Tragic Fishing Moments 



thick that no living white man could cast a fly into 

 that water. But to humor him I came back to a place 

 where the bank was about five feet above the water and 

 where the slough grass was about waist high. There 

 I cast out a short line though I could not see the 

 water from where I stood just to show him that it 

 could not be done. What a sad mistake ! Hardly had 

 that fly touched the water when with the noise of a 

 horse wading upstream, the trout that I had long 

 looked for smashed into the barbless Reuben Wood! 



While I preach, and believe, that all of fishing is 

 not in catching fish, still I am not unlike other men. 

 We are brothers of a common woe: the big fish that 

 we want to land is the one we never get. 



There I stood on a steep bank some five feet above 

 the water, with roots of alders hanging over into 

 the stream, the overhead a perfect layrinth of alder 

 boughs and the bed of the slough filled with moss. 

 Add to this the fact that I was fast into a monster 

 trout, the one that I had been looking for these 

 weary years agone, and my implements of warfare to 

 use in landing him being a three and one-quarter 

 ounce fly-rod, a 00 gut leader and a barbless hook. 



Realizing this slowly as I stood there, the day grew 

 very dark. I remembered hearing that in days past 

 the natives of Kansas had at various times prayed for 

 rain, and with seeming success. And so, being well 

 nigh helpless, and willing to try anything, I devoutly 



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