78 The Angler's Secret 



this statement by the fact that there 

 are many persons who are not market 

 fishermen and who catch fish without 

 fishing tackle the hand-line gentry 

 who, even more than the professional 

 fisherman, are constantly crying down 

 the angler's sport, claiming more fish are 

 caught without a rod than with one, as 

 if the quantity of game constituted the 

 sole pleasure of the gentleman's day. It 

 seems to me, when I hear these scoffers, 

 that it is a pity they have to use even a 

 line and hook. Why do they? Dyna- 

 mite will kill more fish. 



The professional fisherman may fish as 

 he pleases I have nothing to say to him 

 but the angler should not angle without 

 a rod, any more than the player should 

 perform without a costume, the musical 

 director without his baton, the archer 

 without his bow, or the canoeman with- 

 out his paddle. All boating is not yacht- 

 ing, all painting is not art, all rhyming is 

 not poetry, and all fishing is not angling. 



