34 The American Angler 
used quite generally in that section, 
with some kind of fancy-named im- 
ported water on the side, and, being 
in Rome, the rest of us did as the Ro- 
mans do. 
During the evening’s conversation 
the subject of fish and fishing came up, 
and, while this subject was under dis- 
cussion, some one asked the difference 
between a fisherman and an angler. 
The ideas expressed, were not in har- 
mony with the views of one of our party, 
hailing from New Orleans, who has 
killed untold millions of mosquitoes, 
but whose education in the science of 
angling is of such a questionable char- 
acter as to make it extremely doubtful 
if he can tell a bass from a Mississippi 
mud cat, arod from a pole, or a silk 
line from a tow string, advanced the 
following as the difference: 
‘¢ A fisherman is a man who catches 
fish, an angler is a man who says he 
catches fish.”’ 
While the distinction he makes is as 
faulty and incorrect as language can 
make it, I was so well pleased with it 
at the time as to make a note of it, 
little dreaming that my three weeks’ 
fishing, so soon to commence, would 
result in bringing me so unpleasantly 
near his definition of an angler. 
My score of former years, both in 
number and size of fish, was sadly re- 
duced, and the reputation I have been 
building and guarding with jealous care 
for the past fifteen years in this stream, 
as one of the most successful anglers 
fishing its pools, came out of the three 
weeks’ fight ‘‘ all tattered and torn.” 
It was only by the most constant and 
laborious fishing, and the bringing into 
play all I knew of the habits, habitat 
and the secret hiding places of this 
wary fish, that I was not forced to re- 
turn to the bosom of my family and 
to my friends, and say I caught fish. 
Such a story might have satisfied my 
friends, but it would not have made my 
peace with my good wife. She is some- 
what of a lawyer, and adheres to that 
well-established rule of evidence which 
says every case must be proven by the 
best evidence obtainable under the cir- 
cumstances, and as the best evidence 
of the fact I had caught fish, was the 
fish themselves, the fish had to be intro- 
duced, or have judgment go against me. 
I arrived at the fishing grounds Oc- 
tober 10, at 4 o'clock, Pp. mM , and wasim- 
mediately informed, in no uncertain 
language, by Mr. Lowry and my Bro. 
F. O., that the minnows were out, 
that they were going after bait the 
next day, and that I was going with 
them. No cordial or brotherly invita- 
tion to join them in the trip for bait, 
but the cold-unfeeling assertion, ‘‘ You 
will go with us, too.” Thus appeared 
the first dark cloud in the otherwise 
clear sky; later on, letters began to 
arrive from the friends I had expected 
to join me, saying they would not be 
able to come this year, and once more 
I took a solemn oath that in the years 
to come the plans for my outings 
would include self and self only. 
We found minnows so scarce that in 
the three weeks I put in three-and-a- 
half days of slavish work seining for 
bait, and was then forced to fish with 
minnows I had informer years refused 
to give a place toin my bucket. The 
first ten days the fishing was a grade 
or two better than indifferent and, 
our live-box becoming uncomfortably 
crowded, we expressed between eighty 
and ninety bass to distant friends, this 
number cleaning out the box. 
Then began the fight in the interest 
of home and home friends. And, about 
this time, it came to pass that cold, 
