Salt Lake Tribune | 1905-06-12 | Page 13 | Catching Suckers in Idaho

CATCHING SUCKERS IN IDAHO, Being a Spring Story of Fishing With a Tin Lantern. Shiners may have weighed ten pounds, and trout may havo grabbed at a hook two feet abovo the water twenty years ago, but It remains for Julleetta, fishermen fisher-men to carrv off first honors at telling llsh stories, stories of sucker flshlnt;. This is the popular sort at Julleetta, lnl. At this time of the year thero are an unusually unusu-ally lare number of suekers running up tho Potlatch. This l because It Is spawning spawn-ing season for the salmon and suckers dc-IIrIu dc-IIrIu In feasting on salmon eggs nnd make a business of following up the salmon sal-mon as they make their way to tho spawning grounds. Jullaetta's fish tale continues something aftej" this fashion. Suckers are a tlfO flsh and realise that If they try to matte their way tip the small tributary streams In daylight they aro likely to be captured. Consequently , this Solomon of tho water waits till dark anrl then grent hordes rush up the middle Potlatch for tho spawning grounds, of course, roturnlng lust a few minutes before dawn to wait In tho Big Potlatch for another night But tho fishermen of Jullaetta checkmated check-mated theee wlso fish. E. W. Porter Is telling Of how a party of four or Ave Jullaetta men went fishing one night recently, re-cently, taking only an ordinary lantern. This lantern is held close to the creek, which Is not more than five Inches deep. The glare or tho light attracts tho suckers suck-ers In gre.it swarms and as they gropo RTOUnd blinded bv the light, the fisherman leisurely puts his hand Into the water, grabs the llsh by tho back :ind tosses it Int.. a bag. He repeats this till his arm gets tired. On this particular night Mr. Porter Insists that fully 100 suckers were caught nnd the next day flftv families living liv-ing In and about Juliaetta ate sucker for dinner. A farmer living not far from town was telling the other day of a similar exM-rl-enco. He was on his way home Just at dusk. As he was driving over the bridge across the Little Potlatch he he.ird a loud splnshlng and knew tho .suckers were running. run-ning. H, climbed down from his wagon, truck a match, nnd held It over tho creek and caught threo suckers before the mutch died out He onlv had ono match. Spokane Spokesman Revl. w