American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-01-23
The Danbury Man As a Fisherman.

BAILEY, who is still travelling in Eu-
rope, has discovered that Aberdeen is IA
great place for fish, and writes to his
paper in the following strain:
Aberdeen is largely interested in
fisheries, fact that is impressed upon
the visitor very soon after his ARRIVAL.
But to see the fisheries in their full ex-
tent he must go down to the water. In
| the season the fish neighborhood is
busy and loud-smelling place. | take
great interest in such matters. We are
always the most concerned about that
which we understand the least. Besides,
like to see fish caught in quantities, a
pleasure l was denied when was flsh
erman; and again l am interested IN
knowing how enormous quantities OF hsh
are handled without smothering the
neighbors. When l was boy | was
passionately fond of fishing, and have
frequently sat for hours on a damp bank
waiting for a bite. About shutdown L
could be seen approaching home with
very depressed and sick-looking fish on
the end OF. two yards of string
rarely had more than one fish, but
managed to become SO imbued with that
single fish as to smell as if l caught a
ton of them My parents could never
look upon this phenomenon as being
other than a malicious deception on my
part And little brother with better
nose than heart used to declare that II
he had to sleep with me he would run
away and be a corsair.
A good corsair gets about $40 a day
and his board, understand.
The fish l used to carry home on the
end of two yards of string were general
ly about two and a half inches long Inc
reflection that weighed heavily upon me
all the way home was the fact that tne
fish had to be cleaned before L could
dispose of it, and that l had to clean IL.
This finally inspired me with dislike
to nv prey and led me to wonder why
fish were provided with insides and
scales. On reaching home and dIsposlnS
of a cold supper l hunted up clean
board got the largest knife to be found
in the house and began the task in the
kitchen by the light of kerosene lamp
First [ went to work at the scales holu,
ing on to the tail until that gave out, ana
then catching hold of the body until the
tension caused the fish to burst open
and spill all over me. Sometimes inc
fish would slip into the sink, but more
frequently on the floor. AT the eNplra-
ton of Il quarter of an hour l had re.
moved some fifteen scales, ten OF
which were up my sleeve anu
the others on my nose, being trans
ferred from my hand to that feature
while engaged in rubbing my eye, which
invariably itched upon such an occasion
About this time my mother would make
her appearance, and just in time to see
the kerosene lamp narrowly escape gong
over the floor. With the help of a par
of tongs | was induced to transfer my
operations to the back yard and continue
them in the starlight. Here L would
struggle with the contrary and cAaspcr-
ating fish for IA full hour, at the end or
which time | had screwed OIL its head,
and wrenched away its tail, and made its
body look like Lazarus shirt. The next
morning an hour would be lost in pre-
vailing upon the hired girl to smuggle my
fish into the fryingpan, and it eventually
came to the table an inch long, and look
ing SO insignificant that my father quite
frequently took it down by accident, and
didn't find out the error until the spare
scales got in his windpipe and threatened
to strangle him.