22 THe Determined Angler 



it may procure them, or for the sake of killing some- 

 thing, as the unenlightened person charges, for the 

 death of an animal, to the Angler, is the saddest 

 incident of his day. 



All things animate, man included, were made to kill 

 and to be killed. The only crimes in killing are in 

 killing our own kind, and in killing 1 any kind in- 

 humanly. 



And, of all creatures, the Angler is the least offender 

 in these crimes. The very game he seeks, though 

 beautiful and gentle to the eye, and, at times, noble in 

 deed and purpose, is the most brutal killer of all the 

 races the lovely trout in its attacks upon gaudy flies, 

 the valiant bass and pike in devouring their smaller 

 brethren, and the multitudinous sea-fishes, not alone 

 in their feeding upon one another, but in their wanton 

 murder of the millions upon millions of victims of their 

 pure love of slaughter. 



But, of fly-fishing for brook trout: 



"Fly-fishing, " says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of 

 angling"; and "the genuine Angler/ 1 says Frederick 

 Pond, "is invariably a poet." 



Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged 

 in in several forms in fresh water for salmon, trout, 

 black bass, grayling, perch, pike-perch, pickerel 

 (Long Island brook pickerel), sunfish, roach, dace, 

 shad, herring (branch), etc.; in brackish water for 

 shad, trout, white perch, etc.; and in salt water for 

 bluefish (young), herring (common), mackerel, and 

 doubt not, kind sir, for I am prepared to prove it 

 squeteague (weakfish) , plaice (fluke, summer flounder) , 

 and other species of both bottom and surface habitats 

 another "endless field for argument, speculation, 

 and experiment." 



