The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1920-05-03
FISHING IN DRY TIMES
The Shy Trout and 5ullheads Are a
Little More Retiring.


About this time of year the fish be-
come very restless and wish to come
out of. the water and investigate hui
man affairs. At least, that Is the way
a friend Of ours explains 1t to us. He
has, he says, no imperative yearnng
to 60 a-fishing; he sympathizes with
this restless feeling of the fish; it is
his duty, he fees, to let business go
hang, and even deny himself his Gus
tomary pleasures, in order to crafty
these dumb friends of his. with the
spring of 1920" he points out, Ash
ing enters upon a new era. In former
years there has been a certain atmos-
phere, a particular aroma, if | may
be permitted about the fisherman
which is now absent. What VIII the
effect be upon the fish? am con-
vinced that in years past the fish
have been lured from the streams by
the feeling that there was something
in the world far superior to water as
beverage, Their sensitive olfac,
tory nerves have told them pleasant
stories OF things tc be met with in
the upper air. Fishermen have taken
advantage of them in this manner
Now that Prohibition is with us, VIII
the fish bite? VIII they hunt up and
down the creeks and rivers for hooks
and lines to which they may fasten
themselves, that they may be drawn
to land?"
We are inclined to doubt the theory
that fish are attracted by the smell Of
acohoI Though to be sure, trCut
may be- We know nothing about trout
fishing. All of our fishing was done
in small streams in the middle West.
And no matter what you sta ted out
to catch you usually caught bullheads
Neither science nor skill is required
to catch a bullhead. bul,head is as
grotesque and Illogical as ScaHdi.
navian myth and lcoks as if he had
come out of one Of them In the days
when we tished for bullheads alcoholic
beverages had nothing to do with the
case. The best way to catch bullheads
lis to lie down on the bank Of the creek
with your lunch near at hand, and a
good stout club in your grasp. The
ibullheads crawl out of the water, max
ing a noise like newly Uttered kittens,
and make for the lunch, and you at
tack them with the club. A bullhead
( will eat anything, and eat it so thor
oughly that it requires a major surgi
cal operation to separate him from t.
He will eat a hook, sinker, float
several yards of fishline, and then
beat pitecuSy because he is not al
lowed to eat the flshpole also.
The most fiightful looking bullhead
we ever encountered was not spawned
in the middle West, however He hap
lpened to our hook out of the deeps of
Reelfoot Lake, that weird and God
/ forgotten stretch of water in North
western Tennessee. where the fish
swim among the trunks of a sup
merged forest, and the night liders
used to have an active and murderous
headquarters, and the owls hoot
through the malarious mists, and the
negroes see the ghosts of dead Injuns
slithering through the moonlight.
This bullhead had sort of spade or
shower in trent of his face, like moth
| ing piscatorial We had yever seen or
heard tell of before; he looked as if
he nigh use it to dig graves with;
we are afraid to say how big he was
for fear we might be accused of lying;
we got him to the edge of the boat
and he looked at us out of pair CT
malignant eyes as devil might look
at one, devil who was waiting to be
caught. he had not so much human
air as a flendish air; about that time
either ghost or an owl or night
rider said something in bayou a
hundred yards away, and the bull.
head winked as if in answer. 1t plainly
meant: 81 have caught this mani"
We did not argue the matter; We cut
the line two feet from the bulihead's S
nose and let him flop back into the
water; we did not want to be in the
same boat with the thing; 1t was get
ting late, anyhow; we hunted up a
photographer we had brought to the
lake with us for the purpose Of taking
a picture of a place where man
had been murdered a few days before
and went away frcm there We have
heard since that there are lot of
Ibullheads with that sort of spade bill
on them in Reelfoot Lake; they can
stay there for all of us; they look at
you as if they knew too much.-New
= York Sun