The Fisherman’s Lunch 
A Charming Angling Retrospection 
ing than the fish” was one of 
the wise sayings of that true 
fisherman, Grover Cleveland. And to 
a man who makes fishing a fine art 
the midday lunch is one of the “more 
things.” 
The man who is eager only to make 
the biggest catch may not even think 
of lunch, at least he does not stop long 
enough to get any 
real enjoyment out of 
it. He will have a 
cheese sandwich in 
the pocket of his fish- 
ing coat and stop 
wherever the noon 
hour finds him. It 
may be a swamp, in 
dead timber, far from 
a spring, with few 
elements of beauty in 
sight, a place to eat 
and nothing more. 
And very likely he 
eats alone, giving no 
more time and 
thought than to swal- 
low his food — and 
then again at his lust 
to kill. 
But to some fisher- 
men the lunch on the 
stream is a matter of 
thought and pleasure. 
He plans to make it 
a choice experience. There will always 
be two men at least to lunch together. 
Thus they put up a greater variety of 
food, always having some novelty to 
tempt the appetite, even though the 
tonic air and strenuous exercise may 
seem to render it needless. They plan 
the place of lunch in advance, where 
the view is especially attractive, a cold 
spring and inviting shade. They may 
even find a log or stone just suitable 
for a seat. They will take time to 
build a small stone fireplace. They 
will surely cook the coffee, perhaps cut 
a stick and broil the bacon. Crisp 
bacon makes a most toothsome sand- 
wich. It is doubtful if they will often 
try to broil the trout, though fish taken 
right from the water have a peculiar 
sweetness. It is far better to have the 
trout but once a day for dinner, in the 
evening when the wading clothes are 
laid aside and the spirit of ease and 
comfort pervades the camp. In this 
way a month’s diet of trout does not 
surfeit. Nothing destroys the taste 
ofl Pee: are more things in fish- 
By ‘““ASH”’ 
for this most delectable of food as the 
pressure to eat so many trout at every 
meal—that limit may not be placed 
upon the catch. No true fisherman will 
take more fish than he can well use. 
But to the noontime lunch. We do 
not hasten through it, but dwell upon 
every good thing. It is a time to feast 
the eye as well as the body. You have 
leasure to notice the life about you. 

REMINISCENT OF HAPPY DAYS ON THE TROUT STREAM IN LEAFY JUNE 
And it is curious how many things will 
be seen by a man who is still. Shy 
birds show their inquisitive instinct, 
and chipmunk whisk about impatient 
for the remains of the feast. If the 
day be warm and bright the black flies 
do not delay to take their bite. Then 
the “friendship fire’ is the best friend 
of man; it cooks his meal and warms 
his legs, and makes the only safe 
screen against the flies. We turn the 
fire into a smudge and eat our lunch 
in comfort. If the day be cloudy or a 
cool breeze is blowing, the flies do not 
trouble us and we prolong our lunch 
with reminiscences and story and good 
fellowship, so sit idly drinking in the 
beauty and joy and freedom of the 
woods. Such moments are sometimes 
revelations of nature and of life, too. 
There is no such intimacy among men 
as that of two old fishermen who have 
often waded the stream together—and 
shared their lunch. 
The writer has the memory of a 
lunch place on the river as fair as the 
brightest fancy. Twenty-four times in 
the last three Mays he has taken his 
midday meal there. Having lost his 
wading legs by reason of injury and 
years, he can no longer make the long 
trip through the woods to some un- 
frequented pool, or wade the river that 
runs through miles of ever-changing 
scenery. A still water made by an old 
dam built years ago to store water 
for driving logs, and 
now in decay, fur- 
nishes the best pos- 
sible spot for fly-fish- 
ing. It is reached 
by a two-mile easy 
trail through the ten- 
der and delicate col- 
ors of the May woods. 
There we keep a flat- 
bottomed boat, only 
large enough for two, 
but steady for casting. 
Some younger mem- 
ber of the club is al- 
ways ready to give 
the “old man” a day’s 
paddling. So every 
other day, when the 
weather is decent, 
we set forth for the 
same stretch of the 
river. It never grows 
monotonous. The 
day is shared with a 
new companion. Some 
new interest is always found along the 
trail, and the river has its unknown 
luck and changeful beauty. The lower 
part of the “Flow-ground” winds 
through an old beaver meadow —a 
broad current, its banks hardly reached 
by a long cast from the middle of the 
stream. It gently flows over gravelly 
shallows, where small trout eagerly 
rise, and then slumbers in deep pools, 
where small brooks flow into the river, 
where the angler hopes to raise a big 
one with his cast, and sometimes has 
the hope turned into a thrill. On the 
lower stretches the wild azalea crowds 
into the bushes of the bank, and if 
the season is right, patches of bright 
pink color the border. Here the sky 
opens and the eye is often lifted to the 
wooded hills with their varied shades 
of green and red. Farther up the 
river narrows between alders and over- 
hanging trees. If the day is bright it 
is a discipline in casting and in pa- 
tience, but under the shadows he may 
(Continued on page 38) 
Page 30 
