Page From the Past: excerpt from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
By Mark Twain
One of the most-read pieces of catfishing literature would certainly have to be the following paragraph from Mark Twain’s American classic, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Is it true or just something Twain made up? We will never know for certain, but Twain once wrote of himself, “He told the truth, mainly. There are things which he stretched, but mainly, he told the truth.” Nevertheless, those of us who love catfishing can forgive a little truth stretching here and there, so long as it all adds up to a good story.
“Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over 200 pounds. We couldn’t handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he’d had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn’t ever seen a bigger one.”
