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WET WEATHER FISHING JOY Anglers Time Is Trout Time when Fish Rise More Eagerly Writers Accepted by the Cult Con ¬ templative from lyanlv Wal ¬ ton Down It is one thins to lie told how to angle with dry or wet fly live bait or murderous plug but it is iiite another thing and decidedly more difficult to do it successfully successfullyTheoretically Theoretically most instructions given tp the lay ¬ man are practical and generally quite correct They emanate from the minds of men of more or less varied experience and are the result of their per ¬ sonal observation observationI I think it was Dr Johnson of English dictionary fame who once said in the presence of several disciples of Izaak Walton that angling means a rod with a fly at one end and a fool at the other otherSo So far as I can learn the doctor was neither a fisherman nor an angler but a brilliant scholar and lexicographer whose word was taken for granted That being the case we can forgive Dr Samuel Johnson because he did not understand the intricacies of angling as an art and angling as a sport requiring great skill energy and perseverance perseverancelie lie was born in Sept ml er 1709 and died in 1784 living at a time when the Compleat Angler was about the only written word accepted authorita ¬ tively by the Cult Contemplative 1 assume the good doctor considers1 from his scholarly attitude buried in the musty smell of his research laboratory thought any man who would follow a trout stream dangling before him u fly or worm from the slender end of a rod or who stood on the banks of still waters in a downpour of niin in patient attitude trying to lure a succu ¬ lent fish from his aqueous environment was a man of non compos mentis caliber and a fit subject for a lx ard of lunacy lunacyFISHERMEN FISHERMEN SHOULD BE WEATHERPROOF WEATHERPROOFIt It is the non compos kind who stay in out of the wet fearful of their health spending their time gloating over the coals to ward off attacks of rheumatism dyspepsia and chronic grouch when they might bo enjoying the little thrills of the open and niitrammeled freedom with a rod in one hand and net in the other adding to their allotment of the proverbial threescore and ten thus ridding themselves of an accumulation of spleen that are the Simple Simon fools foolsNo No man has discovered himself until he has be ¬ come adept at angling with a fly be it wet or dry No man has really become expert in handling a rod reel and line or n game fish until he has successfully mastered the art with cotton thread threadHundreds Hundreds of books have been written since Dr Johnsons time on the recreation of the contemplative man Kach and all clearly define angling as an art requiring skill the practice of which makes perfect perfectAnglers Anglers from all walks of life have sauntered forth as members of the greatest fraternity of good fellowship in existence into the far corners of the earth and captured every variety of fish known to science and ichthyology ichthyologyThese These peregrinators have written lucid descrip ¬ tions of their journeyings their game and methods of capture and given it all to the world that it might follow in their footsteps and enjoy what God had prepared for their entertainment and longevity longevityAnglers Anglers have written for the tyro and written for the veteran volumes on fish fish waters flies rods reels and lines While their works are pretty much alike in instruction and sentiment not one perchance ever ventured to uphold Dr Johnsons personal definition of the fly and the fool and the rod making the unholy trinity of an angler anglerTo To William Henry Herbert Frank Forester presentday sportsmen owe much for their instruc ¬ tion for he was the pioneer sporting writer of his adopted country America To him falls the credit of arousing the American merchant and professional man from his countingroom desk and shallow moneymad existence to the greater and broader possibilities of life in the open with rod and gun gunAlthough Although an Englishman by birth William Henry Herbert was an American at heart He was the first to introduce field sports in this country and the first writer on angling and fishing subjects whose fertile brain and versatility captivated Jiis audience to the point of enthusiastic devotion He was the first persistent contributor to the maga ¬ zines of the day arid through his efforts angling and hunting were given literary prominence in the columns of the press pressFISHING FISHING BUG WORTH WHILE WHILEFrank Frank Forester was followed by Genio G Scott Charles Hallock Lanman Prince Hammond Thai Norris Thoreau Fred Mather Seth Green Barn weir Roosevelt and a host of others othersGenio Genio C Scott gave us the first real manual on angling and the art of rod and fly making His Angling in American Waters is a masterpiece of information which other writers vainly attempted to improve iq on only to fall to the level of plagia ¬ rism Nothing really new has been given us since those days except the more modern development of light tackle and clean sportsmanship in angling offered by the devotees of the surf stick and O N T spool cotton cottonIt It has often been said anglers were a dippy lot because they bought everything that appealed to their instincts as worthy of holding a minnow In the vernacular of the times anglers have become fans fansGenerally Generally we have been accredited with a great deal of sound common sense wonderful stamina energy and studious devotion to our avocation We are sometimes classed as bugs but in these days of intellectuality where to be scientific is to be IT bugs are a necessary adjunct to the wholesome life of the world at large and so we live wax fat and prosper prosperThis This bacillus piscatoricus is a pretty good bug to get acquainted with Injected as it is into our systems by the red blood of our forefathers and kept alive by the interest interjected through the columns of the press we are bound to live to a ripe old age and leave something to uosterity the profits experiencesWhether of our efforts and experiences Whether we be inch for inch pound for pound bugs Salmo or pomatomus saltatrix bugs surfcasting turfcasting bugs or upto theminute light tackle cotton thread bugs men will find us true to the core humans playing fair and in the open openWe We are always glad to take the wayfarer within the circle of our council fires and impart to him anything from our fund of knowledge Probably no class of sportsmen devotes so much time instructing newcomers to the field of sport as the author does with the tyro in the iironer handling of rod and line lineReturning Returning to bugs and we are all glad to be such there is one type of angling bug outdistancing by many lengths the rest of the field runners in superior sportsmanship Ridiculed from the incep ¬ tion of sporting possibilities the early advocates of O N T cotton thread have carried the day in face of opposition and popularized cotton thread as the real thing in angling and although cotton thread is as old as grandmothers sewing basket it is the only great new thing in angling methods and angling literature since the invention ot the murderous gang hook plug Syl in New York i Sun
