FOREST AND STREAM 
239 
A Bit of “Plain” Fishing 
By Fred. E. Martin 
W HAT would you think—or say—if you 
were the recipient of a cordial and well- 
intended invitation to take an active part 
in a polar expedition to the mouth of the Ama¬ 
zon? I know what you’d do. You would tele¬ 
phone the sheriff to use all possible haste in get¬ 
ting to the founder of such an expedition, and 
hurry him to the nearest court room, to try his 
sanity. A polar expedition to the torrid zone 
seemed about as logical to me as a fishing trip 
into the heart of a dry, barren plain of western 
Kansas. 
I had been spending nine-tenths of four months 
trying to convince the inhabitants of this same 
verdant prairie of the superior qualities of a 
certain article that was unquestionably essential 
to every successful kitchen, and after you follow 
this for any length of time—-especially in an ex¬ 
ceptionally dry season—you will be suffocated 
with pleasure in adopting Pessimist as your mid¬ 
dle name. 
It was the first time I had encountered, face to 
face, the word “fishing,” and the mere mention 
of the word shot my fever up to something like 
105 before I was through listening to the finish¬ 
ing touches of the invitation. Would I go fish¬ 
ing? Well, I guess I would! As a method of 
showing my appreciation of the Westerner’s kind 
invitation, I shook his hand so vigorously he had 
to use his fork hand to fish with the next day. 
After I had accepted that invitation and had 
agreed to be ready to start the next morning at 
three, I fell to thinking of what I was running 
into. Fishing on a Kansas plain! It sounded 
like one huge joke to me. All my travels over 
Kansas plains had not as yet revealed to me any¬ 
thing but a soft, natural bed of buffalo-grass. 
I’d never seen a stream or pool of water deep 
enough to float a toothpick, to say nothing of 
sufficient water for a bass to learn to swim in. 
But that magic word “Fishing,” emitting from 
the mouth of a perfectly sound-minded and en¬ 
tertaining relative, prompted me to accept with¬ 
out the slightest hesitation. And before I half 
realized what I was being led into, I had given 
my word to drive fifteen miles, just for the 
novelty of broiling in a semi-tropical sun—I 
couldn’t see what else could be waiting for me. 
“What time do we start?” I asked. 
“Three in the morning, prompt. We must be 
there before daybreak. It’s only fifteen miles 
to Saw Log and she’s alive with ’em,” he replied, 
assuring me that everything else would be in 
readiness at such an early hour. 
If somebody had asked me to play the role of 
sack-holder on a snipe hunt, it wouldn’t have 
sounded any more amusing than going fishing 
in buffalo grass. Naturally, I tried to show en' 
thusiasm, but truthfully, I supposed it was noth¬ 
ing but the beginning of the first degree of the 
initiation of a tenderfoot. But who would re¬ 
fuse to actually go fishing, even if you knew you 
were taking chances of ever finding the creek 
when you arrived at the place where it had been 
seen before. It wasn’t in my make-up to reject 
such an opportunity, and, as I’ve said before, I 
decided to go. 
Abou/t three-thirty next morning found us 
“Fording” across a boundless prairie bound for— 
I -hadn’t the faintest idea where. Suddenly, as 
if possessed of some evil spirit, the car shot from 
the trail-like public highway, and after bouncing 
off every boulder between the Mississippi and the 
Rockies, it came to a sudden stop on the brink 
of a little creek that jumped from somewhere. 
You couldn’t find any symptoms of anything like 
a creek until you caught yourself tumbling over 
its steep banks. I disentangled myself from the 
load of fishing accessories, including a very large 
supply of ice, “etcetera,” and proceeded to sur¬ 
vey the surroundings for some real water. 
All that was evident to the naked eye was this 
same continuous strip of buffalo-grass, Russian- 
thistles, and a tiny stream of damp-appearing 
fluid that had a partial resemblance to water. It 
really was regular water, 1 found out positively 
when the day dawned. When I was told that 
fish—black bass, at that—of huge caliber, were 
hidden beneath the glassy surface of what they 
told me was the water in the creek, I couldn’t 
stand the joke any longer. I had played the role 
of the lamb as long as I could, without showing 
signs of my being wise to their plans of roast¬ 
ing—or broiling—or scorching beyond recogni¬ 
tion, my outward appearance in the fast-approach¬ 
ing rays of the aforementioned tropical sun. I 
would not have cared if I could have found any¬ 
thing that would afford enough shade to shelter 
a glow-worn, but I was not conscious of the 
least desire to be the laughing end of a joke like 
this—getting a fellow fifteen miles from the 
nearest lunch counter was enough of a joke, 
without making him ready to serve to a bunch 
of cannibals. 
