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Updated: May 15, 2025
Charlie Jones, the railroad man, said that he remembered how when he was a boy, up in Wisconsin, they used to get out at five in the morning not get up at five but be on the shoal at five. It appears that there is a shoal somewhere in Wisconsin where the bass lie in thousands. Kernin, the lawyer, said that when he was a boy this was on Lake Rosseau they used to get out at four.
Jones says he can catch as many fish with this kind of line as Kernin can with his patent rod and wheel. So he can too. Just the same number. But Kernin says that with his patent apparatus if you get a fish on you can play him. Jones says to Hades with playing him: give him a fish on his line and he'll haul him in all right. Kernin says he'd lose him. But Jones says he wouldn't.
If a fellow gets out for a good morning's fishing, forgetting all business worries, once in a while say, once in ten years it keeps him fresh. We agreed to go in a launch, a large launch to be exact, the largest in the town. We could have gone in row boats, but a row boat is a poor thing to fish from. Kernin said that in a row boat it is impossible properly to "play" your fish.
The weather we ruled out. It was decided that even if it rained that made no difference. Kernin said that fish bite better in the rain. And everybody agreed that man with a couple of snorts in him need have no fear of a little rain water. So we parted, all keen on the enterprise. Nor do I think even now that there was anything faulty or imperfect in that party as we planned it.
If you were in Wisconsin right now he'd take you straight to it, but probably no other person now alive could reach that shoal. In the same way Colonel Morse knows of a shoal in Lake Simcoe where he used to fish years and years ago and which, I understand, he can still find. I have mentioned that Kernin is a lawyer, and Jones a railroad man and Popley a banker. But I needn't have.
Of course the whole thing was so long ago that both of them could look back on it without any bitterness or ill nature. In fact it amused them. Kernin said it was the most laughable thing he ever saw in his life to see poor old Jack that's Morse's name shoving away with the landing net wrong side up.
It seems there is a shoal in Lake Rosseau where you can haul up the bass as fast as you can drop your line. The shoal is hard to find very hard. Kernin can find it, but it is doubtful so I gather if any other living man can. The Wisconsin shoal, too, is very difficult to find. Once you find it, you are all right; but it's hard to find. Charlie Jones can find it.
Popley said that for him three hours' sleep, the right kind of sleep, was far more refreshing than ten. Kernin said that a lawyer learns to snatch his sleep when he can, and Jones said that in railroad work a man pretty well cuts out sleep. So we had no alarms whatever about not being ready by five. Our plan was simplicity itself.
Kernin objects that if you don't use a net you'll lose your fish at the side of the boat. Jones says no: give him a hook well through the fish and a stout line in his hand and that fish has got to come in. Popley says so too. It's got to. Otherwise Popley will know why. That's the alternative. Either the fish must come in or Popley must know why. There's no escape from the logic of it.
The Colonel said he'd bring along "a bottle of booze." Popley said, no, let him bring it; Kernin said let him; and Charlie Jones said no, he'd bring it. It turned out that the Colonel had some very good Scotch at his house that he'd like to bring; oddly enough Popley had some good Scotch in his house too; and, queer though it is, each of the boys had Scotch in his house.
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