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Born February 27, 1861. Died January 6, 1917. 



During the past year the American Fisheries Society 

 has lost one of its prominent members and enthusiastic 

 supporters who has often been chosen for positions of 

 responsibility in it and has discharged his duties with 

 more than ordinary zeal and enthusiasm. Mr. Perce was 

 a native of Brooklyn, New York, and the son of Elbert 

 Perce, who was himself a fish fancier and an angler as 

 well as an author and educator. Little wonder then that 

 in rambles along the trout streams of the Catskills the 

 father took the boy who thus early acquired that love 

 of nature and of nature's finest sport which accompanied 

 him through life and developed into the ruling passion 

 in his manhood years. As a boy of nineteen he went to 

 western Kansas and in the romantic role of cowboy 

 learned the wonders of nature as they presented them- 

 selves in that marvelous region. But the greater oppor- 

 tunities for success in business lines drew him to Chicago 

 where in 1885 he formed business connections with con- 

 struction interests which he held to the time of his death. 



At the time of the Columbian Exposition Casting 

 Tournament in 1893 he was attracted by this sport and 

 remained closely associated with it from that date. In 

 1906 the National Association of Scientific Angling Clubs 

 was organized at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and he, elected 

 as its first president, guided the interests of the new 

 organization for five years. He was, however, an ardent 

 advocate of the strictest amateur standing in casting 

 competitions so that in 1913 he withdrew from the orig- 

 inal association to form with others the National Ama- 

 teur Casting Association in the work of which he was 

 active until his death. His bold and uncompromising 

 action on this matter brought criticisms from former 

 associates with different views, but with that loyalty to 

 principle which always manifested itself in his various 



