In camp on Red Eagle lake in the Glacier National park, devoured by mosquitoes as big as cultures, as fierce as tigers and as numerous as drops of water in the Pacific Ocean!
    This is a bad beginning for a fish story. The language seems to suggest that the narrator has already become unreliable. As a matter of fact, phrases which are strictly accurate may be palpably misleading.
    The language of hyperbole is needed to present an adequate picture. Perhaps the mosquitoes are not quite so big or fierce or numerous as stated, but they seem to be.
    But to the fish story. And the language of vivid metaphor shall be laid aside. What follows is fact — unadorned, unexaggerated fact. I could not have dreamed it. I cannot even now that I have begun to put pen to paper hope to tell it in such a way as to bring the scene with realizing earnestness before the eye of my brother anglers.
    It was evening. I was on the lake alone in my little canvas boat. The fishing had been good. I was returning to camp satisfied. The sack of fish, my fishing kit, discarded tackle, the net, etc., lying at the bottom of the boat, it seemed safer to leave the rod to poke out over the stern, the flies trailing the water—out of mischief, as I thought, where they could not get tangled with any of the truck.
    So I rowed along gently, happy in the slaughter I had accomplished and wishing my friends had been with me to do their share. And the rod shot over the stern of the boat before my very eyes!
    I had the presence of mind not to make a forward dart and grab for it as it disappeared. Such a violent movement would undoubtedly have collapsed my collapsible boat. I sat in speechless amazement, too startled for thought.
    And then close by a mighty splashing and plunging. I turned and saw on the top of the water something swimming, a red brown head and shoulders. I was frightened. It was so huge.
    I thought of a bear, of a shark, and stories of sea monsters flashed through my mind. The thing was swimming slowly. What I could see of it looked for all the world like the head of a magnificent St. Bernard dog I used to own.
    Then I came to myself. I realized that this was a fish of a species not known to me and of an incredible, unheard of size. He had taken my fly, had hooked himself on to the rod which he had dragged overboard and was swimming slowly because he was drawing it along the bottom of the lake.
    I chased him. He dived, came up again with a splashing like that of an elephant in a pond and smashed down again. Almost I could keep up with him, so slowly did he swim and so much time did he waste in his frantic efforts to get free.
    If I had been able to row properly, facing in a direction opposite to the one in which I was moving. I believe I could have overtaken him. But I needed to keep my eye on him, and so had to backwater with the oars, losing power at every stroke. I was thinking slowly. I was still too stunned to think normally. I was puzzled by the fact that such a monster did not break my frail tackle in a moment. There was no resistance so long as the forty yards of line continued to unwind or the rod to move easily through the water.
    As often as he swung over and dropped down on the six foot leader it simply yielded beneath him. Five times he rose, and the fifth time I was quite near him. He seemed to be anything from four feet to six feet long. I have at home a muskellunge which I caught five years ago in the St. Lawrence river. He weighed thirty-two pounds and measures forty-seven inches. This fellow was much bigger and more terrifying. And I have no other means of guessing at his size and weight.
    Then with the sixth leap and dive something gave, and the monster was seen no more. I rowed slowly back to camp actually unnerved by the adventure. Literally—and he who will may laugh at me—I felt afraid to be alone in the falling evening light, alone on a piece of water inhabited by such creatures as the one who had pursued me and whom I had pursued.
    I was glad to hear the friendly hail of my guide from the landing place of logs which we had constructed, to see the glare of the campfire and to sniff the smell of supper. Then I reeknned up my loss—a rod. $35; a reel, $17.50m and a four dollar line—nearly $60 worth of property at the bottom of Red Eagle lake!—Rev C. F. Aked, D D., LL D., in New York American

From— The Ocala Evening Star. (Ocala, Fla.), 12 Sept. 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.