They argue and speculate and experiment in the matter of rods and tackle, and they argue as to the virtues of the various species, the qualities of the waters, the conditions of the weather, but they have ever been and ever will be calmly agreed as to the object of it all—the love of studying rather than destroying the game, the love of the pursuit itself.
They angle because of its healthfulness, and the consequent exhilaration of mind and body that attends the gentle practice, not merely for the fishes it may procure them, or for the sake of killing something, as the unenlightened person charges, for the death of an animal, to the Angler, is the saddest incident of his day.
All things animate, man included, were made to kill and to be killed. The only crimes in killing are in killing our own kind, and in killing any kind inhumanly.
And, of all creatures, the Angler is the least offender in these crimes. The very game he seeks, though beautiful and gentle to the eye, and, at times, noble in deed and purpose, is the most brutal killer of all the races—the lovely trout in its attacks upon gaudy flies, the valiant bass and pike in devouring their smaller brethren, and the multitudinous sea-fishes, not alone in their feeding upon one another, but in their wanton murder of the millions upon millions of victims of their pure love of slaughter.
But, of fly-fishing for brook trout:
"Fly-fishing," says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of angling"; and "the genuine Angler," says Frederick Pond, "is invariably a poet."
Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged in in several forms—in fresh water for salmon, trout, black bass, grayling, perch, pike-perch, pickerel (Long Island brook pickerel), sunfish, roach, dace, shad, herring (branch), etc.; in brackish water for shad, trout, white perch, etc.; and in salt water for bluefish (young), herring (common), mackerel, and—doubt not, kind sir, for I am prepared to prove it—squeteague (weakfish), plaice (fluke, summer flounder), and other species of both bottom and surface habitats—another "endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment."
As there are many forms of fly-fishing, so are there many ways of fly-fishing for trout, and many kinds of trout, the various forms of brook trout, lake trout, and sea trout.
Volumes would be required to discourse intelligently upon all these forms of trout and fly-fishing for them; so I purpose in this particular instance to confine myself to one species and one form of trout and one order of fly-fishing.