CHAPTER XXX 



iOYS* FISH AND BOYS' FISHING 



FTER all that has been said about anglers and 

 angling, two-thirds of the line fishing of the 

 world is done by boys. The boy may fish with 

 id a fly, but he does not spontaneously take to this 

 method. ("Fty fishing is an art, a fine art beyond a doubt, 

 but it is an art and, like all art, it is artificial. Fishing with 

 an angleworm is natural. It fits into the need of the occa- 

 sion. It fits in with the spirit of the boy. It is not by 

 chance that the angleworm, earthworm, fishworm, is found 

 in every damp bank, in every handy bit of sod, the green 

 earth over, where there are races whose boys are real boys 

 with energy enough to catch a fish. It is not by chance that 

 the angleworm makes a perfect fit on a hook, with no 

 anatomy with which to feel pains and no arms or legs to be 

 broken off or to be waved helplessly in the air. Its skin is 

 tough enough so as not to tear, not so tough as to receive 

 unseemly bruises, when the boy is placing it on the hook. 

 The angleworm is perfectly at home on the hook. It is 

 not quite comfortable anywhere else. It crawls about on 

 the sidewalks after rain, bleached and emaciated. It is 

 never quite at ease even in the ground, but on the hook it 

 rests peacefully, with the apparent feeling that its natural 

 mission is performed. 



"There may be other creatures naturally used as bait. The 

 dam worm which hatches out into the thunder bug, or in 

 more precise language, the helgrammite that hatches out 

 as a Dobson fly, Corydalus corutus, looks well on the hook, 

 though it does not feel so, and there are other larvae of 

 ephemerids, caddis worms and the like, which can be used 



237 



