Jan. 7, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
21 
“Well, Sir! Once—.” 
I. 
I love to sit on the dock, or pier, over salt 
water, and fish for any thing that can take a 
bait, while the good hot sun—best of all mas¬ 
seurs—irons the kinks out of my desk-drooped 
shoulders. 
It is all good — the limitless distance; the 
ever-changing- restless, restful surf; the denizens 
of the air and of the deep and the good fellow 
with a story. 
There will be days when the fish do not bite, 
when the sun does not shine, when the surf is 
iistless and things generally fail to measure up 
to the desired standard, but never the day with¬ 
out the ‘‘Well, sir! Once—” man. 
He may come to borrow your tobacco or lend 
you bait. He may bring or seek advice. He 
may be just loafing about in idle content, but 
when he comes he will bring a story. You do 
not have to hear it; he will not insist upon tell¬ 
ing it, but if you are decently polite and respon¬ 
sive, the truth—I should say the narrative—will 
out. 
It may be, and generally is, about fish or fish¬ 
ing, but frequently sidesteps and takes other 
subj ects. 
While not pressed upon you to the point of 
violence at the outset, once begun it will be 
completed, though the interruptions be many and 
serious. Catch a big fish, cut a finger half off 
with the bait knife or fall overboard, as soon as 
quiet is restored the story will go on from the 
very point of interruption. 
I like these stories, and have heard many of 
them in years past, ’most all forgotten now, but 
some—and not always the best, or most interest¬ 
ing—have remained tangled up with the good, 
bad and indifferent things hi memory’s strange 
collection of odds and ends. 
While fishing I was approached by that pest 
of land or water, Mr. Knowall, who proceeded 
in a very condescending manner to give me un¬ 
solicited advice and instruction. When he finally 
tired of the sound of his own voice and took 
his departure, a little man sitting about two posts 
away, who had been a silent listener, hitched 
along toward me and began: 
“Well, sir, once I was fishing down here on 
this dock, and a fellow like that come along, and 
he just knew it all. Criticised our tackle; said 
we were not using the right bait, and generally 
made himself a nuisance. He finally stopped by 
a big man who was fishing with a light bass rod 
and silk line and having no luck at all. The big 
fe’low looked like the last man on earth it 
would be safe to fool with, but this well of 
wisdom went right at him. Told him his tackle 
w^as all wrong; his bait was no good; he was 
not in the right place; he was fishing on the 
wrong tide, and then gave a long lecture on the 
proper methods of fishing, fish, their habits and 
habitat. The big man said not a word until the 
fellow had about talked out, and then laying 
down his pole, said: 
“‘I didn’t ask you for advice or information, 
but you have given me both, and you know so 
blamed much about fish I am inc'ined to think 
you are now out of your proper element, and 
T’m going to put you back,’ and before the aston¬ 
ished bore could move, snatched him up and 
threw him twenty feet off the dock into deep 
water. We all rushed to the rescue and quickly 
fished him out, but he was through talking. All 
the way back to the shore the full length of the 
dock he dripped along without saying a word.” 
“Well, sir, once I ran up on a man of that 
kind over on the west coast and learned how to 
handle him,” said a man who had come up just 
as we began to talk, and had remained listening 
to my neighbor’s story. “I used to get mad 
when they first took to butting in with advice 
and information and would call them down, 
differ with them and waste lots of time and tem¬ 
per, but after the time I tell you about, when 
I learned how to handle them, I’ve had no 
trouble. An old fellow who really knew all 
about it was kind enough to take me in hand 
as a newcomer and show me how and where to 
fish. We were making preparations to go out 
on the dock to fish, and my friend had rigged 
me up a strong hand line—about all they used 
then—and was fastening a big hook on the end 
of a pole to lift the fish, when we pulled them 
up to the dock. While we were at work two 
tourists came along and stopped to look on and 
give instructions. 
“ ‘I say, my good fellow, you should set that 
hook a bit lower,’ said one of them. 
“ ‘Yes,’ said my friend. 
“‘Turn it around with the bend the other 
way,’ commanded number two. 
“‘Yes,’ said my friend, going on quietly with 
his work. 
“ ‘Drive a nail through the eye and into the 
wood,’ was the next order. Followed by num¬ 
ber two with: ‘Cut that barb off when you get 
it fast.’ 
“ ‘Yes, yes, quite right,’ said my humble 
teacher. 
“This went on until I was mad enough to 
fight, and only the quiet way in which the old 
man took it all kept me from calling them down. 
