The rivers roaring between their brimming banks; the brooks babbling
over their pebbled beds and cross-stream logs that will be bridges for
the fox in midsummer; the freed waters of lakes and ponds, dashing in
slow beat of waves or quicker pulse of ripples against their shores, in
voices monotonous but never tiresome, now call all who delight in the
craft to go a-fishing.
With the sap in the aged tree, the blood quickens in the oldest angler's
veins, whether he be of the anointed who fish by the book, or of the
common sort who practice the methods of the forgotten inventors of the
art.
The first are busy with rods and reels that are a pleasure to the eye
and touch, with fly-books whose leaves are as bright with color as
painted pictures, the others rummaging corner-cupboards for mislaid
lines, searching the sheds for favorite poles of ash, ironwood,
tamarack, or cedar, or perhaps the woods for one just budding on its
sapling stump.
Each enjoys as much as the other the pleasant labor of preparation and
the anticipation of sport, though perhaps that of the scientific angler
is more aesthetic enjoyment, as his outfitting is the daintier and more
artistic. But to each comes the recollection of past happy days spent on
lake, river and brook, memories touched with a sense of loss, of days
that can never come again, of comrades gone forever from earthly
companionship.
And who shall say that the plebeian angler does not enter upon the
untangling of his cotton lines, the trimming of his new cut pole, and
the digging of his worms, with as much zest as his brother of the finer
cast on the testing and mending of lancewood or split bamboo rod, the
overhauling of silken lines and leaders, and the assorting of flies.