“Wow!” exclaimed Jule. “I wouldn’t eat a catfish any quicker than I would eat a cat.”
“What are you putting all that weight on the lines for?” asked Case.
“It’ll sink the hooks into the mud about a foot,” Jule put in.
“Sure it will!” continued Case. “And catfish are never found at the bottom of the river. They call them catfish because they climb up on things.”
“You’re the wise little fisher boy,” laughed Alex. “A catfish couldn’t climb to the surface of the river if they had an electric elevator. They live in the mud and eat in the mud. After they get a square meal, they stretch out on a bed of silt like a cat on a sitting room floor. Now get these lines over and I’ll show you what a real catfish looks like.”
The boys took the lines into their hands and leaned over the stern. Alex with the iron poised in air stopped suddenly and laid it down on deck.
“I guess I need a little instruction myself,” he said. “You can’t catch catfish by trolling for them. You’ve got to let the line lay wiggling from a weight in the mud of the river.”
The boy rushed back to the motors, shut off the power, and then dropped the anchor.
“Now, boys,” he said, “if you’ll all get back into the cabin and remain quiet, I’ll coax a catfish two feet long out of the river.”
“You have my sympathy,” Case answered, “and I’ll help you all I can. I’ll go back into the cabin and make a noise like a dish of cream.”
Regarding Case’s offer as light and trifling, Alex got his lines into the water and sat down to await results.
“I don’t know,” he said after a while, “but I ought to have waited until we came under that wooded island just ahead. Catfish have a way of hovering in the mud around the towheads.”
“We can drop down if you think best,” Clay proposed.
“Just you wait a minute!” Alex exclaimed all excitement, “I’ve got a bite right now. Two bites!” he yelled the next moment. “Both lines are running out! Catch one, quick!”
The boy’s announcement that the lines were moving out brought his three chums instantly to the front. Case and Jule both grabbed for the same line, with the result that the tops of their heads came together with a thud and the line continued to wiggle along the deck. Clay stepped on the moving line and Alex seized it.