THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 256 
‘Say, Ben, they say that confession is good for the soul. I’m going to 
tell you all about it and relieve my mind. You’ll not repeat it will you? 
Now, to begin with, after I got the tank completed I was in a quandary 
as to what variety of fish that I should stock it with, and how and 
where to procure them. Naturally, my memory wandered back to my 
boyhood days, and the grassy glades bordering on the black bass waters 
in old Kentucky. Golly, boy, how I used to love to hook them fighting 
beauties. We didn’t have reels in them days; how I landed them 
whoppers with my little willow pole and makeshift gear, I don’t know. 
Yes, yes—I used the minnow, too—but the little green toad was my 
favorite live bait them days; it was always lurking around, and easily 
captured. In my predicament I wrote to my old friend J. H. Baker at 
Portland; and say Ben, he’s some fisherman, too—well, it ran along 
for several weeks with no reply, when one morning about train time the 
Southern Pacific agent at Gold Hill called me up on the ’phone and 
said, ‘there’s a fellow down here with some live stock for you; come 
down.’ Now, Ben, you can’t guess who it was, and what the live 
stock turned out to be. Guess again! Yes—no, it was my cubhood 
friend Baker. He earried a bucket with a wire screen covering the top 
and in it was a pair of my favorite beauties, weighing about a pound 
each. When Baker left after a few days’ stay, the last words he said 
to me were, ‘Now, John, for God’s sake don’t let it get noised around 
about how and where you got those bass; it may get us both into trou- 
ble.’ Well, Sir Ben, that just put fear in my heart ever since, and what 
do you think? That pool is chock full, right now, of bass about this 
long,’’ (measuring off about six inches on his forefinger and hand), 
**Now, for goodness sake, tell me what to do with them.’’ 
‘*Put them in the river,’’ replied Ben. 
‘*But we don’t know about that, I might be committing another 
crime,’’ chuckled Herron. 
‘*We will see Fat Kellogg about it, he will know,’’ replied Ben. 
The next day Ben and I met; he made a full confession. I said to 
him: ‘‘The fish commissioners will send you fellows to the penitentiary 
if you put those black devils in the river; they’ll eat up all the other 
fish in the stream,’’ 
‘Did you say that they would destroy all the native fish,’’ piped 

Ben. 
‘‘Say, you just watch those bass whip around the corners into the 
calm waters, in the event that they should happen to venture out into 
the stream-where the cutthroat or Steelhead are slumbering.’’ 
The next season State Game Warden Finley exhibited his game and 
fish films at the Wego Theatre in Gold Hill. After the show I intro- 
duced our black bass friend to the game warden. Winking at Mr, Finley, 
I said to Herron: ‘‘Now, dad, we’ve got in bad with the authorities 
about permitting those black bass to escape into the Rogue River; you 
just make a clean breast of the matter to Mr. Finley. It may be the 
means of reducing the penalty.’’ 
‘‘Well, now!’’ began the old sport, coughing and flushing up, not 
certain just what was coming. He then related to Finley his fish story 
up to and including Ben’s first revelation, then he said, ‘‘I cleaned the 
tank out and put 600 of the bass into the river, keeping the old pair and 
quite a number of the increase. Now, Mr. Finley, she’s just swarming 
with two crops, about four and six inches long.’’ 
‘*Good for you, Mr, Herron!’’ said the Game Warden, slapping 
Herron on the shoulder. ‘‘Keep the good work going.’’ i 
