148 Fishes as Food for Man 
‘‘To my mind, there is no real sport in any kind of fishing 
except fly-fishing. This sitting on the bank of a muddy stream 
with your bait sunk, waiting for a bite, may be conducive to 
gentleness and patience of spirit, but it has not the joy of action 
in which a healthy man revels. How much more sport is it to 
clamber over fallen logs that stretch far out a-stream, to wade 
slipping over boulders and let your fly drop caressingly on 
ripples and swirling eddies and still holes! It is worth all the 
work to see the gleam of a silver side as a half-pounder rises, 
and, with a flop, takes the fly excitedly to the bottom. And 
then the nervous thrill as, with a deft turn of the wrist, you 
hook him securely—whoever has felt that thrill cannot forget 
it. It will come back to him in his law office when he should 
be thinking of other things; and with it will come a longing 
for that dear remembered stream and the old days. That is 
the hold trout-fishing takes on a man. 
“Tt is spring now and I feel the old longing myself, as I 
always do when life comes into the air and the smell of new 
growth is sweet. I got my rod out to-day, put it together, 
and have been looking over my flies. If I cannot use them, I 
can at least muse over days of the past and dream of those to 
come.” (WALDEMAR YOUNG.) 
