92 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



deeply wounded his sensitive spirit, and he can- 

 not summon courage to challenge renewed un- 

 kindness. 



Just why fish stories should be discredited so 

 readily by those who do not fish it is difficult to 

 understand. Why should a man who does not 

 know the difference between a spoon-hook and an 

 ostrich feather and who cannot tell a sunfish from 

 a rainbow trout sit in judgment upon the solemn 

 assertions of experienced anglers? This attitude 

 of chronic unbelief concerning the testimony of 

 honest men is unbecoming. We have heard many 

 fish stories during the summer, all of them true. 

 We have even heard varying accounts of the same 

 incident and have believed them all. That comes 

 from possessing a trustful spirit. A gentleman 

 told us of seeing a string of five fine bass and some 

 fifteen or twenty sunfish and perch caught by a 

 cottager who came over from an adjoining lake. 

 The next day another gentleman gave an account 

 of the same catch and the number of bass had 

 increased to twenty-five. On the third day, as 

 vouched for by another gentleman, there were one 

 hundred bass in that string and they averaged 

 between four and six pounds. Now some suspi- 

 cious individuals would scoff at the apparent dis- 

 crepancies, but it is easy to reconcile the different 

 statements. The first gentleman may have seen 

 the catch early in the day and the other accounts 

 may have been based upon later accumulations. 



