Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-07-14

fish for bass, or skitter for pickerel, or
toll for muskallonge along the bars, or
lind some quiet slough. deep, with an
opaque top, and therein angle for, the wall
eyed pike, which is n heavy, dragging
cowardly loafer when hooked. but one of
the finest things on table that Luuuilus
ever dreamed of.
1t is not an uncommon thing for a man
who has put in the day among the islands
to return at night with specmns of every
variety Of game fish ON the bottom of his
boat He may have in addition blue cats,
perch, oroppies, a gar or two and an eel
1t is one of the beautiful uncertainties
of Mississippi fishing that when a man is
casting over channel or slough he is never
sure Of the variety of swimmer that has
risen 10 his lure until 1t is landed. The
angler may be fishing below a dam where,
there is mimic rapid and in the turbid
water he may have no right to expect
ANYTHING except black bass, cold, savage
and vigorous; but a pckerel may creep In
looking fol the ,ninnows which have. at
tracted the bass, ..or even the: spoon may
he hit with extraordinary force and the
line begin to tehr off the reel1at the rate
of twenty yards a second under the power
fui strain of muskallonge.asg
Almost all of the river fishing is done
from rowboats. The channels between the
islands are of all widths from three hun
dred yards to twenty, and often in the
narrowest and most seldom visited of them
the best fishing is to be had.
1t often happens that half an hour is
put in going over water, like this, and moth
ing has come to the repeated casts. Then
near to one end of 1t the little spoon will
strike the surface close by an overhangng
willow place where the water is almost
curentless and Il thin yellow scum from
the pollen of flowers hides it. The spoon
Is permitted to sink for a foot or two and
then is reeled in slowly because the man
is disguested with failure and is losing
heart.
Then suddenly swirl shows under and
the reel begins to whir, and when the
thumb is pressed down the rod bends into
semi-clrcle. Because of the narrowness
of the space the angler has Il difficult fight
on his hands, for he must hold the fish
hard enough to prevent 1t from getting to
bank and wrapping the line about some
stump. vet not hard enough to tear out
the hook. 1t Is always much harder to
fight fish in a. little water than in a
great deal of it.
The man in the boat has no means of
knowing what he has hooked and can only
judge of the variety by the manner in
which the fish acts 1t may be an unusu-
ally strong bass or a pickerel that has
come up from the deeps, or muskallonge
of eight pounds or it may be even one of
the slender catfish with blue skins called
channel cats, and they will often fight MS
hard as any bass or musky of them all.
There are two methods of fishing on the
Mississippi not practised on any other
stream. AT certain seasons of the year
the bass rise freely to the fly, either the
bucktail permitted to drift upon the sur
face or any bass fly legitimately east.
One of the residents will then get into
his boat carrying springy cane pole TWEEN
ty feet long To one end of this he will
ali, a,,a Goat - 1f,,{ H.
He has no reel, but with line and rod he
has joint length of forty-tive feet and is
able to reach at least forty feet in every
direction
Having a friend to row him he casts
from side to side of the boat, permitting
the fly to touch the water ON one side, then
bringing his long cane pole over and touch
ing the water with the fly on the other
side. The fly is not allowed to remain on
the water more than five seconds, being
sheltered along for q yard or so. This al
ternate swinging of the pole from left to
right and right to left is fatigulng to one
unused to 1t, but it gets FISH.
AT other times the man in the boat will
sit in the stern and abandon himself to
the current. He goes down through one
of the channels at the rate of two miles an
hour, and his lure, either live minnow,
frog, crawfsh or helgramite, bangles be-
hind depth of six feet. This Is still fish
ing while in motion.
At the end of two hours the man will
have gone four miles down stream and
must then turn to the oars and pull hack.
Many fish all kinds are picked up in this
way, but principally they are the small
pike or bass. 1t is the laziest form of
fishing for game fish ever invented and ap-
peals particularly to the medtatiye type
of angler who wants to lnoralize and
dream and go half asleep like old Walton,
Sometimes he will run into school of
fish that will take the lure as fast as 1t
hits the water. Or HIS spoon will be hit
with fierce rush and after a fight of three
minutes the quarrel will come to the sur.
face and after final vicious leap will get
away--a big gar measuring FIVE feet long
and eighteen inches through. the middle.
OR bass will leap from behind a log,
as the lure touches the water, seize it and
never check the original impulse but rush
in toward the boat faster than any man
can reel, and, having obtained yard or
more of slack in this way, spring two feet
in air, its hukes and fins auttering, and
shake the hook out, linging the spoon n
yard to right or left then strike the sur.
face Bonded and head downward and dis.
appear