IS THK GAMK FISH OF Nnimi AMERICA. 



Were this n )t sj^ slDjtia j; anuiW birds baited with grain about a 

 barn-door during a snow-storm, or scooping Mackerel and Herring out 

 of their schulls by buckets-full at a time, would be a higher pursuit 

 and bettor sport than shooting quail and woodcock on the wing over 

 well-broko dogs, or killing a thirty lb. Salmon with the slender gut 

 and artificial fly. 



And so they are better sport to the schoolboys and snobs who prac- 

 tise them, and who, lacking entirely the art, the energy and the perse- 

 verance necessary to success in the true field sports, are perfectly 

 content with arriving at the bad eminence of pot-gunners and ground- 

 fishers ; and then, presuming on their paltry numerical success, affect 

 to undervalue, as profitless, the art which they cannot attain. 



It is the wariness, the subtlety and the caution of the Salmon, ren- 

 dering it necessary to use materials of the slenderest and most delicate 

 nature, and to apply them with the utmost nicety, which makes the 

 triumph over him so far more enthralling to the real fisherman than 

 that over the Pickerel or Mascalonge of equal weight, whose greater 

 voracity and inferior intellect permits the use of a gimp hook-length, 

 and a silken or flaxen line, inst^'ad of the fine gut, tinctured to the very 

 color of the water, and the casting-line of almost invisible minuteness. 



The same is the superiority of rod and reel-fishing to the use of the 

 hand-line, whether in trolling or in deep-sea fishing; because in both 

 these the sport is at an end, so soon as the fish is hooked ; it being a 

 mere question of brute strength wliether the victim shall be conquered 

 or not, when once fast at the end of a line capable of pulling in a 

 yearling bullock. 



On the contrary, it is not the wariness and cunning, but the vigor, 

 the speed, the fierce courage and determined obstinacy of the true 

 Salmon, the Brook Trout, when of fine size and well-fed, the various 

 kinds of larger Pike or Pickerel, the Bass, and some otliers, which 

 gives such a zest to tlieir capture, as compared with the smaller and 

 duller fish which may be pulled olitTas fast as a hook can be baited and 

 thrown in; or the larger and more torpid fish, sucli as the Lake Trout, 

 tir; Carp, and the Pearches, some of which, after a single boring 

 plunge, resign themselves almost without a struggle, and are mastered 

 witli no resistance save that occasioned by their own dead weight. 

 I have said, above, that it is upon these qualities of boldness and 



