What they come up with when there is no news to print. I found this story last week, from the August 3, 1941 issue of the "Medford Mail Tribune":
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"George Fleishman doesn't need water or fish to go fishing. He fishes for rattlesnakes.
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George is a city boy from Fort Collins, Colo., and he doesn't like snakes. Right now, however, he is out among 'em. He's a forestry student employed this year as a lookout at Cinnabar in the Applegate district of the Rogue River National Forest, the snakiest district of the whole forest.
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Thursday noon Fleishman saw a rattlesnake go under the tool house at the lookout station. He couldn't get the snake to come back out and he was certain he wasn't going after it. While considering his dilemma, he happened to recall Ranger Lee Port's assertion that rattlesnakes ate mice. Ah,ha.
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Thursday night George set his mouse trap with more than ordinary care and put a lot of nice extra bait in it. Sure as shootin', the next morning there was a mouse in the trap.
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George fastened the dead mouse to the end of a long pole and alongside the mouse he secured a fish hook. Then stuck the end of the pole under the tool house to await developments.
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When he passed the tool house at noon on his way to lunch, George saw the pole swishing around with great turbulence. He gently but firmly pulled the pole out from under the house.
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There at the end of the pole was the big old rattler, held securely by the fish hook. Just as George had planned, the snake, in its greedy haste to swallow the mouse, also swallowed the hook. George lost no time in putting an end to the snake."
