How few of all your spirit-lances
Arrive where duty's trumpets roll!
J. W. De Forest.
THE FASCINATIONS OF ANGLING.
I.
It is the cheerful verdict of all anglers that they find no other pastime so fascinating. This conclusion is not based upon the mere mechanism of the art, but upon the fact that it is eminently healthful, rational, and elevating, blending the picturesque and exhilarating in such equal proportions as to exactly meet the demands of the quiet student, the contemplative philosopher, and the care-worn man of business, whose wearied or exhausted nature covets just the solitude and repose which no other recreation so abundantly furnishes.
This of course could not be said of angling if it had no other attraction than the excitement it affords. But I am sure no one ever became an enthusiastic angler who had no other or higher conceptions of its possibilities. The mere act of taking fish is but a minor note in the full volume of harmony which comes to its appreciative disciples amid the vast solitudes where they find their best sport and highest pleasure. Ask any true angler what pictures come up most vividly before him as "the time of the singing of birds" draweth nigh, when it is right to "go a-fishing." His answer will not be, "The rise and strike of trout or salmon," although both will pass upon the canvas like rays of sunshine upon the quiet repose of a forest landscape. He will rather discourse to you of flowing river, of murmuring brook, of cloud-capped mountain, of waving forest, of sunshine and shadow, of rapid and cascade, of tent and camp fire, of silence and solitude, of cozy nook, of undisturbed repose, of refreshing slumber, of invigorated health, and the abandon of delight which neither word nor pencil can adequately portray. I have heard such "simple wise men" talk of their favorite pastime until they glowed with ecstasy, without once naming fish or fishing. That is but the body of the art. Its spirit consists in what is seen and felt. An angler, "born so," as Walton hath it, retains a more vivid recollection of the foam-encircled pool where salmon love to congregate than of the "rise" and "strike" which gave him his early morning's exhilaration. While he soon forgets the "play" and weight of the fish captured, he never forgets the picturesque surroundings of the struggle. He may forget the last homily he read, or the last sermon to which he listened, but never the thrill of devout ecstasy which came to him while wandering along some forest pathway, or while gently floating with the current of his favorite river, bathed in sunshine and fanned by summer zephyrs. After many days, these blissful moments come back to him like divine benedictions. Be sure, O carping critic, the gentle art has its spiritual and æsthetic as well as its physical and intellectual attributes.
As a mere physical pastime, angling stands foremost among all the known sources of pleasurable recreation. It blends active exercise with fascinating excitement in such healthful proportions as to ensure the fortunate participant equally against wearisome monotony and excessive fatigue. The pure mountain air in which he is constantly enveloped is a perpetual tonic, while the exercise it compels gives steadiness to the nerves and solidity to the muscles.