THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN
One profound proof of the soundness in the philosophy that teaches
against wantonly wasteful slaughter in the chase is the disinclination
on the part of certain so-called sportsmen--a vulgar gentry that
resort to the woods and waters solely because it is fashionable to do
so--and their guides to honorably dispose of their game after the
killing. These greedy snobs are viciously adverse to losing a single
bird or fish in the pursuit, but they think little of letting the game
rot in the sun after the play. With this fact easily provable any day
in the year, it may be said that outside of market fishing and camp
fishing for the pot the one real object in fishing and angling is the
pursuit itself and not the quarry.
In baseball, it's the game, not the bases; in archery, it's the
straightest shooting, not the target. True, we play cards for prizes,
but surely as much for the game itself, not altogether for the prizes,
because it is possible to buy the prizes or their equivalent outright
or take the prizes by force.
My bayman develops fits bordering closely upon incurable hysteria if I
lose a single bluefish in the play, but he worries not when he goes
ashore with a sloopful of hand-liners and half a hundred fish he
cannot make good use of.
"Pull it in! you'll lose it!" "We could catch a hundred if you
wouldn't fool!" "The other boats'll beat us badly!" "There's a million
right 'round the boat!"
These are a few of his excitable expressions. But, when I say to him,
"What's the difference, Captain, in losing one or two fish here and
wasting half a hundred on shore?" he calms down for a minute or two.
Only for a minute or two, however, for he's in the game solely for
fish, not the fishing. It's all numbers and size with him, and he's
encouraged in this greed by nine out of every ten men he takes aboard
his boat.
"We caught fifty," says Tom.
"We caught a hundred and ten," says Dick.
"We caught two hundred and sixty," says Harry.
And so the bayman brags, too, because it's purely business with him.
I have always found the greatest pleasure in fishing is the fishing
and not the blood and bones associated with the pursuit. I would
rather take five fair fish on fine tackle correctly manipulated than
fill the hold with a hundred horrid monsters mastered by mere
strength, as in hand-line trolling for bluefish in the ocean and for
muskellonge, etc., in fresh water.
"But," says Captain Getemanyway, "I can catch more fish with a
hand-line than you can with your fine rod and reel."
"Of course you can," I reply, "and you could catch more if you used a
net, a stick of dynamite, or a shotgun."
If it's the fish alone that is the object of the Angler's eye, why
resort to any sort of tackle when there's a fish stall in every
bailiwick?
There is great need of enlightenment in the common ethics of angling.
Many persons are under the impression that quantity rather than
quality makes the Angler's day.
According to their view of the pursuit, fishing is judged by figures,
as in finance--glory to the man with the biggest balance. This is not
so, because with this view accepted, Rockefeller would shine above
Christ, Shakespeare, and Lincoln.
The mere catch--the number of fish taken--is only one little detail;
it is not all of angling. If it were, the superior fisherman would be
the man who got his fish in any manner.
Some of our greatest Anglers purposely never excel in the matter of
numbers. The Angler's true qualities are based on the application of
correct tackle, correct methods in fishing, and a correct appreciation
of the pursuit, the game, the day, and the craft.
'Tis the day and the play, not the heads and hides that count.
An ancient writer says of the royal hounds: "The hunter loves to see
the hounds pursue the hare, and he is glad if the hare escapes." So it
is in angling; we do not wish to catch all the fish we can take in any
fashion. We want to take some of them in a proper manner with
appropriate implements.
"I can catch more trout with the angleworm and more bass with the
trolling spoon than you can with the artificial fly," says Robert.
"Of course you can, Robert," say I, "and you could catch still more if
you spread a screen across the tiny stream or set a trap, or if you
used a set line with a hundred hooks, just as the target shooter might
more readily puncture the circle with a charge of shot than with the
single bullet, or just as the greedyman with a blunderbuss might excel
in number the wing shot by potting quail bunched on the ground instead
of chivalrously bagging single birds on the wing with a pertinent arm."
The neophyte always confounds the angler with the indiscriminate
fisherman and so implicates the angler in the cruelty and wastefulness
associated with mere chance fishing, when in fact the Angler is the
real propagator and protector of the fishes, and is in no sense cruel
or wasteful.
The laws that prohibit greedy catches, and protect the mother fish in
breeding time, are made by, enforced by, and supported financially by
the Angler.
The rearing of the fishes that are placed in depleted waters was
originated by, is conducted by, and is paid for by the Angler.
No other class has earnestly bothered its head, honestly lifted its
hands, or liberally opened its purse in these matters, and the nearest
association man in general has with the preservation of both wild fish
and fowl is in uttering a cowardly, false accusation against the one
who really deserves sole credit for the work, the sportsman, the
genuine field sportsman, not the vicious sporting man of the race
track, cockpit, and gambling den--two distinct species of animal, as
vastly separated in character as the deerhound and the dragon.
And why this charge against the innocent? Simply because the guilty
wish to shield and profit themselves, as the thief cries fire that he
may pick your pocket in the panic that ensues.
But then there is a well meaning but wholly unenlightened element,
that, influenced by the cry of the methodical spoiler, ignorantly
condemns the honest man--the really humane men and women who are
sincere in their condemnation but totally ignorant of their subject.
One of this sort, an estimable woman in public life, loudly preaches
against the chase and is all the time drawing dividends that provide
her with the means to indulge in the vulgarest and cruelest of
fashionable extravagances--among them the wool of the unborn lamb,
furs from the backs of fast-disappearing quadrupeds, and feathers of
the farmers' most valuable insect-destroying song birds--and these
wicked dividends derived from several acid factories, a gas house, a
power plant, and a dye works that have not only killed off the
trillions of fishes in several rivers but destroyed forever the very
habitat of the species!
Another of this sort is well exemplified in the character of an old
gentleman in Pennsylvania who loudly proclaims against trout fishing,
but who utterly ruins nearly eight miles of trout water, once the home
of thousands of lordly fish, by permitting his mill hands to run off
sawdust in the streams.
This poor, ignorant soul objects to you and me chivalrously taking
half a dozen specimens on the fly--catching the cunning trout with an
imitation of the living thing itself destroys by the thousands for
food and play--while he mercilessly slaughters the entire immediate
supply, and prevents further propagation of the whole species with the
refuse of his forest-devastating, money-making machine.
True, the Angler like all fishermen, and like the fishes themselves,
kills his specimens, but this killing is ordained by nature
herself--at least it has better grounds for excuse, if excuse it
needs, than that ten-fold more destructive killing _by_ the fishes
that not only slay for food, but actually mutilate millions upon
millions of their kind for the mere play afforded them in this
practice--and though the Angler may be in the wrong when he humanely
dispatches a few of the batch he breeds, he is not as hopeless as the
wanton fisher, or as brutal as the unenlightened "reformers," the
so-called humane lady with the fashionable furs and feathers of
fast-disappearing species she never turns a hair to replenish or
protect, and the old gentleman hypocrite with his murderous sawmill.