Tragic Fishing Moments 



The bass in this lake are made of layers of steel wire. 

 They have the disposition of a Missouri mule. They 

 have the craft of Machiavelli. The only reason Jack- 

 son's Dad fishes the lake is that many fishermen know 

 it, and when he tells them he made a good day's catch 

 they look up to him in honor, and tell him to his face 

 he is a wondrous fisherman, and tell their friends he's 

 the biggest liar in Northern Wisconsin. These sen- 

 tences are not new; they went through the man's 

 mind for the first time that August morning, four years 

 ago, when Jack's first bass broke water. They went 

 through his mind eight hundred times in the succeed- 

 ing five minutes. 



"Hadn't you better let Daddy take the pole?" in- 

 quired the man. 



" No ; this is MY fish," shouted the boy. 



No other conversation marked the course of the 

 fight. The bass was well hooked, and he had only a 

 radius of ten or twelve feet in which to play, but he 

 was at the free end of the rottenest line ever left as 

 flotsam and jetsam in an old boat, and he had as captor 

 a five-year-old, whose only asset was determination. 

 He had wanted to fish ; his Dad had told him he could 

 fish; he had hooked his fish; and, Jiminy Crickets! 

 he was going to fish. 



There is little to write. The bass sped back and 

 forth, around and under the boat, out of the water and 

 down to the bottom, while Jackson Leroy hung on 



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