After they had exhausted every possibility of 
suggestion and all had been received favorably 
and without resistance, they took their depart¬ 
ure. ‘Look here,’ I said, as soon as they were 
out of hearing, ‘you don’t want to do all the 
fool things those fellows suggested; it would 
make that gaff entirely unfit for the work.’ ‘Of 
course it would,’ was his mild reply. ‘I have no 
idea of doing what they said; in fact, paid so 
little attention that I really do not know what 
it was, but if I had said one word in protest 
those men would have argued with us until too 
late to do any fishing to-day, and probably come 
back early to-morrow morning to resume the 
discussion. You take my advice and always say 
yes. and then do as you please.’ And I do it.” 
“Well, sir, once I saw one of those know-it- 
all fellows take the gaff, and from a little ninety- 
pound woman, at that,” said the next man up. 
“A lot of us were fishing every day off the 
dock, catching anything and everything, when 
they were biting. One queer specimen was an 
ugly, warty spotted fish, with wide mouth and 
jaws that would cut like steel wire cutters. Some 
of the boys called them dog—and some toad—- 
fish. They were good for nothing, but great 
bait stealers, and we w’ould throw them on the 
dock when caught, and when through fishing 
kick them overboard. We often amused our¬ 
selves by putting a stick in their mouths to see 
them cut it in two with one snap of their jaws. 
A big man, wearing a broad white sombrero, 
and carrying a massive gold-headed cane, came 
on the dock one day. He swept everything be¬ 
fore him; knew everybody on the dock when 
he had walked to the end and back. Lived in a 
little Western town, forty miles from any water, 
and didn’t know a tadpole from a turtle, but in 
a half hour was telling everybody all about fish 
and fishing. He did not fish, but haunted the 
dock, exhibiting the fish caught and laid out by 
the fishermen. He would watch for strangers 
walking on the dock and call their attention to 
the fish, fairly declaiming, as he named them, 
and told all he did and did not know about them. 
I had caught a particularly vicious dog or 
toadfish one afternoon, and Buffalo Bill, as we 
had dubbed the big man, was inspecting it from 
a safe distance, when two women came down the 
dock. They were passing by, with merely a care¬ 
less glance at the fish, when Bill halted them. 
Stepping out and taking off his big hat, with a 
low bow he erupted: ‘Ladies, that is a great 
curiosity. One of the wonders of the deep. It 
is a dogfish, and has jaws of steel. With one 
snap of its jaws it can bite through a piece of 
heavy wire. Some call it a toadfish on account 
of its ugly mottled skin, but dogfish is the cor¬ 
rect name for it, as it is both formidable and 
vicious.’ 
The women were slightly amused and mildly 
interested by the big fellow’s harangue and ap¬ 
proached nearer the fish. ‘Don’t come too near, 
I beg of you, ladies. It is not very large, but 
if its cruel jaws closed on your foot it would 
cut through your shoe like a keen steel blade.’ 
They smiled, and one of them put the toe of 
her dainty little patent leather against the big 
mouth of the now quiet fish. There was a sud¬ 
den gape and snap, and the lady sprang back 
with a scream, her shoe cut through to the sole. 
Fortunately her foot escaped, so the injury was 
to property and not person. We were all aston¬ 
ished and for the moment speechless. The big 
man was the first to recover. ‘Why, my dear 
madam,’ he began, but got no further. 
“ ‘You great big overgrown cowa’rdly brute. 
You deliberately got me to stop here and put 
my foot in that thing’s mouth just to see it bite 
my shoe. Talking your long-winded speech 
about its being dangerous, knowing that no one 
would believe what you said for a moment. You 
are a mean, sneaking coward, and if my husband 
was here he would throw you off the dock as 
you richly deserve; swelling around here just 
to show off your big hat and long-tail coat.’ 
“1 he little woman was fairly crying, and 
stamping her foot at each word, and the wise 
thing would have been for the big fellow to 
get away, but he did not have the good sense 
to do this; instead he tried again to explain and 
apologize, whereupon the little woman slapped 
his face. He went then and we saw him no 
more.” 
It was my quitting time, and I had been wind¬ 
ing in my line during the last story. As I 
gathered up my belongings and turned away I 
heard the next man say, “Well, sir, once—” 
Lewis Hopkins. 
The Marion County Fish and Game Protec¬ 
tive Association held a meeting in the State 
House in Indianapolis on the night of Jan. 4, 
to confer with Fish and Game Commissioner 
Miles in reference to a proposed bill to license 
anglers and to urge the establishment of a State 
fish hatchery. 
