t When the red drum are running the surf fisherman is in his glory and there is a delight in bringing a big warrior in through the combcrs hard to duplicate By Charles G. Reinhart l BY MANY waters, multitudes of men, . these days, are indulging in an an- oient sport. Up leaf-decked streams they wander in the cool‘of pine-scented woods; along broad sandy beaches they stand in the welcome warmth of :1 late spring sun; by brawling, twisting rapids they wait, shrouded in the mists of early morning. Each carries rod and tackle. For these are the fishermen—brothers of the angle—~heroes of more pages of the literature of contentment than any group of sportsmen in history. From mansion and but they emerge when the first trout leaps to trouble the limpid waters of a hidden, moss-fringed pool. From the desk of the executiw and the lathe of the mechanic they turn to whip distant waters, in search, estensibly, of perch or bass, but actually (as any psy- cholo‘gist will tell you) of the peace that comes from communion with nature. They are, or ought to be, a happy folk. Theirs is a fascinating pastime, whether they match wits with the wily trout of the stream or brawn with the powerful tarpon of the sea. They have the approval of literature. Poets and essayists 'and philosophers .have vied with one, another since time immemorial in calling them the salt of the earth. Yet recently they have found a fly in the ointment of their content, as well as at the end of their lines. For President Coolidge has been ré- ported to believe that fishing is a pas- time for boys alone! IN" JUSTICE to those virile sportsmen who have battled the mighty King Salmon on his annual pilgrimage up foaming rivers, the fighting muskailonge of the Northern lakes, or the vicious tune. of the Pacific, it should be noted that the reports described the President as speaking of rather small members of the big fish family. A delegation had called at the White House to ask his» support of a movement to stock the tidal basin nearby with bass. The President appeared interested. Then, the reports continue, he indicated that he had always associated fishing more with the sports of children than of grown-ups, barking back to his own rec- ollections of boyhood angling in the streams near his Vermont birthplace. An innocent enough comment, yet sel- dom since the cynical Samuel Johnson described fishing as "a stick and a string with a worm on one end and a tool on the other" has a casual remark aroused greater interest among anglers. ’ But, after all, reflected the fisher-folk, why register concern if the importance of their sport (some of them said art) was not thoroughly appreciated. by lexi- cographers and even Chief Executives? They had the word of noted philosophers and the examples of famous leaders in all lines of human activity to support them. _ ' Long before St. Peter and his breth- ren made a certain miraculous draft, they remembered, there were ardent fishermen among the great of the earth. zannwsinron had told them that angling goes back as far as the days of the sons of Adam and had proved the first mention of fishhooks in the Book of Job. Trajan, of Ro‘rne,ihad been described as an angler, and Plutarch had spoken of Antony’s and Cleopatra’s pleasure in the sport. - Cleopatra, in fact, comes down in his- tory as the first person on record to play '. practical joke on a fisherman. She is said to have hired a diver to tie a dried herring on Antony's line as it hung under the water and to haVe enjoyed a merry laugh at her lord’s eagerness to pull in , the catch. Dr. Newell, authorof the Church Cato- chism in the reign of Henry VIII, the fishers. might have recalled, gave one- teuth of his time religiously to their The black bass of our Eastern lakes and rivers is a fighter ”'3 who struggles as long as there is life in him, and any one who has taken him from a canoe will tell you that he is “a iistful of trouble” favorite sport. His biographer wrote that “when he died in 1801 at the age of 95 years, age had neither dimmed his Wes nor weakened his memory; and 81131an and temperance Were the cause of these blessings.” v Sir liumphry Davy, their records could show, was another enthusiast. , “I hope,” he said, “as long as I can enjoy a Vernal day, the warmth and light of the sunbeams, still to haunt the streams." Samuel Coleridge and Sir Walter Scott had let their imaginations play, as have many other fishermen before and since, while they sat with red and line on the banks of trout runs. Admiral Lord Nel— son was to fond of the sport that he fished with his left hand long after he had lost his right. Daniel Webster found delight after a tedious winter’s session of Congress in angling for salmon in the Kennebec and for trout in the various streams of Mas- ‘ sachusetts. . \ ’ MONG former Presidents of j the United States, the enthusiasts might have recalled, there were many devoted anglers. George Washington loved horses and deer-stalking, but he was an ardent fisherman as well. John Adams boasted that he was the best trout fiche erman of his class at Harvard, and con- - tinned the sport throughout his life. “After his retirement from the presi- dency he announced that he was going to Braintrce...Mass., to spend the re- mainder of his days “along stream." His son, John Quincy Adams, angled for; seabass, although his favorite amusements remained always riding, dancing and swimming. Andrew Jack- son, a dead-game sport, who liked duel- ing, horse-racing, cock-fighting and boxing, listed angling among his lighter recreations. President Arthur is still remembered . as one of the most enthusiastic of White House fishermen. Arthur tied his own flies and madehis own rods. He loved to hunt salmon in its Northern home. He knew the retreats of the speckled trout in the mountain lakes of Maine and the Adirondacks. He caught the elusive bluefish in Great South Bay and cast for senbass from favored beaches along the. New England coast. His fatal ill- ness is believed to have been contracted during a tarpon expedition in Florida-the last year of his term in office. But, to the present-day American, Grover Cleveland stands out as the most famous of all White House angle", ‘ Cleveland himself felt pride in that repu.