AND OTHER SKETCHES 285 



A FEW SUGGESTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 



Look to your rods, reels and lines; go over the latter 

 with jealous care, because if there is one thing in the 

 world of sport more tantalizing than another, it is to find 

 out the weak spot when you are reeling in a fine trout or 

 bass. Though you be a devout church member, or even 

 a Sunday School teacher, you are apt, when such a catas- 

 trophe occurs, to say naughty words that at other and less 

 provoking times would send a shudder through your 

 anatomy from heels to head. 



Were you ever in such a fix yourself? If you haven't 

 been then you never have been tempted and don't know 

 what power of mind is necessary to withstand the temp- 

 tation. I was once bait-fishing a stream up in Grey, 

 alongside a distinguished member of the Methodist 

 Church and one of its most devoted class teachers — a 

 man of generous impulses and a real good sort, one of 

 the kind who believed in legitimate sport and was fond 

 both of the rod and gun. On the occasion referred to he 

 had hooked an extra big trout and was exercising all the 

 arts of the skilled angler to land the fish. He had worked 

 with him for fully twenty minutes, and at last had him 

 well spent and was gently reeling him in. Just then an- 

 other big fish jumped close beside the captive, and his 

 splash seemed to give a hidden link of strength to the 

 one that was being taken in out of the wet, for he sud- 

 denly swerved, and though the tension was but for a 

 second, the line parted near the tip and about thirty feet 

 of the silken strand, with leader attached, all went down 

 stream. 



Inspection showed the weak spot in the line. It had 

 been put away the previous autumn without being thor- 

 oughly dried out and oiled, hence the dire result which 

 elicited from my companion the quaint remark: ''If I 

 wasn't a churchman, I'll be damned if I wouldn't swear," 



