THE MAHONING DISPATCH — MAY 31, 1912
CATCHES FISH BY TICKLING ITS RIBS ♢ TRUTHFUL KANSAN TELLS HOW HE CAPTURED 141-POUND CAT IN SOLOMON RIVER ♢ (PROVES HE IS MODEST, TOO) ♢ Selects a Hot Day When They Seek Shelter of Ledges, Then He Slips Up on Them and Gets Fingers in Their Gills.
Topeka, Kansas.—Many Kansas streams fell so low during the dry spell of the summer that catching fish by hand was one of the favorite occupations in many towns for those who had nothing else to do. Thousands of large fish were caught in that way, but the record catch was made by Grant Cunstable, a trapper and fisherman, who lives near Bennington on the Solomon river. His catch was a catfish that weighed 141 pounds, duly sworn to and acknowledged. When the fish was brought to Bennington by Cunstable to be weighed, some of the younger element in the town began to brag about the catch, saying that it was the biggest fish ever caught in Kansas, but Cunstable silenced them.
“Why,” he said, “you kids ain't never seen no fish. Lou Geisert caught a catfish here In ’73 that weighed 211 pounds. He was the pappy of all the catfish in the Solomon an’ he jest naturally looked like a whale.”
The Solomon always has been noted for its large catfish and the Solomon Valley resident would turn up his nose at a mountain trout any time for a steak off a Solomon river catfish of 40 to 60 pounds weight. In dry weather most of the tributaries of the Solomon dry up and the Solomon becomes so low that it is only a succession of pools separated by sandbars through which the water oozes
