Tragic Fishing Moments 



full hundred feet o' line off n my reel. They didn't 

 seem no holdin' of him. I hollered to Albert to pad- 

 dle after him. I was in a bad position fer the han- 

 dlin' of sech a goshawful fish, me settin' not over two 

 inches above the water in sech a dinky boat. Then he 

 started fer the surface so durn fast I never noticed the 

 line raisin' 'till he come out a hundred feet away. 

 Never in my life have I seen sech a bass! In no 

 other place on this rotatin' hemisphere IS they sech 

 a bass! He made a reg'lar shimmy in the air like 

 only a bass seems able to make, an' an' draw the 

 curtain, folks, men is dyin' ! 



My bait flew back a good fifty feet to'ards the 

 boat, an' lay there rockin' ca'm an' placid as if hearts 

 wasn't breakin' an' the hull blame worl' had come to 

 an end. Fer a solid minute they wasn't a word said 

 in either boat, until I swallered whatever was in my 

 throat an' sez in a harsh whisper : " Gents, we'll have 

 a silent minute ! " 



Then I took off my hat an' bowed in pure wonder 

 at the works o' the little god o' luck an' the cussed- 

 ness o' things in general. I looked at my han's 

 my feet nothin' seemed to belong to me no more. 

 I was seemin'ly in a new worl' squeezed dry of every- 

 thin' worth while. The ole pedestal o' self-esteem on 

 which I useta perch was not only knocked from under 

 me it was a vanished thing! I was right on the 

 groun' with the rest o' the worms where I belonged 



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