Tragic Fishing Moments 



A hunger-mad pike glutted the shiner I was just 

 landing and in the ensuing struggle I slipped and went 

 head over heels down the spillway to land in some 

 ten feet of water at the foot of the dam, half-drowned, 

 badly frightened, the newly purchased rod a broken 

 memory. 



The most tragic time of all my fishing days, how- 

 ever, happened in July, 1918, and it is of that occasion 

 that I shall here write. It's a far cry from the green 

 fields, rippling brooks, and spruce shaded lakes of my 

 beloved Vermont to the distant battlegrounds of 

 France, and from the speckled trout of my mountain 

 streams to the sluggish fish of the muddy (and some- 

 times bloody) ruisseau of that far off land but a 

 sportsman's wanderings ofttimes take him far afield, 

 and that you may understand the tragedy of my story 

 I must ask you to fix in mind two things. First, to 

 the average Frenchman " Pigs is Pigs " or, rather, 

 to paraphrase, Fish is Fish. Nothing that wears fins 

 is too small to be considered legitimate game, and 

 minnows we would consider as too small for use as 

 bait are with him a delicacy. Whatever the game laws 

 may be in the Piping Days of Peace, in the Popping 

 Days of War they were a thing unheard of and un- 

 observed. 



The most common method over there of obtaining 

 fish was by the use of a one man dip net, and it was 

 a common sight to see, anywhere back of the lines, 



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