[Sidenote: Parlous Times in Angling]
These be parlous times in angling. When William King, in the seventeenth
century, with as much prophecy as humor, wrote:
"His hook he baited with a dragon's tail
And sat upon a rock and bobbed for whale,"
he builded better than he knew. And if Job had lived in the twentieth
century, the query: "Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?" would
be answered in the affirmative; also, it would be demonstrated that "He
maketh the deep to boil like a pot," at Fort Myers and Catalina.
The shades of Walton and Cotton, of Sir Humphrey Davy and "Christopher
North," and of our own Dr. Bethune and Thaddeus Norris, could they
"revisit the glimpses of the moon," would view with wonder and silent
sorrow the tendency of many anglers of the present day toward
strenuosity, abandoning the verdure-clad stream, with its warbling
birds and fragrant blossoms, for the hissing steam launch and
vile-smelling motor boat in pursuit of leaping tuna and silver king. It
goes without saying, however, that considered as a sport, fishing for
these jumbos is highly exciting and capable of infusing unbounded
enthusiasm, but it can hardly be called angling.
[Sidenote: The Ethics of Sport]
In the ethics of sport it may be questioned
if there is not more real pleasure, and at the same time a
manifestation of a higher plane of sportsmanship, in the pursuit of
woodcock, snipe, quail or grouse with well-trained bird-dogs, than in
still-hunting moose, elk or deer. In the former case the bird is
flushed and given a chance for life, while in the latter case the
quarry is killed "as an ox goeth to the slaughter."
[Illustration: Black Bass returning to water after leaping. (_See
page 15._)]
So in fishing a like comparison is possible--fly-fishing for salmon,
black bass, trout, or grayling as against fishing for tarpon and tuna,
which are worthless when killed except as food for sharks. In the first
case the angler's skill, and his knowledge of its habits, are pitted
against the wiles of the fish, with but a weak and slender snell of
silkworm fiber between its capture or escape, while in the case of the
leviathans mentioned, they are handicapped by being hooked in the
gullet, and by towing a boat in their struggle for freedom. But
comparisons are always odious. While the choice between the "gentle"
art and strenuous fishing is certainly a question of taste, it may
depend somewhat on the length of one's purse.
[Sidenote: Black Bass Fishing]
Black-bass fishing! These are words to conjure with. What pleasurable
emotions they call up! To the superannuated angler the words are fraught
with retrospective reflections of the keenest enjoyment, while they
cause the soul of the new hand to become obsessed with pleasures yet to
come--pleasures rendered brighter by the rosy tint of anticipation.
[Sidenote: The Love of Angling]
With the first blossoms of spring the thoughts of many men, both old and
young, turn lightly to love--the love of angling. And as the leaves
unfold, and the birds begin their wooing, and the streams become clear,
the premonitory symptoms of the affection are manifested in a rummaging
of drawers and lockers for fly-books and tackle boxes, and the critical
examination of rods and reels, and in the testing of lines and leaders.
These preliminaries are the inevitable harbingers of the advent of the
angling season, when black bass are leaping gayly from the waters after
their enforced hibernation in the gloom and seclusion of the deep pools.
And when the encroachment of age or rheumatism forbids wading the
stream, one can still sit in a boat on a quiet lake and enjoy to the
full the delight and fascination of "bass fishing." What farmer's boy
in the Middle West does not look forward to a Saturday when the ground
is too wet to plow or plant, when he can repair to the creek or pond
with his rude tackle and realize his fond dreams of fishing for black
bass! And when such a day arrives, as it is sure to do, how he hurries
through the chores, and with what sanguine hope he digs for angle-worms
in the garden, or nets crawfish or minnows in the brook, each one good
for at least one "sockdolager" of a bass. For it sometimes happens that
a bass will take a wriggling earth-worm or a "soft craw" when it will
not deign to notice the choicest minnow or the most cunningly devised
artificial fly.
[Sidenote: Youthful Ambition]
And the country lad always knows just where an
old "whopper" of a bronze-back black bass has his lair beneath the roots
of a big tree, or under the ledge of a moss-grown rock. To do future
battle with such an one has engrossed his thoughts by day and his dreams
by night, ever since the Christmas tree for him bore such fruit as a
linen line, a red and green float and a dozen fishhooks.
[Sidenote: "A Riband in the Cap of Youth"]
The triumphal march of a Roman warrior, with captives chained to his
chariot wheels, entering the gates of the Eternal City with a blare of
trumpets and the applause of the multitude, was an event to fill his
soul with just pride--but it descends to the level of vainglory and
mediocrity when compared with the swelling heart of the lad as he enters
the farmhouse kitchen with two or three old "lunkers" of black bass
strung on a willow withe. Many times during his homeward march had he
halted to admire the scale armor and spiny crests of his captive
knights!
[Illustration: From a color sketch by Sherman F. Denton.