The Man Behind the Angler 



years Bill Massey rowed me with the late Andrew 

 Clerk, the founder of the House of Abbey and 

 Imbrey, the latter one of the most genial of black 

 bass anglers. Massey made his headquarters at 

 Westminster Park, opposite Alexandria Bay, and was 

 a type of a dozen or more men who typified the best 

 that can be imagined in guides or boatmen. Genial, 

 possessed of a good nature that nothing could inter- 

 fere with, honest as the day is long, holding a fine 

 sense of honor, except when the size of his patron's 

 fish was concerned, Massey was a manly fellow, the 

 modern voyageur of the great river of the thousand 

 islands and ten thousand delights. 



He rowed me from ten to twenty-five miles a day, 

 in and out. He knew every rock and shoal in the 

 river, and often told me of the strike that I would 

 have at a certain point; and it was marvelous to see 

 his delicate adjustment of the fishing, dividing up the 

 inside or shore side fishing so impartially between my 

 companion and self that never a suspicion of unfair- 

 ness was entertained. Massey never lost his head. 

 I rather think he grew cooler in times .of terrific 

 excitement, and as for gallantry he was unsurpassed. 

 One day when fishing with a fair angler we came 

 upon a school of six or seven gigantic bass lying on 

 the surface of the water at the foot of a high rocky 

 bluff, and the skill with which Massey arranged it so 

 that the lady cast first, and caught the most and the 

 heaviest of the splendid record bass was a revelation. 



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