VII 



BONEFISH 



IN my experience as a fisherman the greatest pleas- 

 ure has been the certainty of somethmg new to 

 learn, to feel, to anticipate, to thrill over. An old 

 proverb tells us that if you wish to bring back the 

 wealth of the Indias you must go out with its equiva- 

 lent. Surely the longer a man fishes the wealthier 

 he becomes in experience, in reminiscence, in love 

 of nature, if he goes out with the harvest of a quiet 

 eye, free from the plague of himself. 



As a boy, fishing was a passion with me, but no 

 more for the conquest of golden sunfish and speckled 

 chubs and horny catfish than for the haunting 

 sound of the waterfall and the color and loneliness 

 of the cliffs. As a man, and a writer who is forever 

 learning, fishing is still a passion, stronger with all 

 the years, but tempered by an understanding of 

 the nature of primitive man, hidden in all of us, and 

 by a keen reluctance to deal pain to any creature. 

 The sea and the river and the mountain have almost 

 taught me not to kill except for the urgent needs 

 of life; and the time will come when I shall have 

 grown up to that. When I read a naturalist or a 

 biologist I am always ashamed of what I have called 

 a sport. Yet one of the truths of evolution is that 



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