The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1902-08-15
HE WAS UNBELIEVING
STOREKEEPER REFUSED TO
CREDIT TALE OF FISHERMAN.
Squire Bundy's Pleasure In Landing
Fourteen-Pound Pike With a Line
Spoiled by the Unreasonableness OF
a Friend.


the catching of that pike" said Squire
Bundy, Sage Of the French Creek
Dead Waters, twas the a~ggravating
unreasonableness of Tom Agnew, who
keeps store over yonder in the vii
lage, and weighed the pike. My fam
lily had got fish hungry and said there
must be black bass for breakfast next
morning. So l picked up a pole and
line, jumped in my boat, and started
on: to get the bass.
Don't go and catch any Of those
great big ones, now, and only catch
two my wife said to me as l pulled
cut. Two three-pounders will be
plenty
Il said l would try to keep myself
down to two bass and though hated
to bother with three-pounders, I'd
draw the line this time at any over
that.
$50 I went to fishing. l had a
strike before I had crossed the foam
hale way. I saw when l felt him
strike that he wouldn't weigh more
than two pounds and a half, but it
vas getting dark pretty fast, and l
hadn't time to let him go and to fool
around for a three-pounder, SO | hook
ed him and landed him. l calculated
getting the other bass by the time
had crossed the boom, but l had to
stop my boat, for my hook struck
lVh0t C1ynnnCnH urQc a Cn0O Qnd |
stopped my boat.
Il hadn't stopped a second, though,
and felt of my line, when l knew it
wasn't a snag l had struck. There
was life at the other end of the line.
l thought at first it IA a pike, but
when a French Creek pike feels the
hook in it's jaw it comes out of the
water like a skyrocket, going up, and
as nothing of this kind occurred, l
concluded q mud turtle had snubbed
on to me. I didn't care to have a
mud turtle pull that line apart, go off
with my hook, and cheat me out of
that other bass l was going to get, 80
| coaxed him up toward the top.
He came along slow and easy and
when l got him to the top l saw l
had been fooled. It wasn't a mud
turtle, and I made a grab for the smell
that my hook was fastened to the
line with, got it, and with one sweep
landed a fourteen and a half pike in
the boat. He gave one turn over in
the bottom of the boat, and that little
move pulled the line in two like melt
ing snow. The only way I could &C.
count for that pike acting the way 1t
did when it got the hook was that 1t
discovered the rotten condition of
that line, and made up his mind
there wasn't any use of going to the
trouble of jumping out of the water to
free itself, but that it would just
come up to the top easy, let me see
what a beauty it was, and then witch
the line apart and go back, leaving me
to cuss my luck. But the pike hadn't
counted on me grabbing that smell.
well, of course, with that pike in
the boat it would be only a waste of
time and fish to get the other bass
l Intended to get, SO l quit fishing. l
rowed over and took the pike to Tom
Agnew's store to have it weighed, to
9 how near / had come to sizing it
up. Tom weighed the fish. It tip
ped the scales at fourteen and a half
pounds and mi ounce. After he had
weighed the pike and looked it over
and admired 1t, Tom asked me what |
had caught it on. l told him and
showed him the line. To show you
how aggravatingly unreasonable he
was. he looked at the line, and then at
me, and said:
You're an internal liar!'
And that was the only surprising
thing ever saw about the catching of
that pike-Tom Agnew's aggravating
unreasonableness New York Sun.