So in fishing a like comparison is possible—fly-fishing for salmon, black bass, trout, or grayling as against fishing for tarpon and tuna, which are worthless when killed except as food for sharks. In the first case the angler's skill, and his knowledge of its habits, are pitted against the wiles of the fish, with but a weak and slender snell of silkworm fiber between its capture or escape, while in the case of the leviathans mentioned, they are handicapped by being hooked in the gullet, and by towing a boat in their struggle for freedom. But comparisons are always odious. While the choice between the "gentle" art and strenuous fishing is certainly a question of taste, it may depend somewhat on the length of one's purse.
Black Bass Fishing
Black-bass fishing! These are words to conjure with. What pleasurable emotions they call up! To the superannuated angler the words are fraught with retrospective reflections of the keenest enjoyment, while they cause the soul of the new hand to become obsessed with pleasures yet to come—pleasures rendered brighter by the rosy tint of anticipation.
The Love of Angling
With the first blossoms of spring the thoughts of many men, both old and young, turn lightly to love—the love of angling. And as the leaves unfold, and the birds begin their wooing, and the streams become clear, the premonitory symptoms of the affection are manifested in a rummaging of drawers and lockers for fly-books and tackle boxes, and the critical examination of rods and reels, and in the testing of lines and leaders. These preliminaries are the inevitable harbingers of the advent of the angling season, when black bass are leaping gayly from the waters after their enforced hibernation in the gloom and seclusion of the deep pools.
And when the encroachment of age or rheumatism forbids wading the stream, one can still sit in a boat on a quiet lake and enjoy to the full the delight and fascination of "bass fishing." What farmer's boy in the Middle West does not look forward to a Saturday when the ground is too wet to plow or plant, when he can repair to the creek or pond with his rude tackle and realize his fond dreams of fishing for black bass! And when such a day arrives, as it is sure to do, how he hurries through the chores, and with what sanguine hope he digs for angle-worms in the garden, or nets crawfish or minnows in the brook, each one good for at least one "sockdolager" of a bass. For it sometimes happens that a bass will take a wriggling earth-worm or a "soft craw" when it will not deign to notice the choicest minnow or the most cunningly devised artificial fly.
Youthful Ambition
And the country lad always knows just where an old "whopper" of a bronze-back black bass has his lair beneath the roots of a big tree, or under the ledge of a moss-grown rock. To do future battle with such an one has engrossed his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, ever since the Christmas tree for him bore such fruit as a linen line, a red and green float and a dozen fishhooks.
"A Riband in the Cap of Youth"
The triumphal march of a Roman warrior, with captives chained to his chariot wheels, entering the gates of the Eternal City with a blare of trumpets and the applause of the multitude, was an event to fill his soul with just pride—but it descends to the level of vainglory and mediocrity when compared with the swelling heart of the lad as he enters the farmhouse kitchen with two or three old "lunkers" of black bass strung on a willow withe. Many times during his homeward march had he halted to admire the scale armor and spiny crests of his captive knights!