FOREST AND STREAM 
757 
George Certainly Must be Talked To before It is Too Late 
He is Drifting Into Habits That Require the Firm Remonstrance of a Good Friend 
1 SHALL talk to Thompson “like a father.’’ 
While remaining broad-mindedly open to 
conviction, I shall present my own argu¬ 
ments with such convincing fairness that dear 
old George will hardly try to refute them; but 
if he does try to refute them I shall beat them 
into his stubborn head with a fence rail. Al¬ 
though, as I said, I shall listen to argument. 
In the first place, I shall point out to George 
that while he is fishing for bullheads, to which 
he is but distantly related, he is heartlessly neg¬ 
lecting his own immediate family. George— 
or any other rod-swishing maniac—having 
planned a fishing foray for the morrow, sets 
the really important part of his alarm clock for 
3 A. M. George does not intend personally to 
arise at that dank hour; he is not so inconsid¬ 
erate of himself. He wishes merely to arouse 
Mrs. George at three, in order that she may 
'have ample time to prepare a lamp-lit breakfast 
and a fried-chicken lunch. George himself 
graces the occasion at four; pushes back his 
■chair and crumples up his napkin at four-thirty; 
and at four thirty-five has grabbed his lunch 
basket, tenderly pocketed or shouldered his fish¬ 
ing tackle; has complacently explained, “Wish 
.you were going, m’ dear! But it’s just three of 
the boys, y’ know—,” and has bolted into the dawn. 
His return, occurring sometime before the 
•midnight meeting of the clock hands, is rriarked 
"by scarcely a greater amount of sociability. 
“Naw! Three little ones. Lost a big bass. 
Whopper. Dead tired. Crazy to git t’ bed.” 
Thus charmingly, generously, lovably George 
places his estimate upon the relative attractions 
of the “lee of Bass Island” and the family circle. 
So accustomed is he to abandoning that family 
•circle temporarily, that he has become quite 
reckless of his risk of leaving it permanently. 
Upon a small and slippery log spanning a tor¬ 
rent, he poises precariously, that he may make 
a mighty cast into a promising pool. He con¬ 
sorts with rattlesnakes and copperheads, strid- 
By Dan C. Rule, Jr 
ing heedlessly through tall grass and brush that 
he may be early at “the backwater just below the 
dam.” With infinite hospitality he allows mos¬ 
quitoes to partake of his red blood in exchange 
for malarial inoculations. And, most dangerous 
of all, he sits for hours in a sloppy rowboat, 
apparently unconscious of the cold rain that is 
drenching him into soggy chilliness. He an¬ 
nounces, next day, that he is nod feelink so 
very bad, bud is bothered wid a cold id the 
head. I fear that some day Pneumonia will take 
George firmly by the hand and lead him upstairs 
to bed. 
These perils to earthly life do not, most un¬ 
fortunately, constitute the most serious phase 
of George’s fishing mania. George’s moral char¬ 
acter is beginning to look frazzled and mistreat¬ 
ed. It really does have a lot to contend against. 
For one thing, George is drifting into what we 
may charitably term misuse of ejaculations. 1 
regret to say that I have heard him wrap a 
trout-fly around an inaccessible willow limb. 
Others have told me, with expressions of awe, 
of the time he dropped his casting rod over¬ 
board, two miles off Eagle Island. The philoso¬ 
phers claim that fishing is a pursuit of perfect 
placidity—and it is, sometimes. Again we find 
it exasperating. I offer this bit of wisdom in 
extenuation of George’s really reprehensible, but 
not entirely unforgivable, eloquence. 
In another way, also, he refutes the angling 
philosophers-—those agreeable but fatuous gen¬ 
tlemen who claim that fishing inclines a man to 
all the paths of peace, and makes him thought¬ 
ful for the feelings of others. I wish that the 
philosophers of the trout-fly, from Walton 
down, could hear George upon the subject of the 
war in Europe : “I say lettum fight it out! Awful 
muss, of course—-arms and legs and heads two 
feet thick on the ground—but I always did claim 
that the European waters, from the Tiber to the 
Thames, are sinfully over-fished. After this 
rumpus is over, mebby a man can go over there 
and get a bite twice in the same year. Good 
thing, war is, in some ways. Got to admit that.” 
I do admit that. Also I admit with sorrow 
that this fiendish habit of fishing is subtly, but 
with horrifying sureness, transforming honest 
old George into a specimen of the urban or 
barber-shop variety of liar. He does not lie 
for the purpose of self-glorification. He does it, 
I think, because he has the not uncommon idea 
that prevarication is expected of any member 
of the fishing fraternity. Falsehood is, with 
him, a sacred duty. It leads him into pitiable 
extravagance. For instance, I have had the pain 
of hearing him earnestly affirm that upon one 
occasion, being in the northern wilderness and, 
besides, destitute of bait, he bought his Indian 
guide’s left ear for sixty dollars—and caught 
trout a-plenty! Such misuse of the imagination 
is dangerous. 
Yes, I canot blind myself to the distressing 
truth that the evil effects of angling are slowly 
ruining both George’s business prospects and his 
moral character. As George is a retail coal 
dealer, he might, I admit, get along without any 
moral character; but without business prospects 
—that is another matter. As George’s friend, 
I cannot much longer stand mutely by and see 
his life ruined by a six dollar casting rod and 
a pail of minnows. I must remonstrate with 
him against this waste of time, not counting his 
neglect of his family and his indifference to his 
spiritual welfare. I am happy to say that I 
shall soon have a good opportunity to speak to 
George. He has invited me to spend a week 
with him, fishing for bass in Willow Lake. And 
I have invited him to spend the following week 
with me, fishing for channel cat at Arrow Lake. 
After that, it is possible we shall go over to 
old Peter Squire’s and have a try for “muskie” 
in Grand River. Some evening when the conditions 
seem just right—good catch, pipes going, com¬ 
fortable camp-fire—I shall show George whither 
he is drifting. I shall talk to him like a father. 
