The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-12-22
Some Choice Fish Stories.


''I've been up in Oregon salmon fish
ing" sportsman remarked, land it s
the coming country, not alone for its
game but for the settler. The country
is rich with game. Even the pigs 90
a-lishing."
Time, " some one called out.
ut fact, the speaker asserted
warmly, land | can prove it. | was
polling up the Columbia River one after
noon, taking it easy, when | noticed q
drove OF pigs wade down into the
stream just below the canning factory,
and, thinking it IAN amusing sight to see
a pig swim, drew nearer and soon
found that they were in water three feet
deep. All at once down they went. |
thought at first that some big fish had
grabbed them, but in minute up came
a porker holding big salmon head in
its mouth. Another had an entire fish
and in short time all brought up their
fish"
"You didn't see them catch = live
salmon?'
mo" was the reply, 81 draw the
line there; but dive and swim under
water they did, and learned it was a
common practice"
''In two thousand years, an evolu-
zionist interrupted, ''you will find those
pigs with webbed feet and scales in
stead of hairs, and catching live fish is
only matter of time. That's the way
the whales got, in the wav of going to
sea. They were originally land ami
mails, and finally by sta ing in the
water so much they lost the use of their
limbsa-ld SO took to the sea entirely.
If you don't believe it cut up whale,
and you'll find the remains of pelvis
and rudimentary hind limbs" .
Speaking of fishing" the teller of
the pig yarn said, Oregon is the place;
look at the business they do in. salmon
canning. There are thousands of per-
sons more or less interested, and when
you count the can makers, packers,
catchers, net makers, cleaners, middle
men, etc, they foot up small army
that derive their living directly from
this fish. Last year the pack of the
Columbia River catch alone amounted
to more than half a million cases, that
to the first hands brought $3,O00,0O
and this didn include the salmon that
are barreled. Where do they 90?
Why, all over the world Vessels
come to Astoria, and last season they
took $4,000 cans to foreign ports, the
balance go to Frisco. The capital in
vested in canning alone amounts to
nearly S3,000,000.
''On my way north in the stage we
crossed a river so thick with large
trout-like fish that in wading the wheels
killed hundreds of them. The water
appeared absolutely solid. l never
saw such sight in my life. They
went jumping along as if they were
forced out of the water"
1--WE seen the same thing South, "
another of the group said. ''Last sea-
son l was in Southern Florida, and,
putting up New River above Miami, we
ran into a school of large fish, that, as
regards numbers, beat anything that
| ever saw. The water was actually
packed solid with them, and it being
very shoal we literally sailed in shoal
of fish. As we gathered Roadway they
jumped into the air by thousands,
jumping over the boat that we towed
astern, and several falling into it, so
that instead of fishing the fish came to
us. A still more remarkable case oc-
Cured to well-known archeologist
who spends his winters in Florida
waters. He was making up a
river under good Roadway when
he struck a school of pompinos, so
solid that the yacht fairly knocked
them out of water, and when once
alarmed there commenced the most ex-
traordinary scene. The pompinos be-
gan to jump, leaving the water as if
shot out of a gun, and flying away for
a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet,
landing on their sides and Swimming
away for ten or fifteen feet more They
went in every direction over the yacht
at the crew, who had to dodge and lie
fiat to keep out of the way, as a blow
from one would have laid man like a
shot. They struck against the sail and
fell on the deck in great quantities.
Many fish have similar habit when
alarmed, and | knew of a case where 4
lady was reading in her cabin when d
flying fish came whizzing through the
port and smashed the globe into hun
bred pieces, frightening her almost to
death. In Eastern seas the gar fish
are extremely dangerous; they attain a
length of four or five feet, and rush out
of the water at the slightest alarm and
90 laundering away over the water in
blind sort of. way. If a native OF
any one happens to intercept them he
is generally run through as if with a
knife. A Captain of an East Indiaman
told me of a sight that he witnessed al
the Aru Islands, He was on the reel
with native, the former carrying a
shield made of some hard but light
wood, and twice during an hour the
man caught a gar on it that would 9th
erwise have struck him. He merely
presented the shield, and they hit il
with a sounding crack and fell back
into the water, sort of firing themselve.
at a mark. IN y san.
A Bachelors Devise.