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Read Ebook: The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout an anthological volume of trout fishing trout histories trout lore trout resorts and trout tackle by Bradford Charles Barker
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Ebook has 52 lines and 17630 words, and 2 pages
illegitimate.
Fishes hooked in the mouth do not suffer any pain. I've recaught many a once-lost specimen with my snell in its lip; these in both fresh water and salt water. Incidents of this character furnish one of the many proofs that mouth-hooking the fish is perfectly humane. Two friends witnessed my catch of a Long Island two-and-one-quarter-pound brook trout that had a fly and leader dangling from its mouth, the gear he broke away with a few minutes before his actual capture.
There is no need of subjecting fishes to any pain in angling. Hook them in the lips, and kill them the very second they are taken from the water. Letting them die slowly not only pains the captured fishes, but injures them as food.
Be a sportsman in angling as well as in hunting. The chivalric gunner, unlike the market shooter, does not pot his quail huddled stationary on the ground; he gallantly takes it on the wing--gives it a fair chance. So the Angler, unlike the trade fisher, gives his game fair play. I catch quite my share of many species of fishes, but I only rarely suffer them to swallow the bait, and this by accident. Even pickerel and fluke can be abundantly taken by being hooked in the lips. I never allow the pickerel or the black bass to swallow the bait; I hook them in the lip as I hook my trout--on the wing, as it were.
DOCTOR NATURE
"The wise for cure on exercise depend; God never made His work for man to mend."
"He that takes no holiday hastens a long rest."
Game is not the only thing sought for by many men and women who go angling and shooting. Wise Lord Russell used to ride to the hounds until he bagged an appetite, then turn suddenly and ride as hard as possible to the nearest farmhouse and eat a hearty meal. Audubon and Wilson went afield to study ornithology; Gray and Thoreau for the study of general natural history, and thousands upon thousands of men and women less famous have gone afield with rod and gun for still another quarry--health.
Lord Russell's appetite hunting reminds me of the case of a young invalid whom I once took on a trout fishing trip. The young man had been ill all his life. Nobody seemed to know what his complaint was, but everybody he came in contact with agreed that he was ill. He looked it, and often said he was born that way. I defined his case the first day I met him--the city complaint, a complication of general under-the-weather-ness that is brought about by foul air, improper exercise, steady indoor work, irregularity, cigarettes, and incorrect food incorrectly eaten. He's well now. He went out in the woods for two weeks every three months for six years, and at present he's as fat and solid as a Delaware shad. I shall never forget his expression when he hooked his first breath of fresh air and creeled a genuine outdoor appetite. A woods appetite is very different from the hunger that once in a while comes to the always-in-the-city man. It strikes suddenly, one's knees begin to shake, and a cold perspiration breaks out on the forehead. My poor young friend, having never previously experienced an appetite, of course didn't know what had taken hold of him. He began to cry and totter, and I stepped up to him just in time to save him from falling off a moss-covered rock into a roaring trout stream.
"I'm ill," he said, "have been ill all my life. I thought this trip would do me good but I'm worse. Please let me lie down; I'm very faint."
"Oh, come," said I, "you're only hungry; here, give me your rod, and lean on my arm; you'll be all right in a little while."
I took him up to the farmhouse and started him slowly on some deviled trout and watercress. Poor fellow, he reminded me of a young setter dog born and brought up in the city and taken afield for the first time. Well, that young man did nothing but cry and eat for two weeks. He then went home to tell his folks he had come to life, and then hurried out to feed and weep for another month. I know a hundred young men and women in New York who are in a bad way with the city complaint. The streets are filled with ghost-like creatures. Lord Derby is right: "If you do not find time for exercise you will have to find time for illness."
"To-morrow we will go a-fishing; do thou go now and fetch the bait." --Hymir to Thar.
THE BROOK TROUT
"Then, give me the trout of the mountain stream. With his crimson stars and his golden gleam; When he, like a hero, on the moss lies. The Angler has won his fairest prize!"
THE ANGLER
"I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture."
BYRON.
"He'd eat his lunch in a minute; He had no time to spare. At a mounted fish in a window He'd stop an hour to stare."
ANGLING
"... which, as in no other game A man may fish and praise His name."
W. BASSE.
"If the bending rod and the ringing reel Give proof that you've fastened the tempered steel. Be sure that the battle is but begun And not till he's landed is victory won."
TROUT FLIES
"To make several flies For the several skies. That shall kill in despite of all weathers."
CHARLES COTTON.
CASTING THE FLY
"Ah, tired man! Go find a spot Somewhere in solitude; Take hammock, books and tackle And wearing apparel crude. And live, if but the shortest time. A wild life in the wood A-fishing, reading, dreaming. And you'll declare it good."
J. MILTON HARKINS.
TACKLE TALKS
"Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey."
POPE.
"See that all things be right For 'tis a very spite To want tools, when a man goes afishing."
CHARLES COTTON.
THE ANGLER'S KITCHEN
"The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact that they are usually cooked over an open fire.... The real reason why food cooked over an open fire tastes so good to us is because we are really hungry when we get it."--HENRY VAN DYKE.
"Moses, the friend of God--Lev. xi., 9, Deut. xiv., 9,--appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. The mightiest feasts have been of fish."--WALTON.
"... and fish the last Food was that He on earth did taste."
W. BASSE.
"If you eat your kind, we will eat you."--BENJ. FRANKLIN.
CARE AND BREEDING OF TROUT
"The water, more productive than the earth, Nature's store-house, in which she locks up her wonders, is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon which the spirit of God did first move."--IZAAK WALTON.
THE ANGLER'S CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR
And let your garments russet be or gray. Of colour darke, and hardest to descry.
LITTLE CASTS
BORROWED LINES
"Oh I could wish the lord to say That all the twelve months Should be May."
GEORGE BORROW.
"I borrow no man's tackle."--"FRANK FORESTER."
APPRECIATIONS:
PRINCETON, MAY 30, 1900--"The Determined Angler ... the most pleasantly written, the most sensible and practical and instructive volume I have ever seen of its kind."
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