DAYS WITH BASS 



ing such music as was possible out of an old piano of Parisian 

 make that had lain these forty years unstruck, untuned, uncared 

 for, until it was time to go a-fishing. 



All these accessories, the reader may not unreasonably 

 object, are not bass-fishing; and once again, at the risk of 

 reiteration, I vow that catching of fish is not all of fishing. 

 Angling retrospect would offer but a mean harvest could one 

 recall only the actual business of hooking and killing the fish. 

 That, after all, has a sameness about it and, shorn of the attrac- 

 tive adjuncts of scenery, wild life and comradeship, would, 

 looked back to after long years, seem no more enjoyable than 

 smoking a cigar in the dark. Companionship means so much 

 in fishing, not always necessarily on the water itself, since we 

 anglers are lonely fowl when at the business, but at any rate by 

 the fireside or in camp after the day's doings are over and we 

 gather to compare notes. Yet, even on the water, my bass- 

 fishing, at home at any rate, has been more sociable than those 

 other forays after salmon, trout, or pike, or after the gallant 

 pollack and lurking conger of open coasts. Sometimes as 

 many as a dozen little boats would be drifting up the river, 

 with several of the occupants fast in fish ; and my own boat 

 has been shared by many good friends, including, besides one 

 aforementioned, " John Bickerdyke," who has since then done 

 most of his fishing under the Southern Cross, and the late 

 Aubrey Harcourt, whose yacht made more than one cruise 

 over our bar that her owner might rout me out and talk over 

 old Sydney memories. Indeed, there were days on which my 

 Devon estuary was as crowded with bass-fishers as the Pass of 



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