148 I GO A- FISHING. 



and-a-quarter fish, with his mouth badly torn by the pre- 

 vious failures. 



Whether fish suffer pain from wounds is a question 

 much discussed among anglers. I am convinced that 

 they do not. My opinion is based on many facts like 

 this which I have related. I once lost two hooks in suc- 

 cession, fishing with bait in a deep hole, under closely 

 hanging bushes, where I could not use a fly. Finding 

 that my snells were not to be trusted, I knotted a hook 

 on the line, tried the third time, and landed a fine trout 

 from whose mouth I took the two hooks which I had 

 lost. I once took a small trout on a fly, who rose sharp- 

 ly and struck with vigor, whose side had within a few 

 hours been so badly torn by another fish, or by a hook, 

 that the skin was gone from the belly to the dorsal fin 

 a full inch wide, leaving the red flesh exposed. I have 

 seen a skate, weighing more than fifty pounds, caught on 

 a bait-hook in Fisher's Island Sound, drawn up to the 

 side of the boat and his throat cut across with a gash in- 

 tended to be and supposed to be sufficiently deep to kill 

 him. The same skate was caught and brought out on 

 the same hook within thirty minutes afterward. In- 

 stances might be multiplied from my own experience. 

 Other anglers could furnish many more. From such ob- 

 servations I have become convinced that wounds do not 

 give to fish that sensation which we call pain. 



The angler who has hooked a fish with bait and lost 

 him, should not hesitate to throw again into the same 

 spot ; for, unless the fish has been frightened by seeing 

 the fisherman, he will take the bait as readily the second 

 time, and often with more vigor, as if angry at its hav- 

 ing escaped him. This is especially true of pike and 

 pickerel. I once took a pike in Glen Falloch, at the 



