The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1904-06-04
HE TOLD
THE" H /. ] TRUTH 4.
Big Fork Compass Yerifies
Attorney Crawford $ Stur-
geon Story. Il
RIPPLE COUNTRY FAMOUS FOR
FISH. AND GAME.
Bear Gyught on Piece Of Fly Paper
and Monster Sturgeon Makes
Great Fight.

Great Fight.
Far up in the cedar Businesses
OF northern Minnesota is Ripple,
a thriving village that is enjoying
a big boom this summer from
which at intervals come stories
of big fish and game that are
enough to put the wistful look
into the eyes Of every true spor IS !
man.
The firstof the week Attorney
Crawford returned from a bust
ness trip to Ripple and has been
telling his friends Of an expert
ence in passing a school Of mon
ster sturgeon in the Big Fork
river. The story is familiar to
most Of the Pioneers readers
who read in a recent issue of this
paper a reproduction from the
Big Fork Compass telling Of the
passing Of a school Of sturgeon
from four to six feet in length
which made the turbulent Big
Fork look like a rapids for q dis
lance of more than half a mile.
Mr.. Crawford and his two guides
we're compelled to hug the bank
of the river in their Peterboro to
keep it from being overturned.
The story sounds like a big.
one but 10 nevertheless fact
upon which Mr.. CraWford's pro.
fessional honor is staked. The
fish were travelling at about
two miles an hour and Were5com-
ing out of Lake of the Woods to
deposit their spawn. The village
Of Ripple has beenaWaiting their
advent there for several day and
the Compass this week says
that they are beginning to arrive.
Numerous small schools of stur-
geon have been seen in that yicin-
sity and all Ripple is fishing for
sturgeon as a natural result.
Last Sunday evening G. - Rob.
inson, who had spent the entire
day on the river reading from a
prayer book and angling for stur-
geon hooked one which weighed
eighty pounds and succeeded in
landing it, and reports coming TO
Ripple from Sturgeon river are
to the effect that the river is lit
orally full of sturgeon. The
water has begun to reeede and
the fish are falling easy prey.
Many Of them measure over
seven feet iE length.
But sturgeon are not the only
thing in the game line that they
have up the Ripple way witness
the following from the Big Fork
Compass:
sBears are very. very tlmld-
this spring and the usual annual
bear stories seem frost. bitten.
Bert Shy has opened the game,
however, by trapping a good
sized black one on the Sturgeon
and he expects to capture few
more. Gund erson. of that settle
=ment, drove a big one upa tree,
but did not dare pick it as he.
had nothing more serious than a
twenty-five inch gun. Chas.
Harsch came in from the Little
Fork Saturday with the hide Of a
cub that he caught on a sheet Of
fly paper.
Almost everybody in Bemidji
knows ssOld Dan Campbell the
pioneer olnesteaderof =the-north
country whose quaint character
and the pathetic story Of whose
life have made him quite famous.
Mr.. Campbell has lived in the
woods in that country for twenty
years and he states that the stur-
geon stories now are but tame
affairs. The light of other days
has faded as it were and the
schools of sturgeon which come
up the river now are nothing like
the schools in the days when Mr..
Campbell was the only white
man in that country. His repu-
tation for veracity is well nigh
unimpeachable and he has often
been heard to tell of walking
across the Big Fork on the backs
of the big slli,,,vfen they came
up in schools and were trying to
get over the rapids atzRipple.
EnaaA., AAla...n.. n.a4nL