146 THE FINE ART OF FISHING 



The call of strange waters, little ponds "way off" in 

 the woods, the upper reaches of rivers as yet unexploited 

 by anglers, is practically irresistible. For a time, when 

 camping out, the fishing is within easy reach from the 

 camp. Then, no matter how fine may be the sport at 

 the home-camp, a side trip on the chance of connecting 

 with an imaginary record fish, or finding some purely 

 hypothetical lake is always in order. The rightly 

 constructed angler is an indefatigable explorer, although 

 at least half the time and from the strictly practical 

 point of view the object of his explorations is some- 

 what vague. It is manifestly foolish to leave first-class 

 fishing for the merely supposititious sport afforded by 

 some little known and possibly non-existent lake or 

 river, but we all do it. 



Just why a man will tear his way through the woods 

 for days in order to reach a place where "the hand of 

 man has never set foot," which, after all, is quite like 

 any other place, is difficult to comprehend. And the 

 mental status of the angler who pulls, pushes, and pad- 

 dles a canoe and half a ton of excess baggage and fishing 

 tackle up a river for the express purpose of wetting his 

 line "farther up" than anyone else has ever been crazy 

 enough to fish is, to say the least, unstable if not dan- 

 gerous. Of course the reason is usually the suppositi- 

 tious larger fish and better fish in the presumably un- 

 fished waters. But the world is already pretty small 

 and annually growing smaller, and every angler knows, 

 or has reason to know that at the present stage of the 

 game all the best fishing waters are neither lost, strayed, 

 or stolen; their locations are definitely known and duly 



