Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1873 — Catching Squirrels on a Fish-Hook. [ARTICLE]

Catching Squirrels on a Fish-Hook.

I have eaught with a hook and line nearly all kinds of fish, besides turtles, frogs, ducks and other fowl; but yesterday, while fishing for trout in the Wellingley brook, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, I discovered a new field of sport. While I had just taken out a splendid trout from under a rock, and was about baiting my hook, I saw a good-sized squirrel jump upon the rock. My pole was of good length, and I improved the opportunity by placing the hook near his head.At first he brushed it away with his paw; but after a while, either out of spite or for love of the sport, made a jump and took the hook in his mouth. At that moment I “drew upon him,” and soon saw him dangling twenty feet in the air. Such a dancing and climbing up the line and then down the pole, was a lesson to common fish. I finally, laid the pole on ground, and then came a series of gyrations and various antics. Not being acquainted with that kind of fish, and fearing that an attempt to disengage the hook would be bad for Xthe fingers, I shouldered my fish-pole and marched to the blacksmith-shpp near by, where, with the aid of two assistants and a pair of blacksmith’s tongs, the hook was detached and the fellow set at liberty. Not three min. utes after, however, he was capering along the fence as if nothing had happened.—Cor. Boston Journal.