By way of introduction and explanation, it should be said that there is
no intention at this time to deal with those who fish for a livelihood.
Those sturdy and hard-working people need no vindication or defense.
Our concern is with those who fish because they have an occult and
mysterious instinct which leads them to love it, because they court the
healthful, invigorating exertion it invites, and because its indulgence
brings them in close contact and communion with Nature's best and most
elevating manifestations. This sort of fishing is pleasure and not
work--sport and not money-grabbing. Therefore it is contemptuously
regarded in certain quarters as no better than a waste of time.
Generous fishermen cannot fail to look with pity upon the benighted
persons who have no better conception than this of the uses and
beneficent objects of rational diversion. In these sad and ominous days
of mad fortune-chasing, every patriotic, thoughtful citizen, whether he
fishes or not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more
fishermen. There can be no doubt that the promise of industrial peace,
of contented labor and of healthful moderation in the pursuit of
wealth, in this democratic country of ours, would be infinitely improved
if a large share of the time which has been devoted to the concoction of
trust and business combinations, had been spent in fishing.
The narrow and ill-conditioned people who snarlingly count all fishermen
as belonging to the lazy and good-for-nothing class, and who take
satisfaction in describing an angler's outfit as a contrivance with a
hook at one end and a fool at the other, have been so thoroughly
discredited that no one could wish for their more irredeemable
submersion. Statesmen, judges, clergymen, lawyers and doctors, as well
as thousands of other outspoken members of the fishing fraternity, have
so effectively given the lie to these revilers of an honest and
conscientious brotherhood that a large majority have been glad to find
refuge in ignominious silence.
Notwithstanding this, weak, piping voices are still occasionally heard
accusing fishermen of certain shortcomings and faults. These are so
unsubstantial and unimportant that, as against the high place in the
world's esteem claimed by those who love to fish, they might well be
regarded as non-essentials, or, in a phrase of the day, as mere matters
of detail. But, although it may be true that these charges are on the
merits unworthy of notice, it cannot be expected that fishermen, proud
of the name, will be amiably willing to permit those making such
accusations the satisfaction of remaining unchallenged.