
Fish Story | 
That 

Is7As True 
As Any of 
Them : 
The ideal angling yarn should always carry such illustrations as this, but alas—l 
specialist is one who admits he 
knows more about some particu- 
lar thing than anyone else and gets 
people to believe him. The most suc- 
cessful specialist is the one who most 
often and loudest admits what he ad- 
mits. Yet the specialist of yesterday 
must give way for the specialist of 
to-morrow. Take the baby specialist, 
for example. Every three years there 
is a new and absolutely best way to 
feed a baby. Having fathered nine I 
know whereof I speak. Had we taken 
the advice of the 1924 specialist, our 
latest progeny would be living on but- 
termilk. It grieves me to think of the 
tremendous amount of baby food that 
was fed to the pigs when I was a husky 
ten-pounder! 
alee is the day of specialists. A 
HIS story, however, is about the fish 
specialist—I mean the fisherman 
who admits he is a fisherman. I know 
absolutely nothing of the fisherman of 
yesterday. Neither have I knowledge 
or imagination enough to prognosticate 
the species that will infest the streams 
to-morrow; but, having just spent a 
week on the river with three of the 
present-day type, of this I am absolute- 
ly certain, to maintain their reputation 
as fishermen the present generation 
will have to get around to buttermilk 
or something else to lure the elusive 
bass. 
I speak of three of the present-day 
type. Perhaps I should say species. 
The fisherman, as distinguished from 
the average citizen, is a species all unto 
himself. The same may be said of the 
golfer. At the same time, there is as 
much difference between the idiosyn- 
522 
* About Forty” 
By JOHN L. CORLEY 
crasies of the fisherman and the golfer 
as there is between a speckled trout 
and a niblick. 
HERE is nothing like getting a 
good start, so I will give you the 
personnel of the party that invaded 
the wilds of the Ozarks in early Octo- 
ber and landed at the fork of the 
St. Francis River and Big Creek—as 
pretty-looking fishing ground as ever 
thrilled the heart of a rodsman. First 
there was Ben Gray, known from coast 
to coast (among the Photo Engravers) 
as a peer among fishermen. Then there 
was Dan Hyland, whom anyone would 
call “Dinty” on an hour’s acquaintance. 
He has fished half the worth-while 
streams and lakes from Manitoba to 
Mexico. Being in the speedometer 
business, there is a great deal taken 
for granted when one learns that Dinty 
is a fisherman, and his reputation for 
speed is at once established in spite of 
a modest and retiring disposition. The 
third was Al M. Sperry, who stands 
six feet three and a half when the fish 
are striking, but looks considerably 
older when they are on a strike. Gray 
and Sperry have been fishing partners 
for many years, and are like brothers, 
only more so. Sperry and Hyland are 
brother members of the Optimist Club, 
and can call one another all kinds of 
names with impunity and joy. 
LL fishermen are members of the 
Optimist Club, whether they pay 
dues there or not. The fourth, last 
and least member of the party was 
the writer, who knew nothing about 
fishing as a specialist when he started 
out, and knew even less after he spent 
a week in the company of three spe- 
cialists. Having kept the photo en- 
gravers out of the clutches of the law 
for a number of years, he qualified as 
a friend of Gray’s, and a welcome 
member of the party. 
There is a generally accepted fallacy 
about taking a greenhorn, like myself, 
on a fishing trip. He is supposed to 
be the “hewer of wood and the drawer 
of water”; he is supposed to start the 
fire, peel the potatoes, wash the dishes, 
and do general K. P. duty. But, asa 
matter of fact, he is wined and dined, 
and his only duty is to listen in a re- 
spectful silence and obvious wonder as 
each of the others tell tales of mar- 
velous accomplishments’ in fishing, 
which everybody else is too wise to 
believe. 























W E arrived in the early afternoon, 
and the daylight was spent in 
putting the shack in order and getting 
supper. After the dishes were cleared 
away the tackle and fishing parapher- 
nalia of each fisherman was brought 
forth and spread with tender care upon 
a long table. This was a revelation to 
me. Most of my fishing had been done 
with worms, but I knew, in a general | 
way, that minnows were a much more 
aristocratic bait, and I had an idea 
that minnows were the right things to 
fish with. I had mentioned this fact 
earlier in the day, and the general pity 
for my deplorable ignorance was so 
plainly written on the faces of these | 
fishermen, I saw at once I was in bad. 
At an opportune time, Gray had told 
me, he would take me out for a lesson 
in casting. 
“T want to get you started right,” he 
Ny 


