Going Again. 
Muskogee, Okla., March n.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Although the past few weeks of ideal 
summer weather conditions have been no de¬ 
cided contrast to that prevailing nearly all win¬ 
ter, the "fish-hook worm” did not develop in our 
system into a virulent stage until three Sundays 
ago, when, refusing to heed the jeers of the vast 
majority who fish according to the calendar, we 
armed ourselves with our lightest bait-casting 
rods and the usual array of wooden minnows and 
spinners and went forth. 
During the quail season, Nabers, while hunt¬ 
ing, had noted a fair sized creek; that is, the 
banks were of fair sized capacity, but alas, the 
protracted drouth 
had caused the 
once pretty stream 
to dwindle to a 
succession of 
holes, ranging 
from a damp spot 
to half a mile in 
length. The en¬ 
tire length of the 
creek is but fif¬ 
teen miles. It is 
but thirty miles 
from Muskogee to 
the railroad sta¬ 
tion nearest it, 
after which there 
is a two-mile 
walk. Never be¬ 
fore had an arti¬ 
ficial lure of any 
kind been placed 
in its water. I 
have promised 
Nabers, the dis¬ 
coverer, not to re¬ 
veal the name of 
this piscatorial 
haven, and while you are still my friend, I 
shall say to you as I have said to the many in¬ 
quirers here that instead of telling where it is, I 
shail be glad to take you to it. 
Arrived at the edge of the hole which con¬ 
fronted us when we first reached the creek, we 
experienced the customary erratic heart action 
annually incidental to the inaugural effort. I 
have never understood just what a bated breath 
is, but something similar weighted ours as the 
very first cast was made, and if it was bated, it 
proved for that cast, and for several more to 
be the wrong kind of “bate.” Mind you, we did 
not know there were fish in this water; it had 
merely looked good to Nabers, and we were en¬ 
thusiastic enough to go out there, taking a chance. 
Hope shrinking and a magnified prospect of 
spending a dreary day in a grass’ess, leafless 
open country, we rather silently stumbled along 
the dry, rockv bed to a much larger pool of 
water. Nab/r's first cast there was almost tour¬ 
nament work in its accuracy, with a dead tree- 
top the target. A guttural and suppressed “Gee!” 
and then as the fish broke water, "S-a-a-a-y!” 
and still later, as a two-pound big-mouth bass 
lay on the rocks, with eyes glaring and dorsal 
fin bristling, “I judged it right, after all.” Good 
old Nabers; he certainly had, as but a few 
minutes afterward I helped to prove by bringing 
in on a homemade, chicken feather, treble hook 
a striped bass weighing about one and a half 
pounds. The shrinking process in hope had 
ceased; the magnifying effect on the local topog¬ 
raphy was displaced by beautiful shrubbery more 
artistic than that of world-famed gardens, and 
the vast prairie was knee deep in blooming 
alfalfa. 
About this time fol’owed what we expert gram¬ 
marians term “coarse work.” Shut up in an 
office since last summer’s fishing in Colorado, I 
had lost nearly all sense of distance. I could 
not put the lure within three feet of the opposite 
bank without dropping it in the section road be¬ 
yond. Therefore, I confined myself to distance 
casts and developed the fact that that creek 
would produce bass against tradition right from 
its center. Later in the day, however, I essayed 
some proper work and was rewarded by strik¬ 
ing and landing one weighing over two and a 
half pounds. Nabers had four, one of which 
was but a fraction under the weight of my 
largest. When we had reached a point which 
we judged to be about two miles from where 
the creek empties into the Grand River (Neosho 
River on a'l maps), I had seven, none under 
eight inches in length, and had put back two. 
That part of the scenery just ahead is always 
more interesting, and that part of a stream un¬ 
tried and unseen a'tracts with impeding force. 
We had not fished all the way to the Grand 
River, and that stretch of. water appealed so 
strongly that with another companion, Ewing 
Adams, I went again the following Sunday. On 
this occasion, to be true to the traditions of his 
tribe, not one bass struck in the holes from 
which they had been taken the previous Sunday. 
And still further maintaining his reputation for 
exaggerated erraticism, he reversed his action 
in the other holes. Habitually I am loth to 
change lures for bass; I could expound with 
more verbosity than lucidity as to my reasons, 
and merely state the fact. There was no reason 
other than that the day was calm, which is itself 
remarkable here, why I put on a double spinner 
much lighter in weight than the minnows. There¬ 
fore, that does not prove that the fish would not 
have struck at a minnow, as Adams argued, be¬ 
cause it was his first effort at bait-casting and 
he had acquired 
none of the art 
which contributes 
almost entirely to 
successful catches. 
Nevertheless, they 
wanted the spin¬ 
ner, or did not 
want it, which 
makes no differ¬ 
ence, because they 
strike it in either 
event. 
I do not men¬ 
tion now that the 
rod I was using is 
a four-ounce six- 
strip split bamboo, 
because I think I 
performed a cred¬ 
itable feat by not 
breaking it in the 
struggle, but to 
give an idea of 
the real, genuine 
element of chance, 
known as sport, 
which entered into 
the situation when I felt that vicious jerk as if 
the lure had fouled a running dog. It was one 
of those moments in which I invariably am blind 
to all surrounding objects except the* water in 
front of me. 
While this particular bass of mine did not 
show the stamina I have seen in some, yet dur¬ 
ing the few minutes he held out he described 
about all the angles and curves known to geo¬ 
metrical science. I judged it at the time to 
weigh four pounds, but next day, eighteen hours 
afterward, it recorded but three pounds one 
ounce. A contribution to the loss in weight was 
its loss of blood when I killed it immediately 
after landing it. 
This memorable day was replete with ex¬ 
citing contests; one (estimated) of three pounds, 
two of two and a half and six of two pounds 
and under. Four were allowed to free them¬ 
selves without being landed, because they ap¬ 
peared to be under size. 
“I’m goin’ again,” too. 
Paul H. Byrd. 
THE PROPOSED NEW AQUARIUM IN BATTERY PARK, NEW YORK CITY. 
If built as planned, the present floor space will be trebled, giving more room for exhibits and the greatly 
increased attendance, as Well as for offices, a lecture hall and a library. 
