CHAPTER III 



THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN 



ONE profound proof of the soundness in the philo- 

 sophy that teaches against wantonly wasteful slaugh- 

 ter in the chase is the disinclination on the part of 

 certain so-called sportsmen a vulgar gentry that 

 resort to the woods and waters solely because it is 

 fashionable to do so and their guides to honorably 

 dispose of their game after the killing. These greedy 

 snobs are viciously adverse to losing a single bird or 

 fish in the pursuit, but they think little of letting the 

 game rot in the sun after the play. With this fact 

 easily provable any day in the year, it may be said 

 that outside of market fishing and camp fishing for 

 the pot the one real object in fishing and angling is the 

 pursuit itself and not the quarry. 



In baseball, it's the game, not the bases; in archery, 

 it's the straightest shooting, not the target. True, we 

 play cards for prizes, but surely as much for the game 

 itself, not altogether for the prizes, because it is pos- 

 sible to buy the prizes or their equivalent outright or 

 take the prizes by force. 



My bayman develops fits bordering closely upon 

 incurable hysteria if I lo.se a single bluefish in the play, 

 but he worries not when he goes ashore with a sloopful 

 of hand-liners and half a hundred fish he cannot make 

 good use of. 



15 



