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<br />Historical <br />accounts of <br />upper basin <br />endangered <br />fish <br /> <br />14 <br /> <br />and just as I got there I kinda stopped and the pole started to go out into the <br />river, so I waded out a few steps and picked up the pole and pulled on it and <br />there was a huge mouth, just enormous. <br /> <br />"And I hate to admit this <br />but it scared me to death <br />because my mother had told <br />me, upon leaving, 'Now Max, <br />don't let a big fish catch you.' <br />"You know this mouth <br />opened ... I remembered I <br />pulled on it a little bit and <br />realized it was a big fish so I <br />just turned around and put the <br />pole over my shoulder and <br />went up the bank. There was <br />no skill or anything involved <br />in it. I was still frightened. <br />"They said I fell down <br />two or three times. They <br />could see in the sand where I <br />fell. I got up there quite a <br />ways, and I looked around <br />and the darn thing was still <br />following me and it was just <br />flopping. It was quite an expe- <br />rience for me because I never <br />had caught anything like that, <br />and I never had been around <br />anybody that had. <br />"So I didn't know what <br />to do. I usually fished by <br />myself. So I ran down and got <br />my father and told him, 'Dad I <br />got a fish so big I can't carry <br />it,' and he was sitting there kinda sick and he really didn't want to ... at first he <br />didn't believe me and then finally he realized I was too agitated to be making it <br />up so he got out and we went down and then you see him 'get well' all of a sud- <br />den. We gathered up everything and collected the fish and went home and he got <br />his camera out and he took this picture, and it got put in the Vernal Express, and <br />then he sent a picture to my Aunt May in New York, and I think she put it in <br />some sports magazine." <br /> <br /> <br />Photo courtesy of Dale and Max Stewart <br />Max Stewart poses with the 25-pound <br />Colorado squawflsh he 'dragged' out <br />of the Green River, near Jensen, <br />Utah. <br /> <br />Bony tail chubs as sport fish <br />Colorado squawfish weren't the only upper basin endangered fish once <br />prized for their sporting qualities. Ted Cook (Green River, Wyo.) remembered <br />bony tail chubs or "bonetails" (a catchall name used for all species of chubs) hit- <br />ting flies. <br />"Used to catch bonetails with flies, you know," he said. "When you went <br />