four ounce sinker. I soaked Mr. Riley with that sinker 

 right in the forehead ; between his two "headlights" 

 and he certainly was some submarine expert (don't 

 know which nationality) for he came up right under 

 my boat, amid-ship and I performed a most beautiful 

 "loop the loop", but the most wonderful and marvelous 

 thing happened ; when that hefty sinker hit Mr. Riley 

 it was severed from my line, recochotted and hit a 

 man on the canal at Sandy Hook (clear across the 

 river), whom I am told thought a meteor had fallen 

 from Heaven, but the mad-torn remained upon my 

 line and landing in a beautiful eddy or pool, my reel 

 began to sing and with one strong pull, I jerked out 

 of the river the most beautiful five and one-half pound 

 "small mouth" black bass you ever saw. / certainly 

 did jerk that bass. I landed him up in a sycamore 

 tree, dangling on my line about thirty (30) feet up in 

 the air, so being a "dead shot" from Tennessee, I took 

 out my revolver and cut the line first crack. Mr. 

 Riley seemed to be so highly amused ( I don't know 

 about what) that he fell over-board again and very 

 nearly drowned. He said, "You certainly are some 

 fisherman, but if you don't mind, I'd just as soon as 

 you'd keep off that there sinker, not that the like's o' 

 me would presume to give a sportsman like you any 

 advice about fishing, but these here fish up here in these 

 here waters don't like no lead." "Guess they have been 

 shot at so much they aint got over the war yet." So 

 I put on a fresh mad-torn, left off the sinker, and by 

 avoiding a back-lash every other cast, I had one of 

 the best days sport of my life. "On my honor as a 

 fisherman", I caught that day, sixty-five bass, the 

 smallest weighing three and one-half pounds. Of 



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