192 TROUT LORE 



that great day was not my best day. Perhaps 

 I had not violated the ethics of sport, but I had 

 solved no problem, had employed no extraor- 

 dinary amount of skill; simply, I had cast the 

 flies and the trout had almost hooked themselves ; 

 the merest tyro might have done as well. Look- 

 ing back from the vantage-ground of the pres- 

 ent, as between the day first described and the 

 latter, I consider the former the most satis- 

 factory. Perhaps if crowded into a corner for 

 a reason I could not do better than again re- 

 peat our threadbare apothegm, "It is not all of 

 fishing to fish." 



So we are forced to the conclusion that suc- 

 cess or failure, a good day or bad day, has noth- 

 ing to do with the number of trout caught. The 

 actual truth may be cast in a contradictory 

 phrase: An angler's best days are his worst 

 days ; and, conversely, his worst days are his best 

 days. It is not the catching of fish which is of 

 importance. The day on which we solved some 

 problem, caught a fish that had outwitted and 

 outgeneraled us time and again, looms larger in 

 our affections than does the day when we won 

 a large basket through little effort. Nor is it 

 the solving of problems, the catching of fish, 

 that makes a day one to be long remembered. 



