16 Big Game Fishes 
she had never held a rod before. She used the 
same tackle, the same bait. Her ungallant com- 
panions changed the rod, insisted upon exchang- 
ing seats, but they failed to change her luck. 
From the time Deucalion 
“ Did first the art invent 
Of angling, and his people taught the same,” 
the uncertainty of fisherman’s luck has been 
proverbial; but perhaps this ephemeral luck, so 
potent to make or unmake a fishing day, has 
more in it than appears on the surface. You as 
well as I have perhaps often noticed that the 
lucky fisherman is a person of method. If a 
fisherman becomes possessed with the idea that a 
two-dollar reel is as potent to take tarpon and 
tuna as one costing fifteen or twenty dollars, that 
man is more than likely to attain a reputation as 
having poor luck. The man who never changes 
the line from the lower to the upper guides, who 
uses a line one hundred times, who has a theory 
that the ebb tide and the afternoon are best for 
fishing, is more than likely to be unlucky. This 
old man of the sea, “hard luck,” will surely fasten 
upon such an one. You perhaps have observed 
that the angler who soon becomes weary of the 
