The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1925-06-26
ANTLERED SHARK
NO BOTTOM LAKE.
MATT SAARI TELLS OF BATTLE
WITH DEEP WATER
MONSTER

The following fish story" writ.
ten by Matt Saari, of Minneapolis
formerly of the White Iron Lake
district, where his parents reside
won first prize in fish story con.
test recently conducted by tbs
Hennepin County Sportsmen's Club
According to an ancient Chippewa
legend, there is bottomless lake
about so miles east of Ely in the
Superior National forest.
2 1t is located three miles off the
main canoe route north of the
charming Lake Alice and the only
way to reach it is to go through the
deep and painless forest and wide
swamps. Being SO inaccessible,
white men seldom visited it, ana
8 little was known about it, except
what the Indians have told in their
old stories.
Early in April, Ralph Ahlstrom
of Minneapolis suggested to me
that we make the difficult trip 20
No-Bottom lake, as it is called, and
explore its depths. We bought a
thousand feet of clothesline and
other equipment that we might need
in making soundings and on April
we passed Kawishiwi bridge, he
last outpost of civilization. 1t took
Us 10 days before we got to Lake
Alice, for the distance was over 60
miles along the river and there
u,ara of laocf An ,,ortanao ~ o,,nSv
1t took US day to carry our can e
and equipment from Lake Alice to
No-Rpttom lake. The next morn
ing we were UP bright and early
with our, long line and proceeded
at once to make soundings.
SIN order to make our line go
down rapidly, we ted to its end
a 15-pound fragment of white gla-
cial granite. During the first four
hours, we found only places 200
and 800 feet deep but at last we
located the spot that seemed, in
deed, to have no bottom, for we
had to pay out 900 feet before we
felt bottom. Astounded at the un-
imaginable depth, we began at once
to discuss different geological
theories and while we were saying
that the place must be a deep
pocket edeft by the last glacial age,
some deep-water monster seized our
line with a mighty tug that almost
upset our canoe, darted off at three
points to starboard and drew the
line with such great speed and ten
sion through the water that it
howled like fire engine siren for
two minutes.
We were towed along at Is knots
an hour and when the beast let
loose it is needless to say that we
hurried to shore and thanked our
stars that we had not been drawn
down and drowned. When we pull
ed up the rock at the end of our
line, it had been chewed all up as
though it had gone through stone
crusher.
This excited our imaginatioEs
and in spite of the fact that We
had just escaped possible death, we
began to make plans whereby we
might capture the fish that had
thrilled us SO. We removed steel
brace from our canoe and with
great difficulty, managed to make a
hook twice the size of a large hay
hook. AS we had no bait we de-
cided to catch a good sized pike or
pickerel to put on this great HOOK.
We rugged up a line on a long
tamarack pole but before we could
make use of that, we had to find
frogs or something to bait it with.
They were very hard to find and
after having lost the two or three
that we saw, we were almost ready
to give up when along came snake
with a beautiful green frog in his
mouth.
At first / was going to fly upon
him and force the frog out of his
mouth but Ralph suggested that we
use diplomacy so / placed small
piece of chewing tobacco close to
him on the ground. After blinking
his eyes couple of times, the rep
tile dropped the frog, snached the
tobacco, packed it away into his
left. cheek, spit out of the side of
his mouth and slid away, salutiug
us with menacing red tongue as
he disappeared.
The frog, however, regained con-
seriousness and beat it. There we
were in the same fix again and as
we sat on a rock cussing our care
lessness, believe it or not, our rep
tile friend came back with three
more snakes, each of them with a
frog which they dropped as soon as
we gave them chewing tobacco.
We baited hook, hurried to shore
and as / was casting my bait out as
far as / could, a fierce perch leap
ed up into the air and grabbed il
even before it had had chance to
strike water. In grea& surprise,
began to swing it onto dry land
when, 10, a three-pound pickerel
jumped up as if to attack the perch
Somehow or other, he got mixed uI
in a tangle of my line which form
ed a perfect half-hitch around his
neck and held him. Imagine catch.
ing two fish at one time without
wetting the hook or line. 1t fe,t
like fiourishing powerful magnet
over a pile of nails.
Well, we tied the perch and pick.
erel on our great hook and hurried
: out onto tie lake again. The place
where we began to sink the hool
was so deep that it took 20 minutes
to reach bottom and almost in.
stantly we felt a terrible jerk thu
reminded us of a team of Belgium
draft horses yanking an oak stump
out Of the ground. All Of sud
den our canoe was in great motion