But, being of a sympathetic temperament, I 
soon found myself listening with interest to 
fabulous accounts of the monsters that had been, 
after much toil, dragged from this finger-print 
of the original flood; and how an eight-pound 
bass had fragmentized a “dog-chain” stringer, 
thereby liberating himself back into this same 
creek. I agreed, after being assured that this 
same fish was still here, to gtick around and use 
my best efforts in enticing him to leave his none 
too spacious quarters for water in which he could 
have his first try-out at deep-sea-diving, which I 
swore to give him, should he leave his present 
home in acceptance to my promise. It was 
mainly through sympathy for this poor fish that I 
consented to stay. Some people have to go 
through life without ever having an opportunity 
to prove the Good Samaritan. This was my first 
opportunity, and I expected ot make good, even 
though the destitute party had to be a fish. 
The first grey streaks of dawn found us-— 
four in the party—vigorously applying our mus¬ 
cular and mental faculties toward relieving the 
stream of something in the line of this eight- 
pounder, or some of his descendants. I was soon 
assured of the stream being the home of at least 
one finny fellow, by witnessing one of the party 
strike and successfully capture the first catch 
of the morning. I didn’t become impatient, sit¬ 
ting there and waiting for a strike, until about 
six o’clock, and I was just on the verge of think¬ 
ing the fish that had been caught had been 
brought from some park pool and had been 
hooked and recaptured for my entertainment 
only. 
I was on the point of “reeling in” after what I 
intended for my last cast, when one of the trebles 
For a period of w'hat seemed a full minute the 
stump resisted all my efforts to dislodge the 
hook, then suddenly came to life and shot toward 
a small pile of brush, throwing spray like a 
U. S. revenue cutter. It caught me entirely off 
my guard, and before I realized I had anything 
more than a stump or an old shoe, the brush pile 
and stump—or whatever it was—began renew¬ 
ing old acquaintances, and it was but a very 
short time before the water ceased to boil and 
foam, and I found my minnow artfully tangled 
among the tentacles of that unwelcome brush 
heap. Believe me, I wasn’t on speaking terms 
with that brush heap all the rest of that day. 
One of the party happened along about the time 
the “stump” and I were struggling for suprem¬ 
acy, and 1 was hastily informed I had the eight- 
pound prize of them all, but the information 
didn’t help me any. 
I satisfied myself with a few revengeful kicks 
at a certain pile of brush. I kicked it out in the 
stream just far enough to get my minnow tan¬ 
gled again, and as a result lost it. Take it from 
me, I was getting real peeved now. There I had 
encountered the object of the ambition of every 
Dodge City fisherman, had felt its mighty rush, 
had witnessed the brush pile rush to its aid, and 
as a result, finally lost the largest black bass in 
Kansas, all in much less time that it takes to 
read about it. 
I consoled myself with the thought that there 
was at least one fish in the stream and settled 
down to try it again. Hope almost gone a sec¬ 
ond time, I was rewarded with the capture of a 
swimming scholar of the “big ’un” that pulled 
the fish scale to two pounds. This wasn’t so 
bad, even if I had lost the large one. About 
seven-thirty there seemed to be a small school 
of fine ones stop off at the place where we were 
stationed, and from then on we had all we could 
do to get them to strike one at a time. 
Those steaming hot rays of gentle sunshine 
were beginning to tell on my physique, and my 
thoughts were gradually wandering toward the 
bed and dining room I had abandoned, seem¬ 
ingly ages ago. A slight disturbance of the'shal¬ 
low water in the farthest end of the pool 
prompted my hurried cast in that vicinity. 
S-w-i-s-h, went a flying streak toward the spot 
where my minnow tipped the surface, and Snap! 
went my striking arm—all to no avail. I’d 
missed connections by the narrowest margin, but 
luckily I had not touched the scrapper. One 
foot beyond the turbulent waters my minnow 
again tipped the water, and again came that 
fearful rush of a desirable specimen of the 
King of Game Fishes. A gentle but firm jerk 
of my split bamboo and the fight was on. An¬ 
gered by that pointed barb, the other end of my 
line shot toward a clump of moss, tarried just 
long enough to find the barb still holding firm, 
and then shot straight toward me. Back toward 
the opposite bank it darted,' pulling the line at 
a lively clip. Then I dropped my thumb on the 
reel, hard. With the determination of a bull¬ 
dog, both ends of the line held firm. There was 
a mighty leap through mid-air, and a violent 
shaking in an effort to dislodge the decoy min¬ 
now. One last mighty rush, the reeling in of 
a defeated champion, and a net slipped under 
four and a half pounds of scrap and good eat¬ 
ing. The show was over. 
“Where do you find them to beat that for 
gameness and size?” mockingly asked the re¬ 
maining three of the party in a chorus. 
