Parlous Times in Angling
THESE be parlous times in angling. When William King, in the seventeenth century, with as much prophecy as humor, wrote:
"His hook he baited with a dragon's tail And sat upon a rock and bobbed for whale,"
he builded better than he knew. And if Job had lived in the twentieth century, the query: "Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?" would be answered in the affirmative; also, it would be demonstrated that "He maketh the deep to boil like a pot," at Fort Myers and Catalina.
The shades of Walton and Cotton, of Sir Humphrey Davy and "Christopher North," and of our own Dr. Bethune and Thaddeus Norris, could they "revisit the glimpses of the moon," would view with wonder and silent sorrow the tendency of many anglers of the present day toward strenuosity, abandoning the verdure-clad stream, with its warbling birds and fragrant blossoms, for the hissing steam launch and vile-smelling motor boat in pursuit of leaping tuna and silver king. It goes without saying, however, that considered as a sport, fishing for these jumbos is highly exciting and capable of infusing unbounded enthusiasm, but it can hardly be called angling.
The Ethics of Sport
In the ethics of sport it may be questioned if there is not more real pleasure, and at the same time a manifestation of a higher plane of sportsmanship, in the pursuit of woodcock, snipe, quail or grouse with well-trained bird-dogs, than in still-hunting moose, elk or deer. In the former case the bird is flushed and given a chance for life, while in the latter case the quarry is killed "as an ox goeth to the slaughter."
Photo by A. Radclyffe Dugmore. Copyright by Country Life.
Black Bass returning to water after leaping. (See [page 15].)