INTRODUCTORY 



one season, what a vast change there would be 

 in our captures the next year. It would double the 

 size and quantity of fish taken, and that of our 

 pleasure likewise. To abstain from the capture 

 of small fish, while not enough, is all we can ex- 

 pect from the angler. Much more is required from 

 others, in conserving, breeding, planting, and 

 transferring every kind of available fish-food in 

 the most desirable places, viz.: where fish happen 

 to be most abundant and food scarce. Anglers 

 can help along this work, also, by filling their 

 pockets with grasshoppers, crickets, caddis, bot- 

 tom creepers, garden-worms — in fact every kind 

 of food — and by dumping it in the water, where 

 it will find ever-ready mouths to feed. Even should 

 the food not be taken by game-fish it is sure to 

 feed some creature game-fish eat, for, in the round 

 circle of nature's work, even garbage feeds worms, 

 fish eat worms, we eat fish, and, in the course of 

 time, worms eat us. 



In addition to stopping the slaughter of young 

 and undersized fish we must go still further by 

 not robbing game-fish of their food to use as bait 

 to capture them. There are many advantages to 

 be gained by doing so, and we lose nothing by it. 

 In later chapters many good and sufficient reasons 



