placing them upon the hook have the placid completeness that belonged
to his character. Yet in such matters a little nonconformity may be
encouraged. No two men or boys dig bait in quite the same way, though
all share, no doubt, the singular elation which gilds that grimy
occupation with the spirit of romance. The mind is really occupied, not
with the wriggling red creatures in the lumps of earth, but with the
stout fish which each worm may capture, just as a saint might rejoice
in the squalor of this world as a preparation for the glories of the
world to come. Nor do any two experienced fishermen hold quite the same
theory as to the best mode of baiting the hook. There are a hundred
ways, each of them good. As to the best hook for worm-fishing, you will
find dicta in every catalogue of fishing tackle, but size and shape and
tempering are qualities that should vary with the brook, the season,
and the fisherman. Should one use a three-foot leader, or none at all?
Whose rods are best for bait-fishing, granted that all of them should
be stiff enough in the tip to lift a good fish by dead strain from a
tangle of brush or logs? Such questions, like those pertaining to the
boots or coat which one should wear, the style of bait-box one should
carry, or the brand of tobacco best suited for smoking in the wind, are
topics for unending discussion among the serious minded around the
camp-fire. Much edification is in them, and yet they are but prudential
maxims after all. They are mere moralities of the Franklin or
Chesterfield variety, counsels of worldly wisdom, but they leave the
soul untouched. A man may have them at his finger's ends and be no
better fisherman at bottom; or he may, like R., ignore most of the
admitted rules and come home with a full basket. It is a sufficient
defense of fishing with a worm to pronounce the truism that no man is a
_complete_ angler until he has mastered all the modes of angling.
Lovely streams, lonely and enticing, but impossible to fish with a fly,
await the fisherman who is not too proud to use, with a man's skill,