478 
FOREST A N D S T R E A M 
September, 1919 
FROM ANOTHER PRIZE WINNER 
IN FOREST AND STREAM’S 
FISHING CONTEST 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I T was Sunday, fishing signs of the Zo- 
diac were excellent, “moon in the 
dark,” a slight breeze from the south 
causing a little ripple wave across the 
lake, which reminded me of the old adage, 
“when the wind is in the south it blows 
the bait into the fish’s mouth.” All 
was propitious for a great day’s casting, 
as my friend, Mr. Hord, and I pushed 
out from the bank on Medina Lake. I 
had fastened on a Tango No. 6, and at 
the second cast caught a two-pound fryer, 
much to the chagrin of my friend who 
as yet had not received a strike. First 
honor for me. I continued to get strikes 
and land small ones, and as my friend 
had not as yet had a strike, I suggested 
that we run the boat over to Plum Creek, 
and I would lend him a Tango. I always 
carried three or four, and usually lost 
one or two in the close undergrowth 
of the lake, every trip, for as I told 
him, I did not wish to catch all of them, 
and I said I would show him where the 
granddaddies lived. With the under- 
standing that I was doing him a favor 
by taking him there, I said: “I don’t 
usually take anyone here with me, the 
fish are too large. I know one man who 
had a weak heart and landed an eight- 
pounder here and we had to take him 
back to land, it was too much for him.” 
T’e ran over to Plum Creek and were 
possibly 100 yards from shore, water 
about fifty feet deep at the boat edge. 
I made a cast or two without results. 
I remarked to Mr. Hord: “See those two 
tree tops sticking up out of the water 
over there? That little open stretch 
about ten feet wide, about 100 feet away? 
Well, watch your daddy come out of 
there.” I cast well over and beyond the 
little lane of water and had probably re- 
trieved the bait twenty feet, or less, past 
the tree tops, when bing! “Snagged 
again,” I thought. No, it’s a strike, 
pretty weak though, little line to him, 
might weigh three or four pounds. 
Then a heavy set of the hook and, 
“Say, Hord,” I gasped, “he is a pretty 
good one; comes in nice though, gosh! 
look! he wants it, doesn’t he? Well, bet- 
ter let him have it, I guess, alright ol’ 
boy, now go to it. Got plenty open wa- 
ter here, you know. That’s about enough, 
ol’ boy, now this way.” Ten, twenty, 
thirty feet he was reeled in, then: “Oh, 
Lord! look Hord, he will weigh most 
eieht pounds.” 
He leaned out of the water :.nd shook 
his grizzled head in a manner that any 
tarpon might envy. Now, that darn fish 
has just got to go down again, that’s 
all; must let him go or break my four- 
ounce rod. Then out and up and out. 
I know he is trying to get all my line, 
and he almost did, too. Can some one 
tell me this: Why is it that a fish will 
not take the last few feet of your line, 
when if they knew that ten feet more 
would mean freedom, what force com- 
pels them to stop and turn? Surely, I 
say, they have this to learn to their 
advantage. However, I succeeded in get- 
ting him within about thirty feet of the 
boat, when up he went again, but I had 
him well under control now, and when 
he tried for another run, I checked him 
and brought him close up to the boat. 
As I live to tell the tale, that pesky 
bass actually rammed the metal boat 
with his head, probably in his efforts 
to remove the bait. First time that 
ever happened with me. I circled him 
back and forth in figure eights till I could 
slip two fingers into his gills and got 
him into the boat. Hord got the scales 
and said : “Bet he weighs around nine 
pounds at least.” I hung him on the 
scale and saw the indicator pass nine, 
then ten pounds, then that blamed scale 
went from ten to thirteen pounds. 
I wasn’t nervous, you understand, nor 
excited, just plain anxious about that 
fish. “Here, Hord, you tell me how much 
he weighs, I am tired trying to read it,” 
I said. Hord announces, “10 and % 
pounds to a hair.” I think he should 
have said: “To a scale.”' “Gosh, Hord, 
he is a daddy, isn’t he?” Off came Hord’s 
hat and that meant something, when 
Hord takes his hat off. 
He measured 19 inches in circumfer- 
ence, 24 inches from tip to tip — the lar- 
gest fish I have ever seen taken from 
Medina Lake in my six years’ experience 
there. I have my doubts about any big- 
ger one ever having been brought to the 
wharf. Hord continued to cast and try 
his luck, but I did not, it was enough 
for one day for me. I have the fish 
mounted, and he is a beautiful specimen. 
The taxidermist got all the meat. 
Medina Lake is formed by a huge dam, 
forming the third side of an enormous 
triangle, in the natural canyon walls of 
the Medina River. It averages three 
miles wide, thirty miles long and is of 
various depths up to 175 feet. It is but 
an hour’s run from San Antonio by auto, 
and there are always plenty of perch, 
bream, bass, crappie and channel cat, a 
few suckers, turtles, eels, etc. There is 
good hunting for deer right at the lake 
side, also large squirrels, both blue and 
bob-white quail, and for duck shooting 
it is not excelled by any fresh water lake. 
George C. Shupee, Texas. 
SALT WATER FISHING 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
H aving just completed seven months 
of salt water fishing it occurs to 
me that it might interest the angling 
fraternity to hear of some of my experi- 
ences and listen to some of my con- 
clusions concerning this much-vaunted 
branch of the sport. 
I have devoted considerable time, study, 
expense and whatever mechanical ex- 
pertness the Lord gave me to the sub- 
ject and I believe I have fished it dry. 
I have diligently read the literature on 
sea fishing — all the musty old British 
tomes and our more modem ones — and 
I have tried out every conceivable tackle 
and method, from “whiffing” for sea bass 
and “paternostering” for white perch to 
surf casting for shark. And the out- 
standing feature of the retrospect is that, 
so far as fishing is concerned, it is a 
large, not to say monumental, waste of 
time. 
I have read charming dissertations on 
surf casting, in which the author de- 
cants on the glories of the rich Italian 
sunsets, the colorful motion of the rest- 
less sea and the age-old mystery of the 
shifting sands and with all his rhapsodies 
I can heartily agree, but when the ele- 
ment of fishing is introduced it is the 
purest bunk. 
I have been surf casting from Barne- 
gat to Cape May, alone and in the com- 
pany of experts, with the net result of 
a few dog sharks, a lonesome channel 
bass unfit for food, aching muscles and 
rheumatic joints. As an excuse to get 
outdoors and “commune with nature” it 
is excellent, but it is a misnomer to call 
it fishing. 
The only excitement in ocean fishing is 
going after bluefish or weakfish. These 
carnivora might better be hunted with 
a Winchester rather than a hand line. 
One joins a bunch of smelly proletariat 
on a fishing launch and wanders eighteen 
to forty miles out to sea. A lot of 
putrescent menhaden is dumped over- 
board for “chum” and presently one is 
in a maelstrom of tangled lines, slip- 
pery, flopping fish and perspiring, swear- 
ing men. One works his utmost while 
the run lasts and that is all there is to 
it. It is comparable to stopping a leak 
’’n a water nipe with the bare hands so 
far as the “contemplative man’s recrea- 
tion” is concerned. 
Some of our sporting writers have 
turned out reams on Santa Catalin* 
and the Leaping Tuna. They have d'5 
