FORESTS AND RECREATION 



549 



comes to weapons of precision, the 

 weapons that count in Nature's world. 



And the charm, the thrill that comes 

 with mastery of these tools of the forest, 

 the woodcraft and animal craft and fish 

 craft that accompanies their successful 

 use on wild game! — no man-made 

 artificial sport, hemmed about with 

 arbitrary restrictions, can in the least 

 compare with these great games of life 

 as played in Nature's school! 



And, as you learn them, all the lesser 

 and concomitant arts follow, as the 

 premise and conclusion. You cannot 

 hunt big game with a rifle without pick- 

 ing up the ways of trail and forest, 

 without learning much of the natural 

 history of your quarry. You become 

 initiated into the mysteries of canoe and 

 pack saddle ; of the ways of white water 

 and how to manage a canoe in it ; of the 

 stories told by faint tracks and the bend 

 of a blade of grass in a mountain 

 meadow; of the intricacies of the dia- 

 mond hitch and the perversenesses of 

 pack horses ; of the signs of the weather 

 and the shifts of the wind — a thousand 

 things that the school of the woods has 

 to teach you, the ignorance of which 

 spells failure. 



You cannot follow the double gun 

 very far without learning, from intimate 

 contact, something of the appeal of 

 brown uplands clothed in October 

 colors, of vast marshes teeming with 

 every kind of life, without getting some 

 appreciation of the matchless cunning 

 and wariness of the wildfowl, and the 

 grouse and quail. 



And to succeed with them — ah! that 

 takes the whole of a man ! For, nowhere 

 else are you so absolutely dependent 

 upon your own individual skill. A 

 guide may lead you to big game, 

 furnishing the woodcraft that you may 

 lack, asking only that you do not spoil 

 the stalk with cracked twig or incautious 

 exposure; he may even, let us whisper, 

 kill the game for you on your miss! 

 But, in wing shooting — it's up to you! 

 Hit or miss, full bag or empty, it 

 depends alone on you ! 



And then the devotee of the fly rod! 

 He may be, and probably is, a student 



of botany and a nature lover; but he is 

 first of all an angler. The school of 

 the woods made him curious to learn 

 more of the forest, and its beauties 

 attracted his mind to a more intimate 

 acquaintance. The winding trout 

 stream, flowing through the most beau- 

 tiful scenery that the forest affords, 

 makes his way one of charm and plen- 

 teous delight, but the actual taking of 

 the wily trout — that is another story. 

 A story of sternness, of skill, of keenness 

 of mind and of willingness to go through 

 any amount of discomfort and tribula- 

 tion to outwit a fish that seems all 

 cunning and brains! Hats off to the 

 trout fisherman! — he is no lady of the 

 outdoors as popular fancy pictiures him, 

 but rather one who needs to be all man 

 if he is going to succeed against the 

 trout ! 



And the bait caster ! What memories 

 of lily padded lakes, shimmering in the 

 burnished gold of the setting sun, of a 

 roseate twilight peace, when the lake 

 is one vast mirror; of furious battles 

 with that bulldog of the sweet waters, 

 the black bass, are his! A most 

 difficult art, one that requires more 

 than a modicum of practice to acquire ; — - 

 to place that lure precisely in a given 

 spot, forty or fifty feet away, where a 

 bass may lurk, — not near the spot but 

 right in it, mind you — to so land that 

 lure as to simulate a frog or minnow 

 naturally leaping or jumping to escape 

 possible attack by a bass; to do all 

 this with a short rod and high-speed reel 

 casting the lure as a small boy throws 

 an apple from the end of a stick — to do 

 this with accuracy and deftness, gentle- 

 men, is no unworthy ambition! And, 

 after the strike comes a battle between 

 a five-pound fish and a hundred-and- 

 fifty pound man, equalized by fair 

 tackle, that will put the exhilaration of 

 eternal youth into any man ! — especially 

 if he proves himself worthy to beat the 

 fish at his own game, to take him with all 

 the handicaps imposed by the necessary 

 tackle, and win out against all the 

 snags, tactics, leaps, and plunges, rushes, 

 and feints employed by the battling 

 bass. 



