November, 1922 
491 
When put on the scales the muskie weighed just a trifle under forty pounds and was fifty-one inches in length 
“Snagged tight, I guess, Bill,” said the 
Colonel. 
Bill moved up to a point slightly above 
where the line was fast, and the Colonel 
swung the tip of his rod towards Bill, 
who took a wrap of the line around his 
hand in order to disengage it from the 
bottom. He lifted gently on the line, 
and then his watery blue eyes bulged, 
his throat swelled, his nerves twitched, 
and with no noticeable effort he launched 
upon the water a fair-sized flood of 
tobacco juice. “Good God, Colonel ! 
Yu got a fish on there, an’ a crackin’ 
big one, too. What yu gonna do about 
it?” Meaning whether strike him right 
away or give him time. 
“I’m going to crack him now,” fairly 
yelled the Colonel, and suiting the action 
to the word, he set the hook in solid with 
a short, quick, upward jerk. 
A second later his reel was screeching 
and his eyes were fairly jumping from 
their sockets. That fish had taken off one 
hundred and twenty-five feet of line on 
the first breath-taking rush, and the 
Colonel had but fifty yards of light bass 
line all told. 
Bill fairly swallowed his cud getting 
that skiff around where the Colonel 
would have a fighting chance with his 
fish. With Bill’s backing the boat to- 
ward the open water where the fish had 
momentarily stopped, the Colonel man- 
aged to get back some fifty feet of pre- 
cious line. 
I, of course, reeled in my line, got the 
minnow bucket and anchor out of the 
way, and placed the gaff within easy 
reach of Bill’s horny paw, as it was 
plainly evident that this was a fish to be 
gaffed — not netted. 
Old Bill muttered but one word, “mus- 
kie,” then settled down to the greatest 
piece of guiding and perfect boat han- 
dling I have ever seen. 
Zip — ! He was off towards the far 
shore. Swish — ! Back again, making 
for the rocks, with the Colonel always 
keeping a taut line on him. Back and 
forth he went, first a sweeping lunge, 
then a series of frenzied jerks, tearing 
off 50, 75, 100 feet of line at each power- 
ful run, and the Colonel played him with 
a remarkable skill that bespoke years of 
experience. To hold him the least bit 
too tight meant a broken line ; too loose, 
a free fish; to respond to each rush and 
plunge a fraction of a second too late, a 
broken rod or line. His coolness was 
superb, never once doubting his ability, 
and continually carrying on a monologue 
with the fighting fury on the bait end 
of his line. 
“Whoa, there, young feller. What’s 
the big hurry? I’ve been over thirty 
years trying to get one like you. Some 
HI’ scrapper you are. Oh, no, didn’t fool 
me a bit. I’ll show you the color of the 
inside of Bill’s boat — ” and so on, get- 
ting nothing in return but furious rushes, 
vicious jerks and tugs; never once did 
that fish sulk; he was all fight from the 
first prick of the hook. 
""PHIRTY, thirty-five, forty minutes 
^ did this give-and-take between these 
two great masters keep on, Bill punctuat- 
ing the Colonel’s monologue with gut- 
tural grunts of satisfaction and sup- 
pressed excitement, intermittently eject- 
ing globules of tan-colored juice that hit 
the water with a resounding spat ; and 
all the while, in some miraculous manner, 
keeping the skiff in such a position that 
the Colonel should have a clear field of 
action. 
Countless times during the first fifteen 
minutes of the fight I caught myself 
offering free and entirely superfluous 
advice. After that I was so excited my 
words began to jumble, and finally all I 
could do was to sit as if mummified and 
hope against hope that this fish would be 
caught. 
After about fifty minutes of such a 
terrific pace, this finny dynamo began to 
show traces of tiring; and then for the 
first time, when the Colonel had worked 
him to within forty feet of the boat, we 
saw over three feet of his broad black 
back glisten in the sunshine as he came 
to the top for an instant, then ricocheted 
off in another burst of unleashed fury. 
But it was not long-lived, for soon he 
showed on top of the water, belly up, 
almost spent, some twenty feet away. 
Then for the first time since the fish 
was hooked did this great old guide 
speak. “Look out. Colonel, he’s gonna 
make another lunge” — and so he did. 
When within ten feet of the boat he sud- 
denly became alive again and struggled 
in a last dying effort for his deep pool in 
the channel. But fully played, it was 
now short work to bring him to gaff. 
Here again Bill showed his real skill 
and forethought. The ordinary guide 
would merely have shoved the gaff on 
the far side of the fish and jerked him 
in, ripping him anywhere the harb of 
the gaff happened to strike, thus spoiling 
him for mounting purposes. But not so 
with Bill. He gaffed him with one swift 
motion squarely at the junction of the 
gills, hauled him into the hoat, jumped 
straddle of him and hit him over the 
{Continued on page 519) 
