Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1891 — BUT IT WAS SPORT. [ARTICLE]

BUT IT WAS SPORT.

A Writer In Fcreit and Stream Tell* el His Bass Fishing. With a fly-rod, a multiplying re*l, a small braided silk line, a gut leader, and a small hook, which, if of good quality, I found superior to large ones, even for large bass—l cast a crawfish under the shadow of a bush on the opposite side of the stream. When the bait had sunk a few inches I saw the graceful form of a bass as he gently rose, took it in his mouth, and disappeared. I did not feel him at the end of my line, and yet, in another sense, I felt that he was there. Waiting a moment for him to swallow the bait, I gave a sudden jerk and had him hooked. Then the tight commenced, and I knew that he was a big fellow. For a long time I did hot see him. He went low down and staid there. The bass on my hook was not alarmed as yet. That was a good bait, and he was resolved to keep it, though it must have occurred to him that it was wonderfully strong and was making most frantic efforts to get away from him. He was mad, he sulked. But presently he seemed to get scared. A thought suddenly struck him that he had better try to get away from that fish. There must be something dangerous back of it. He reared, he blunged. My reel hummed as he went off down stream. After a little I checked him, and he started back, and it was well that my reel multiplied, or I would have had too much line on my hands. My bass got wild and frantic. I got him close enough to the top to see him now. He made some beautiful leaps, three or four fee.t above the water, but I held a taut line. After a half hour of plunging he was tired and sick. He only resisted by his weight and I was dragging him to within reach of my dip-net. I had gotten him in shallow water w'hen he made his last desperate and splendid effort for his life. Sticking his head out of the water he opened his mouth to its fullest extent, and with a savage jerk he disgorged the whole contents of his stomach, and sent minnows, crawfish, bugs, flies—or rather their remains—flying for yards in all directions—a pint or more—the earnings of a whole morning’s vigilant voracity. He hated to give them up, but he had swallowed the hook and he knew that the trouble was there.

He did not disengage the hook, but when he made that sturdy jerk in the air my line snapped just above the hook —it had become rotten in the few days since I had used it, and I had foolishly failed to test it thoroughly. But I had not expected such fish. I felt very weak “about the gills. ” I sat down and rested. That fish “grew upon me. ” The more I meditated upon him and the way he had r ought me the larger he became in my eyes. That last time he opened his jaws was very vivid, it seemed to me I could have gotten my head into his mouth. “At the very least,” said I, “he was i seven-pounder.” But I did not long sit thus. Breaking off the rotten end of my line I rigged up again. After some little casting I hooked another baas, and my former experiences were repeated, with the exception of the last feature. I landed him and he weighed 41 pounds. During the day, varying my bait between live minnows and crawfish and casting them into promising spots under the bushes, I killed eight black bass ranging in weight from 2 to 4£ pounds. And the crowning and most exquisite satisfaction of the whole lay’s sport was that one of the fish L killed was the same one that I had first hooked and lost. My hook with gut attached was still sticking in his gullet. He was a buck, but only weighed 3J pounds. ■ For weeks afterward I ruminated with delight over the events of that day, and still have an agreeable picture impressed upon my brain of the brpnze and old gold sides of a magnificent bass glinting in the sun as he ■ose like a cork through the nile-green -vater under the green bushes and seized my hook —and theta the heroic struggle.