The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-03-23
The Philosophic Angler.

our Vdiueu Ir1enuS, MT. Ople L. heaQ
and Mr.. Stanley Waterloo, have invited
us to go fishing with them. Beginning
in mere infancy with the artless but
glittering minnow, we have worked our
way up and along the ascending scale,
thousands upon thousands of pumpkin
seeds, dace, perch, bullheads, cells, pike,
pickerel and bass falling victim to our
Incompatible art. We have been i'm
portuned to write book about angling;
publishers have come to us and besought
us with tears in their eyes to give the
world the vast benefit of our knowledge.
But we have resisted these temptations
for the reason that, knowing that our
proficiency is gift rather than an ac-
complishment, we believe that the true
fisherman is born, not made.
Some who have scrutinized our meth
DDS assert that the secret of our unpar-
alleled success is due largely to the fact
that we invariably spit upon our bait
Others maintain that we catch fish be-
cause we never swear, and others still
impute our success to the circumstance
that under no circumstances whatever
will we go fishing on a Sunday. There
are those, we repeat, who honestly lay
our success to these secret causes, but
they are all in grievous error.
Our remarkable accomplishments do
not depend at all upon these trivial
things; we catch fish simply because
we were born with that subtle, indefin-
able genius for catching fish which can
not be comprehended save congenitally
or by the mysterious process of heredity.
The question which arises is whether
it would be righteous of us to prostitute
this noble genius to the ends which
Messrs. Read and Waterloo suggest.
Would it not be a criminal waste of time
for US to devote from six to eight hours
day to that lackadaisical fooling which
those misguided friends of ours call fish
ing? 1t strikes us that we could be much
better employed than at the question
able sport of doddering about in an awk-
ward yawl in pursuit of emaciated perch
and neurasthenic pickerel. When we
tent with cadaverous hlliputian prey;
we demand heroic game.
Messrs. Read and Waterloo are very
clever gentlemen, but they have yet to
learn that just as a rolling stone gath
ers no moss, so rowing angler compre-
hends no game. These two amateur
sportsmen no sooner get into boat and
cast their lines than they are filled with
the absurd conviction that the best fish
ing is to be found mile away, under a
distant bank; yet no sooner is this far
off spot reached than they are possessed
of another and more violent conviction
that still more desirable angling spot
is the PUSHES against the farther shore
of the lake. And so from one locality
to another they must be transported,
never content to try the present waters,
but always goaded on by The insane
hope of finding enormous success else
where.
Life is full 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
fretting, no labor-simply equanimity
and repose and success. What sweeter
thing is there to be practiced or imagined
than this sport as we pursue it? We lie
in the bottom of the boat, our head pill
lowed upon a cushion at the bow; a
green umbrella forefends the ardor of
the sun, and with a companionable book
the hours are beguiled. The humble
out 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 ruffled expanse
when fruition comes easier with respose?
The veriest clod can row and sweat, but
only genius can philosophize and catch
fish.-Eugen. Field, IN Chicago Neus.