Sonny’s checks burned. “Oh," he 
stammered, “Oh, I never want to kill 
even ONE. Would it hurt to just catch 
them and—and throw them back?" 
The Captain laughed immoderately. 
"Son,” he returned, “you are going to 
overflow of the river. And every year 
that river had drained into the lake. 
Before long the lake dried up. Gradu¬ 
ally th’ tides and other vegetation dried 
up also, and some hunter, droppin’ a pipe¬ 
ful of ashes, set th’ whole region on fire 1 
“It was a mighty sad sight, my boy 
said, to see th’ next step: thousands an' 
thousands of ducks, geese, herons, peli¬ 
cans, terns, grebes and all th’ waterfowl 
either died or went away. Nothin’ to 
hold ’em there. And once—once th’ lake 
had been alive with ’em! It was just 
plain ruin ! Nothin’ left—on wings— 
alive! Just another way of drivin’ our 
birds from pillar t’ post. An’ no farmin’ 
activity, after all! 
“If those land grubbers have their 
way, th’ same disaster will happen to 
Malheur, and species that ain't any too 
plentiful will be put out of business. 
Queer, ain’t it, how folks is? Can’t let 
what God has put on earth alone! 
Everybody knows what happened t’ th’ 
Sailfish on the dock at 
Miami — they are not 
edible and it is a willful 
waste to kill them 
catch a mess of some¬ 
thing today and I’m 
going to fry it for you 
for lunch. Goin’ back 
— well — if the storm 
blows up and it turns 
rough, and you get the 
idea you want to throw 
a fish or two back, I 
won't be the one to 
stop you. But speakin’ 
of game conservation 
makes me think of 
Malheur Lake.” 
W e both pleaded 
with Cap’ll Jim to tell his story. 
I took a trip out to Central Oregon 
not long ago in the summer season to 
visit a son of mine who lives near 
Malheur Lake. Everybody was up in 
arms to fight the proposed movement to 
drain the entire area. Proposed legis¬ 
lation has been feelin’ folks out on that 
score; it would mean reclaimin’ a lot of 
valuable land, fer cultivation purposes. 
I guess discussions on th’ subject have 
been up in th’ legislature fer years, but 
it never got over. There was always 
a band of bird lovers and true sports¬ 
men who threw logs on th’ track. When 
I was out there last time th’ ‘lake-drain¬ 
age’ bill was again on th’ table. 
My boy used to pesticate around th’ 
Klamath Lake region and he knows what 
happened there and what would happen 
at Malheur. Funny how short-sighted 
some fools are, just because they’re 
selfish., And with so much dry land 
waitin’ fer cultivation without dryin’ up 
lakes! A dam was built across the up¬ 
per end of Klamath Lake cutting off the 
ground than right off the end of the 
dock yonder ?’’ I demanded, with a mem¬ 
ory of that amazing aquarium. 
Sonnyboy nodded. I could tell, by the 
longing glances he had shot islandward, 
that the same thought had occurred to 
him. 
“Show you about that later,” answered 
the Captain. There s somethin’ funny 
in connection with it.” 
VY/E were now well out in the channel 
vv and after Cap’n Jim had looked 
around to his heart’s content, obviously 
to make sure the spot tallied with past 
angling records, the anchor was dropped 
and we made ready to test our luck. 
Sonnyboy, fearful lest he awake and 
find that this, his first adventure, was no 
more than a dream, squatted beside Med- 
ders as the latter made a hand-line ready 
for him. I had quietly asked the Cap¬ 
tain to give the boy the foundational 
information which might help him on 
many later expeditions. 
“Cut mullet makes the 
best snapper or grouper 
bait,” drawled the affa¬ 
ble Medders, “but I 
couldn’t get any at the 
markets this morning 
and they’re not bitin’ for 
us ordinary fisher fel¬ 
lers. There are days 
when you can run up a 
creek or into a bay, on 
th’ west shore of Bis- 
cayne, and get mullet by 
the boatload. We’ll go 
after our groupers two 
ways. Here’s a hand¬ 
line fer you, with some 
A view through the palms from Soldier Key 
buffalo. An th’ elks! Down here in 
Florida, ’pears like money will do away 
with th’ last of th’ egrets. An’ sailfish !” 
Cap’n Jim raised his hands from the oars 
in a mute expression of disgust. “I 
won t take nobody out in my boat if 
they’re after sailfish. These modern 
fishermen think they’ve had a poor day 
of sport, if they don’t bring back from 
six to twelve. And what fer?—just to 
let ’em die ! You ain’t goin’ to grow up 
into THAT sort of a sportsman, ARE 
you ?” 
Sonnyboy shook his head strenuously. 
"If we don’t have luck with groupers 
or snappers out here in the channel,” 
resumed Cap'll Jim, snipping off the 
memory of Klamath Lake with a scowl, 
“then we might make a try at bone¬ 
fishing around Little Soldier Key. It’s 
nothing but a rock a little south of here. 
Mighty nice catch, them bonefish. Al¬ 
ways look t’ me as if somebody had just 
scrubbed ’em clean with washin’ powder. 
But I feel like a grouper.” 
“Who could ask for a better fishing; 
o 
Returning from the tarpon grounds of 
Angle Fish Creek 
nice fresh shrimp on it. They might 
just take to- ’em today. I’ve known 
grouper to have a hunger fer canned 
clams. What I’m really hopin’ for, tho’, 
is to get a small chap, an’ then we’ll 
give ’em cannibal bait.” 
“I—I guess I don’t understand,” stam- 
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