TROUT FLY-FISHING IN AMERICA 



Consider the point of view carefully, digest the mean- 

 ing of the words presupposes and possess as they are used, 

 determine the idea their author wished to convey and then 

 ask yourself if there is anything in what Dr. Henshall 

 says about a fly-rod that would warrant such an unsports- 

 manlike statement. 



If I am not in error as to the correct meaning of the 

 word presupposes, he who presupposes has to assume 

 something in advance without actual knowledge or ex- 

 perience. On that account, to maintain that a principle 

 is wrong would seem, to say the least, quite far-fetched, 

 and also it would seem to be quite within reason and com- 

 mon sense for no one to believe it. 



These are the words, "to possess fish" . . . but 

 why was the word possess selected instead of the word 

 catch? 



To possess means to have, to hold, and in the angling 

 world it means to kill, while to catch means quite another 

 thing, namely, to land your fish and then return it imme- 

 diately, unharmed, to the water. 



Can there be any mistake about the sense in which this 

 word possess is used when it is immediately followed by 

 the word :/>o J j^jj/o// in this manner? . . . "and surely 

 the desire of possession alone cannot call so many to the 

 brookside !'* 



The long and short of it is that Mr. La Branche more 

 than plainly implies that all anglers who use such a rod 

 as Dr. Henshall describes are simply desirous of killing, 

 not catching, game fish with the fly. 



8i 



