CHAPTER II 



LANDING TOOLS AND HOW TO USE THEM 



History tells us that Austerlitz placed the iron 

 crown upon Napoleon's brow, while Waterloo swept 

 it off. There is no victory until the battle is won. 

 No doughty bronze-back is netted until he is netted. 

 Which is but another way of. saying that more fish 

 are lost at the net's edge than at any other point of 

 the game. I think it was Napoleon who said that 

 God was on the side of the biggest guns, a statement 

 more witty than true ; which, applied to bass fishing, 

 would mean that landing tools are of utmost im- 

 portance. While I am ready to concede that landing 

 tools should be of the best, indeed must be, I wish to 

 assert that the angler must know, first of all, how to 

 play his capture, lest he have no opportunity of using 

 them. 



The reader undoubtedly remembers the old copy- 

 book slogan: "Drive thy business or thy business 

 will drive thee." So the bass-fisher any angler as 

 for that must determine in his own mind that he is 

 going to conduct the fight from start to finish, therein 

 lies the secret of success. Never wait for a fish to 

 reveal his tactics; in the slang of the day, "beat him 



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