Fish Tales Traditional Cache

Fish tales are described as an improbable, boastful tales. This expression alludes to the tendency of fishermen to exaggerate the size of their catch.

Jangles, the legendary trout of Big Lake, had “broken so many fishing lines that his huge, crooked jaw was covered with shiny metal lures and rusty old fishhooks of all shapes and sizes. They clinked and clattered as he swam.” (Hence his name.)

David Shannon's story of trout-as-predator (“he ate eagles from the trees that hung out over the lake and full-grown beavers that strayed too far from home”) is tempered by examples of his benevolence (he once saved a baby from drowning) and by the narrator’s own purported childhood encounter with the fish. Jangles had transported the awestruck youth down to his cave at the bottom of the lake, then proceeded to tell him incredible stories.

After such a memorable encounter, who could then catch the storyteller and fry him up? (The lad considers it but, in the end, he does the right thing.) (The Horn Book Magazine, September/October, 2012)