CHAPTER XXIV 



THE FASCINATION OF TROUT FISHING 



THAT one should conclude a work of this kind 

 with such chapters as this and the preceding may 

 seem somewhat surprisifc^; naturally they would 

 appear in the beginning, though logically I think 

 they belong at the close. After we have talked 

 at length upon the habits of the fish, the tackle 

 employed and the most successful way of han- 

 dling it, is it not logical that we sit down and 

 soberly ask ourselves why we fish, wherein is the 

 attractivity of angling? Readers of these pages 

 and of my works upon angling know full well 

 that while I am somewhat acquainted with fish 

 and their ways, tackle and how to use it, it is 

 neither the one nor the other that makes me what 

 the world calls an angler. Elsewhere and often 

 I have asserted that I am sick unto death of 

 "practical" articles, even while writing "practi- 

 cal" articles myself, for I know full well that it 

 is not the ability to "tie a may-fly to a miracle" 

 as could Will Wimble, nor yet the requisite skill 

 to place a fuzzy- wuzzy lure just where you want 



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