The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-07-08
Fishing Without Sentiment.
BY JOHN QUILL.

This thing Of going'a, fishing and call
ing. it sport isridiculous. 0ldIzaac Wal
ton was a deceiver, and his complete
Angler" is calculated to pervert public
morals, and lead the unsuspecting astray.
In my opinion it's an overrated book, and
ought to be suppressed: 1t encourages
the idea that fishing is q gonteel pastime,
which affords time for meditation, and
cultivates love for the beautiful in ma
That this is all nonsense every man
knows who ever went fishing in his life.
leave it TO the sufferers if it isn't.
Don't you know that you go out and
nearly burst blood vessel digging worms
for bait, and then have to dig hole as
big as rihe-pit before you can lay your
hands or one solitary worm!
-Then,when~y you getto the water you
very likely sit down on some blackberry
bush or other, and undergo nearly as
much physical sufferings as you do when
YOU stick the fish-hook into your cuticle
when you are trying to put the bait on.
When you once throw in you begin to
watch the cork, and you look at it hour
after hour, until you nearly go blind, and
you think you see about twenty corks,
and as it never budges one inch all the
time, you conclude that there amt any
fish about, until you pull up, when you
find that some well-balanced and insidi-
GUS member Of the fnny tribe has sucked
all your bait off.
After enough patient endurance to
start eight or nine Christian martyrs into
life, You get nibble. Yes, the cork
raoves slightly, and you think you. are at
last going to get fish,
You watch it closely, while your mind
runs over the big fish you have heard Of.
You think of Jonah, of whaling voyages,
and of the surgeons you have seen
around on the waves.
Perhaps this is one of large size, and
you wonder if you hadn't better go home
and get dray to fetch it.
Suppose YOU were to catch the sea SER
pent or thousand pound snapper! and
you involuntarily suggest soup to your
selt while all tho time the cork keeps
bobbing up and down, until at last she
gives one Jerk and goes under Got him,
by George! Pull up, and there is a
wretched little fish on the hook, that
wouldn't satisfy the appetite of sick
sardine, and be cost you just fourteen
worms-enough to bait school of mack
erel.
Throw in again, wait for an hour, and
you don't get single nibble.
Then you think you are safe to let go
and light your pipe. No sooner do you
get the match lit, and you can't throw it
down, because it's the last one you've
got, than you get splendid bite; the
cork goes clear out of sight, and before
you have a chance to pick up the rod the
fish gets off.
Any man who says this isn't aggrava-
ting ought to die; he isn't ft to associate
with ordinary human beings.
But you try to encourage yourself by
saving that while there's life there's hope,
and that perseverance and patience over
come all things, and by getting off lot
more of old second,class falehood, and
throw in again.
Wait for several centuries, if you cal
culate according to your sufferngs, and
never get any bites but one on the calf
of your leg from a sixty.legged spider,
who has been on an exploring expedition
up your pantaloons.
Then you pull out and spit on the bait
for luck may be you blow on it, if you
are superstitious, and you throw in and
get bite. You pull up several hundred
times and never catch him.
Then you get mad; you believe it is an
eel, and you swear TO catch that eel or
die You feel that life will be perfectly
joyess and destitute of happiness unless
you get chance to put your grip on that
eel.
At last you hooked him and drew him
out. He is active and playful and viva
cious. He is wriggler. and combines
himself into letters and g and X, and
runs through the alphabet generally, and
slaps you in the face, and gets around
your legs, and covers you all over with
slime.
Then he tanges your line into hard
knot, and when you get your foot on him
you find that he has swallowed the hook,
and just as likely as not you've got to
ZIP that eel clear open from head to tail
to get it out, and when you do he will
wriggle sway from you and annoy you
as long as you stay there.
Eela never die; Immortality is their
strong point, and they !ay themselves out
to nuke you abjectIy miserable,
When you get all Strengthened out and
throw in again you wait for an hour, but
you only get about one frst-class bite du-
ring that time. You pull up and you
have on an enormous fish, and before you
get him near the shore he quickly lets 90
his hold and drops back again into his
native clement.
1t is rough on yon, admit, but when
YOU 20 fishing you've got to take it as
It comes without growing.
There is q kind of subdued melannholy