Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1913 — Lots in a Name When It Comes to Size of Fish. [ARTICLE]

Lots in a Name When It Comes to Size of Fish.

Joe Luers does not claim to be an expert in piscatorial science and when he told The Republican reporter a few days ago that his brother, Arnold, had caught a bass that weighed 9 pounds after it was dressed he was in dead earnest. The reporter being a credulous sort of fellow accepted the story as gospel truth, because of Joe’s reputation for veracity, but when Harry Parker headed a delegation of indignant river rats to our sanctum and demanded a retraction it was up to us to question Joe a little - morf closely. The telephone was brought into use and Joe admitted instanter that he was not certain about the classification of the fish, but that he had accepted the statement of others that it was a bass. He said it was good eating and that was as far as he cared to vouch. Joe admitted that the fish may have been a carp or a buffalo or somthing else, but drew the line oh its being a dogfish. The committee that proposed to hang the reporter refused ito leave the office until it was definitely determined that' there was no longer a claim that it was a bass, and Chairman Parker explained that a sporting house in Chicago made a window exhibit of a taxidermized bass that had weighed 7% pounds and which was Claimed to be the largest bass ever caught in northern waters. He ventured a guess that a 9 pound bass would bring S3OO from the sporting goods house. Henry Hague, another member of the fishing party was frank to say that the name bass was not correctly applied to the big fish landed by Arnold, and the well meaning reporter has backed clear off into the river and the next time he prints a 9-pound bass story he will have to see the fish with his own eyes.