I would mix my flapjack flour in my tin cup, fry my sourbelly 
in the frying pan, then fry my flapjacks, wash the dough out of the 
cup and use it to drink my coffee. I bought a couple of blankets to 
use as a bed and I usually used a rock as a pillow. After I had all 
the equipment I thought necessary I bid the Reading family farewell, 
climbed aboard and was on my way down the Arkansas River. 
I rowed hard all the first day, and also fast, and the first night 
I met a fisherman living in a houseboat and as he was all alone he 
asked me to spend the night with him and, of course, I eagerly ac¬ 
cepted the invitation. We got to talking about fishing and the old 
fisherman asked me why I didn’t fish as I went down the river. I 
asked how I could do that. “Why,” he replied, “You see this here 
hook; you take hooks like this and make them fast with large stout 
lines about 12 feet long and then tie the line to a piece of timber 
about half the size of a ten-foot fence rail and bate the hooks with 
pieces of neck beef about the size of your fist, and when you come to 
where the water looks deep, just drop out your hooks and float and 
just let them drift. You will catch some of the dandiest fish you 
ever saw. As you float down the river the bait floats between the 
fish. They think it is just something floating away .and grab it. 
They will, of course, fight terribly but will finally exert all their 
strength and you can pull them in.” 
All of this sounded good to me, so I bought enough material from 
the fisherman to rig myself out and he helped me fix my lines. I put 
the outfit in my boat and was on my way down the river. The first 
long stretch of water I came to 1 threw out my lines as the fisherman 
had directed, and I don t believe they floated over 100 yards until 
one of my floats jerked under. It raised to the top of the water, 
but in one instant it was jerked out of sight again. This was done 
three or four times, and at last it came to the top of the water and 
circled around. I made for the float with my boat, caught it and the 
fish began anew. He chased around with my boat, but soon gave up 
and floated to the top. The fish looked like a whale to me and did 
weight 68 pounds. I caught two more fish the same day. I tied the 
monsters to the back end of my boat and rowed down the river to 
the first town, where I sold them at three cents per pound. This way 
of fishing was new to me but was fine sport, as well as profitable 
I caught many large fish on that trip down the Arkansas River, some 
of them weighed well up to 80 pounds. I remember one day I had 
caught two very large yellow cat and they were hard to tow as they 
would pull my boat out of line. 
I saw a fine spring running down out of a bluff into the river 
As I neared the spring and landed my boat a farmer came to the 
spring and as the fish kept my boat in motion, the farmer asked what 
was moving it that way. I told him it was two fish which I had tied 
to the boat. Out of curiosity the farmer stepped into my boat and 
pulled one of the fish to the surface of the water saying • “Gee 
whilcan, what a fish.” He then pulled the second fish to the surface' 
with even more surprise. “God Almighty,” says he, “How did you 
— 42 — 
