The record-union., 1892-03-25
PHlLosoPHIC ANGLING
Your True Fisherman is Born, Not
Made.


Made.
Our valued friends, Opie =. Read and
| Stanley Waterloo have invited us to 90
fishing with them some time next month
beginning in mere infancy
with the artless but gtittering minny, we
nave worked our way up and along the
ascending scale, thousands upon thou
sands of pumpkin seeds, dace perch
bnilheads, cells, pike, picl<erel and bass
lalllng victim to our Incompatible art.
We have been importuned to write q
book about angling; publishers have
come to us and besought us with tears in
their eyes TO give the world the vast BEN
EFT of our knowledge. But we have re-
sisted these temptations for the reason
that, Knowing that our proficiency is u
gift rather than an accomplishment, we
believe that the true fisherman is born,
| not made.
Some who have scrutniZed our meth
DDS assert that the secret of our unparal-
leled success is due largely to the TACT that
we invariably spit upon our bait. Others
MAINTAIN that we catch fish because we
never swear, and others still impute our
success To the circumstance that under no
circumstances whatever will we go fish
ing on Sunday. There are those, we re-
peat, who honestly lay our success to
these secret causes, but they are all in
grievouS error.
Our remarkable accomplishments do
not depend ut all upon these trivial
| things; we catch fish simply because we
were born with that subtle, indetinable
genius for catching fish which cannot be
comprehended save congeniality or by
the mysterious processes of heredity.
The question which arises is whether
1t would be righteous OF us to prostitute
this noble genius to the ends which
MeSsrs. Read and Waterloo suggest.
~ ha. ,,,s,,a I -, q
for us to devote from six to eight hours
a day TO that laciladaisical fooling which
these misguided friends of ours call fish
ing? 1t strikes us that we should be
much better employed than ut the ques-
tionabie sport of doddering about in an
awkward yawl in pursuit of emacated
perch and neurasthonic pickerel When
we fish we want TO fish, and we arc not
content with caGaverous lilliputian prey:
we demand heroic game.
Messrs. Read and Waterloo are very
clever gentlemen, but they have vet TO
learn that, just as q rolling stone gathers
no moss, so rowing angler comprehendS
no game. These two amateur sportsmen
no sooner get into 4 boat and east their
lines then they are filled with tho absurd
conviction that the best fishing is to be
found mile away, under distant bank:
yet no sooner is this far-otf spot reached
then they are possessed of another and
more violent convection that q still more
desirable angling spot is the rushes
against the further shore of the lake.
And SO from one locality to another they
must Ice transported, never content TO
try the present waters, butalways goaded
on by the insane hope of finding enor-
nous success elsewhere.
Life is fall of this spirit of impotence
and unrest, and that is why there are so
few fish caught. AS for us, it contents us
to push out from shore, drop the anchor
and cast our line; no worry, no iretting,
no labor-simply equanimity and repose
and success. WHAT sweeter thing is there
to be practiced or imagined than this
sport as we pursue it2 We lie in the
bottom of the boat, our head pillowed
upon cushion at the bow: n green UNI
brella foretends the ardor of the sun. and
with n companionable book the hours are
beguiled. The humble but serviceable
bob apprises us when it is time for action.
oh, this is fishing that is indeed fishing!
Why toll hither and thither over the
ruttied eNpanse when frution comes
easier with repose? The veriest clod can
row and sweat, but only a genius can
philosophize and catch fish.-Eugene
Field in Chicago News