The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-01-16
GARFISH OF TUG RIVER
SN1RY, PIRITIC1L FISH THAT
 MAKE STRANGE JOURNEYS.
Trouble They Cause to AngIers-A Ven- geance Inflicted With Dynamite -- Queer Places In Which They Turn up-SuperstltiomsA About Them.

|
 up-SuperstitionsA About Them.
 Tt was on the Tug river that I first
 got acquainted with the garfish and his
 ways" said l.. C.. Willetts, a civil en-
 gineer, whose business takes him into
 various -of-the-way regions. "Of
 course, you don't know anything about
 the Tug river, and it is a chance if ever you heard it's name before; yet is is a
 considerable river navigable for steam- boats for a hundred miles above it's
 mouth. It is tributary of the Ohio,
 and for the most of its course it forms I, the dividing line between West Virginia
 and Kentucky. Its upper waters are in
 the Hatfield Mccoy region, where there : isn't great deal to eat and the people i discourage the visits of strangers--so
 the river has never become much
 known to the outside world went into
 the country with a passport, so to
 speak, in the form of introductions and
 companion influential among the na- tives, who vouched for me that I was
 neither a sheriff nor a revenue officer.
 So I was permitted to cross the dead line, which a stranger crosses at risk of his life, and was tolerated if not well | comed into the community, being shot | at only twice in the course of a sum-
 mer and autumn along the river, which
 Is very low average for that country. There are fine black bass in the Tug river and catfish in great variety black-cat, blue-cat, yelloW-cat, mud cat, and plain everyday catfish-but as
 the bottom is sandy there are no eels, and for lack of lily-pads and water
 grass there are no pickerel. In place of
 the eel and pickerel there is a garfish, which is composite of the two long, snaky, piratical monster with the body and motion of an eel and the color
 and markings of pickerel. The head
 suggests that of pickerel, but length
 ems out at the snoat into a pair of long,
 bony jaws like heron's bill, furnished
 round the edges with an array of keen,
 saw-like teeth. The garfish is fierce,
 hungry fellow, the terror of the other
 fish; he lies in the deep pools through
 the day and forages for food near the
 shore in the night time. There is one
 time in which he awakens into activity
 during the daylight--when the water is
 muddy, after rain or flood, Then the garfish circulates around in lively fash ion, being able to approach his prey un-
 seen as if in the darkness. Fish, frogs,
 water snakes, water moles, swimming squirrels and Hedging ducks-nothing that caen get at and get down his throat comes amiss to the garfsh. He is swift swimmer after his fashion, which is the wriggling one of the eel
 and his dart for prey is as ferocious as
 that of the pickerel, while far quicker
 "Gartsh were a great annoyance to me in my fishing on the river. Angling in deep pool just after rain with the bass and catfish biting sharply in the turbid water I would feel a strong, rushing jerk at the end of the line, and then heavy tug, tug, tug, such as sailor gives in pulling rope. Strain ing rod and tackle for all they were worth, I would slowly bring my prize to the surface. First would come in sight a pair of narrow, bill-like jaws, six or eight inches in length, with the end of my line leading into their recesses, showing where the hook and bait had gone; then a pair of wicked eyes, and behind them four or five feet of green ish, black barred, serpentine body writhing in and out of view in the mud dy water. So long as I xid not try to hit him from the water the garfsh would hang on to the bait and I could lay him at the surface: but let me try to raise him above the water, and the hook, having no hold in the jaws of -l s.1s and back the garfish would go into the depths, unhurt, and ready to take my bait again as often as I would put it within his reach. Every other fish | would get away as soon as the garfish came around, and I could take my choice of feeding him bait to the extent i of my supply or of reeling in my line | and going away. Once I made the ex- pertinent of leading a garfish to the siGe | of my boat and diping for him with a ! scoopnet. I took him head on, of ccUrse, and managed to get the biger part of | him into the net; but his head went straight through the moshes, his fine, sharp teeth saving the twine apart as if it had been basting- thread and his head was back in the water almost be- fore his til had left it. He was swim ming free before I had time to feel his weight, leaving me an empty net with ! hole in it that I could have put my foot through.
 After garfish had cheated me out of TWO or three afternoons sport I found way to circumvent them, and I think 1 avened up accounts with them and title better. I had been loath to do a hing so unsportmanslike as use dyna- mite but the conduct of garfish which followed to the surface a bass that l vas reeling in and snatched him from he hook decided me. Part of my duty IS engineer was the experimenting of 'ome blasting work not far from the 'iver, so I had the facilities at hand, md the next time I visited the fishing iools I took along a half dozen sticks # dynamite with the appliances of set Ing it off. In the largest pool I fired wo charges together, and minute af- CT the waters surface was covered with fish, dead or Hopping about half tunned, with ten garfish, small and ,reat, among them I made sure of the ,drfish first, as 1t was on their account !, hat I used the dynamite-but took in he bass and catfish as well. used the \ est of the dynamite in four other pools ; nd Killed in all twenty three earfish |