slowly. Some of these pools are deep, and it is in these pools that the big fish are found. Under such circumstances the true professional fisherman scorns to use a net or trotline. He just wades in the pools and catches the big fish with his hands.
“When you find a fish,” explained Cunstable, “you work your hands up along his sides, slowly. This sort o’ tickles ’em, and if your ears is good you can hear ’em purr jest like a cat when you rub his fur. You jest keep moving your hands along and ticklin’ until you slip your fingers in his gills and h’ist him out on the bank. Sometimes there’s two together in the spawnin’ season, and you want to be careful that you don’t make a mistake and ram your fist down the throat of one of ’em, because if you do he’ll clamp his jaws down and peel all the skin off the back of your hand. But they sure like to be tickled, just like a hog when you scratch his back.
“Now, that little feller I caught was layin’ low under a big log and jest as quick as I touched him he sort o’ squinched up and quiggled but when I kind o’ scraped his hide a little with my finger nails he laid still and purred. Never hear ’em purr? Son, you ain’t done much cat fishin’, have you?
“Well, as I was saying, he just, purred and me a scratchin’ slowly along until my fingers reached his gills. They was flapping back am forth just like an elephant’s ears when the flies is bad. I gets a good footing an’, jest like that, I slips my hand in under his gills and heaves But say, that feller was a bull. He jest naturally thrun me off my feet
