FOREWORD 



necessity has arisen. The book is true to facts in so 

 far as I can make it so. That no errors have crept in 

 I will not say, for "to err is human," you know. 

 Simply I have tried to produce a safe guide for the 

 anglers who seek one great group of our fresh-water 

 fishes. Whether or not I have done my work well, I 

 leave the reader-fisherman and the fisherman-scientist 

 to judge. 



I can say in utmost truth that this has been a work 

 of love, for I dearly love to catch fish and write of the 

 fish I catch. I have tried to get the reader to see that 

 not merely the science of the subject, nor the important 

 matter of tackle, nor yet the successful taking of fish 

 has been my lodestar, but that the getting out into 

 God's Out-o'-Doors, where the free breezes blow and the 

 flowers tone and scent the air, has been the thing of 

 utmost importance. I hold myself to be a sort of 

 preacher, a preacher of the gospel of the Out-o'-Doors. 

 What we need in this day and age is more men going to 

 the woods and waters for doubt's anodyne and care's 

 surcease. There is such a thing as the Religion of the 

 Open, and it is not mere Godless pantheism, either. 



Perhaps some will criticize me for spinning so many 

 yarns, casting my information so often in story form; 

 but to them I can only say, "It is not all of fishing to 

 fish." I turn from many of our American writers to 

 our English cousins, for they take time, some of them, 

 to see the flowers and hear the birds sing. I have re- 

 lated many an incident, each one, however, I think 

 the reader will agree with me teaches some concrete 

 lesson, presses home some angling truth. While I have 

 no desire that this book become "popular," I have 

 tried to write it in a popular style, though I have 



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