When I Was a Boy 



Here is a short and sweet one from a veteran 

 fisherman who has fought 'em all, sometimes to 

 thrill with the pleasures of victory and at other 

 times to feel the sting of defeat. Mr. B. R. Hart, 

 of Washington, D. C., says : " You will find en- 

 closed a ' little minnow ' of a Tragic Moment. If 

 you think it ' legal size/ I trust it will recall pleas- 

 ant days to some tired city angler, and that he may 

 derive one small part of the joy out of it that I 

 have had from each and every one that you have 

 printed." Brother Hart, I hereby guarantee every 

 fisherman of us will like your little tale. 



As old Father Time begins to thin the hair on our 

 heads, and our joints become squeaky from too much 

 of life in an office chair, we do not regard many 

 things as tragic. The opportunity to be out in God's 

 great outdoors is in itself such a wonderful thing that 

 what happens to us there is rarely tragic. In my days 

 afield I have landed the trout and salmon of Maine, 

 the large-mouth bass of Florida, and the small-mouth 

 from many a stream and lake from New York to Vir- 

 ginia. The lordly Chinook salmon and the steelhead 

 trout of the Pacific coast streams have risen to my 

 lures, and I have taken that most beautiful of all fish, 



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