Fishes as Food for Man 



339 



"To my mind, there is no real sport in any kind of fishing 

 except fly-fishing. This sitting on the bank of a muddy stream 

 with your bait sunk, waiting for a bite, may be conducive to 

 gentleness and patience of spirit, but it has not the joy of action 

 in wliich a healthy man revels. How much more sport is it to 

 clamber over fallen logs that stretch far out a-stream, to wade 

 slipping over boulders and let your fly drop caressingly on 

 ripples and swirling eddies and still holes! It is worth all the 

 work to see the gleam of a silver side as a half-pounder rises, 

 and, with a flop, takes the fly excitedly to the bottom. And 

 then the nervous thrill as, with a deft turn of the wrist, you 

 hook him securely — whoever has felt that thrill cannot forget 

 it. It will come back to him in his law office when he should 

 be thinking of other things; and with it will come a longing 

 for that dear remembered stream and the old days. That is 

 'the hold trout-fishing takes on a man. 



"It is spring now and I feel the old longing myself, as I 

 always do when life comes into the air and the smell of new 

 growth is sweet. I got my rod out to-day, put it together, 

 and have been looking over my flies. If I cannot use them, I 

 can at least muse over days of the past and dream of those to 

 come." (WALDEii.\R Young.) 



