Big Fish Story

Its a classic I love it .

My wife and I went to dinner tonight and this story was on the place mat at the restraunt. It comes from a book called Tall Tales, volume 13 of Rick Steber's Tales of the Wild West series.
Rick Stebers 1997*Bonanza Publishing*Box 204*Prineville, Oregon 97754.
After reading it I felt it was just the story to put on this thread, to make us all laugh. I hope you all enjoy reading it.

"Biggest fish I ever landed was in 19 'n' 38. Remember it like it was yesterday," lied the old fisherman.
"Grasshoppers were as thick as hair on a hound dog's back, I was using a hopper for bait and to be perfectly honest I was taking a little snooze when all of a sudden my rod is nearly jerked out of my hand. I grab it, rear back and set the hook. But my line busts. I loose the fish.
"I take a spool of heavy line, string it on my reel, tie on a hook, slip a lively hopper into place and throw back out in the same spot.This time I'm not sleepy 'cause I figure I got a big fish in a hungry way.
"Sure enough, he takes the bait. But he also takes my rigging and strips off every inch of line. I vow then and there to catch that doggone monster. I run back to town, buy a hundred feet of one-inch hemp rope and have the blacksmith fashion me a hook from a double-ought horse shoe.
"When I get to my fishing hole I bait up with the biggest hopper I can find, throw in and tie off to the top of a fair-sized tree. Just before dark I catch that fish. He fights terrible hard and since there ain't nothing I can do I go home, come back the next morning and that tree is still whipping back and forth. It took two full days for that fish to finally tire. Then I hired a team of stout horses to pull it up on the bank.
"I can't rightly recite how big that fish was in yards and feet but to show you---a logging outfit ended up suing me. Thet were having a log drive at the time and when I pulled that fish out they claimed it dropped the river level so much there wasn't enough water to float there logs."

I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I did when I first read it. I love tall tales!