Tragic Fishing Moments 



Several persons met us as we came to shore and as 

 I spread my fourteen mackerel on the sand, a native 

 said : " Nothin' but a lot of pollock." This was trag- 

 edy for me, of course, but there were ways of getting 

 out of some of it. One good soul said the pollock and 

 the mackerel were almost alike; another that the pol- 

 lock were really fine eating if eaten fresh. And I 

 knew that my wife had taken me for better or for 

 worse. We also knew that we had had a splendid 

 time in the excitement of seeing our " mackerel " 

 strike at a two-inch sinker and bare hook. 



My first tragedy was the greatest because there were 

 none of these offsets which one finds later in life. It 

 was total loss, the kind that deprives one of reasons 

 for living. 



Now if the biggest in the lake do not respond to our 

 temptations, we have a good time with smaller fish. 

 If the big fellow gets away after a hard fight, well, we 

 might have wanted to put him back anyway. 



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