble-field. One winter's night he was spearing fish through the ice, when of a sudden he heard a snort, and then, before he could lift his spear, a pickerel of enormous size seized him by the foot and tore the loose overshoe away. An instant later

the fish darted beneath the ice and was’ not seen again until 1869, as the legend runs, when Farmer Vosburg caught him and landed him in a boat. It was a strong pull, for tho fish, even at that day, weighed as much as Farmer Vosburg’s eldest child. The hook was wrenched from the b'eeding gills, and the sturdy fi-herman was about to hit the fish in the head with an oar, when he suddenly attacked his captor and knocked him into the stern sheets with one swish of his tail. V hen the farmer rounded to, the pickerel was out of the boat and cutting water ten yards away liko the blade of a knife. His dorsal I n. it is now recorded, looked like a sa 1 set bofore a spanking breeze. Troubled not only by his misfortune in losing so great a fish, Farmer Vosburg set up a Cry of dismay when he baheld that his watch and chain were gone. It was an o d fashioned chain, for it encircled his neck an 1 fell in two loops into the ; ocket pf his velvet vest. There was no doubt that this pickerel was tho one Fa: mor Bundy saw six years before, for the overshoe, with its rusty buckle, was finn y wiapped about the middle of the fish This discovery caused much comment in farmers’ households on both • sides of the lake. Everybody was perplexed. It was finally agreed that the pickerel had run his long snout through the opening of the shoe, and then through the loop mace by the buckles and flap. From 1869 until 1874 nothing more was seen of the pickerel. J\ow and then fishermen casting for bass in tho wild celery would, revive the story by reporting the rush of an enormous fish at their hooks and the scraping of a dorsal fin on the keel of their boats. Cnee it was told that a pickerel with a head as long as a sexton’s spade and a body which was fully the length of the rotting posts of the old bridge, had been seen plunging along the surface of the water with a noise that sounded like the exhaust of an engine in a saw mill. One day in 1886 Farmer Mader drove his horse and wagon Into the lake to wash them. He was scrubbing the spokes of the wheels preparatory to going to the annual “trot” at Richmond, when he heard a mightly splash. He threw up his hands in amazement, for before his bulging eyes was the great fish tearing the harness oil the plunging horse. The bridle

snapped. There was a jingle as the bit was yanked from the jaws of the animal. The cheek-rein parted and followed the glistening buckles and rings as they shot into the water behind the black tin of the fish. Farmer Mader gave the alarm the country round, and within two hours an expedition was formed to capture this mammoth pickerel. But the search, careful and alluring as it was, proved of no avail. Tho story of the great fish of the lower lake was tl e subject of common talk for a month or more, and then it was referred to only when strangers

asked to have ft told to them. There* was something gruesome about the antics of this wonderful pickerel which was always and vaguely referred to as “the-big fish.” It plainly differed from the rest of the fish in the lake. Some persons went so far as to say that he “hollered” on certain nights, and these nights, it *was further claimed, were when the mcon was at its full. It was even sa’d that the great fish was amphibious; that he came to shore from .time to time and walked about on short, squatty legs, and that when he was of

an observing turn of mind he would rear himself up in the water and sweep the country with a pair of flaming or phosphorescent eyes. Ono day in 1889 a party of Rockford men, camping at Hickory Point, were using a hoopskirt wrapped in,mosquito netting in catching m nnows in the shallow channel which connects the two lakes, when they felt a vicious tug and then their contrivance darted from their grasp and was not seen again. Of course, “the big fish” was held responsible for this theft, as also for the loss of a leathern band and a brass bell which had been ruthlessly torn from a cow as she was'drinking water from the lake.

During the fall of 1890 fishermen on the lower lake reported having heard strange noises in and above the water, sometimes like tho muffled tolling of a bell and then again like the upsetting ot a panful of silverware. One man, who was on the lake at night, said the noises ho heard sounded like a charivari. The source of all these sounds was a mystery. Finally Farmer Vosburg, who knows mor? about the lake than anybody, made up his mind to discover the cause of the disturbance. Ono evening when the air was still he put out in a boat with a shotgun. His cruise lay along the west shore. Ho had been out but an hour when ho heard a splash, the clang of a bell and the tintinnabulation of other metallic substances. He knew he was in the wake of “tho big fish,” for no other fish could compare with tho monster ahead of him. Putting all his strength to his oars Farmer Vosburg mado chase. Of a sudden “the big fish” raised again, and for the second time the bell rang distinctly and, there camo the same metallic jingle Farmer Vosburg is a fine shot. He can shoot the heads off chickens at 200 yards. When ho fired at “tho big fish” there was a grunt which was almost human and blood began to stain tho waters. “Tho big fish” had been killed. His head was in shnds and his white belly was turned up to the rising moon. Farmer Vosburg hauled the monster into tho boat. If ho had doubted tho identity of the fish, that doubt was dispelled when he beheld Farmer Bundy’s overshoe still about tho middle of the leviathan. Then, too, tho fish was firmly entangled in the hoopskirt net of tho Rockford encampment, while from gills to tall he was girdled with tho straps of Farmer Mader’s harness Around the dorsal fin and belly was the leathern band and brass

bell; but stranger than all to the gaping farmer was the discovery of his watch in a sort of pocket in tho side of the fish which, doubtless, was cut with a spear years and years ago. The timepiece was intact. Even the crystal had not been shattered. The watch had stopped at 1:03. That was tho price at which Farmer Vosburg had sold his wheat three days before

TELLING A LEGEND.

TEARING OFF THE HARNESS.

A FINE SHOT.

THE BIG PICKEREL.