‘ ‘ tation, as he often took occasion to say. “I am," he wrote, “an enthusiast in my devotion to hunting and fishing. I am so proud of this devotion that, although my sporting, proclivitios have at times subjected me to criticism and petty forms of persecution, I made no claim that my steadfastness should be looked upon as manifesting the courage of martyrdom. I regard these criticisms as nothing more serious than gust stings. sufi‘ered on the banks of a stream.” Cleveland believed that “every pa- triotic, thdughttul citizen, whether he fishes or not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more fisher- men." There could be, he asserted, no doubt "that-the promise of industrial peace, of contented labor and of health‘ , t'ul moderation in the pursuit of wealth in this democratic country of ours would be infinitely improved if a large share of the time which has been devoted to the concoction of trust and business combina- tions had been spent in fishing." Thedormer President carried his de- votion to the point where he wrote a delightful treatise on the subject of fish stories, holding that they all should be believed. Only a “squaw-fisherman,” one who lacked that occult and mysterious instinct which marks the true angler, be“ held, would ever register doubt at the most impossible yarn. ' g , How seriously Cleveland practiced what he preached is attested by the many fishing trips he made while in allies. It is said that he wrote one of the most important diplomatic messages while away from his desk in search of such relaxation. k5". Colonel Roosevelt fished as be hunted and spoke and ruled~strenuousiy. President Coolidge himself has fished -when a boy. He comes, in fact, from fishing country. What is said to be one of the finest trout streams in New England. the Ottaquechec, flows through that section. Another tempting water, Old River, rises nearhis boy« hood home. What lad could have resisted such appeals? . Today at Washington the President is surrounded by fishermen—«for angling among statesmen has by no means gone out 01 fashion. Herbert. Hoover, Sec- rotary of Commerce; John Garibaldi Sargent, Attorney General; Harry S. New, Postmaster General, and others of his Cabinet admit that an afternoon with red and reel still has its lure. Wash- ington correspondents say that one of ‘ the first questions the new Attorney General asked them after he had as« sumed his duties in the Department of Justice was, “Where is the best fish- ing?” it was the Attorney General, too, who ventured the suggestion that the President’s reported statement might be interpreted to mean “a man who fishes will never grow old." . Secretary Hoover believes, like the late President Cleveland, that this No. tion needs fishermen. “There are too few of them in public life," he said re» cently, then added, “A fisherman must be of a contemplative frame of, mind, for it is a long time between bites. These interregnums irradiate patience, reserve. and calm reflection—afar no one can catch fish in excitement, in anger or in malice. The fisherman is by nature possessed of faith, hope and even optimism, or he would not fish." All these qualities in public ofiiciais make for good government, contends the eminent philosopher of the trout streams. UT the ancient and honorable sport . of fishing needs no defense from Presidents or Cabinet ofilcers r poets. It is too thoroughly ingrained in the very Just “lishln’.” ‘3, that’s all prophecies. , skies, the earth andx‘the‘ animal life about him to learn iromtbem whether, President Codlidgc Really “Slotted Something” When He . Told a White HailsC'?‘ I Delegation managing ls depart for , “ ‘ ‘ " ' ‘ ‘ " ' ‘ * ChildrenI-fAn Airing of Izaak W altons Records the Implied Criticism of Then Favorite ' f Pastime I '4 it I WEI of; Despite President Coolidge’s implication-that fishing is "a l . 'i v pastime for boys‘only, there’s many and many an old boy 4‘ who finds in thesport recreation no other affords fit spirit of man ever to lose its popularity. David Starr Jordan, president of Stan- ford University, believes that the first men were anglers. In the oldest im~ plement collections, he says, fishhooks havo been found. In the old mounds of the Southern California anthropologists have uncovered hooks madeof abalone shell and lines cunningly contrived of “bull kelp.” Bone hooks are still taken from shell deposits on the Florida Coast and bronze hooks turn up from the pre- historic middans of Ireland. The old- est races known to man were skillful ‘ anglers, and the oldest stories'of history .- incl o yarns of fish as unbelievably vima inative as the tales of our own most conscienccless. anglers. There is today a voluminous literature of pastimes, but the oldest book of sports, scholars say, is a curious pam— phlet, “A Treatyse on Fysshynge Wyth on Angle,” written in 1496. Its author was a Woman, one Dame Juliana Berners, who was none other than the .prioress of Sopweil Nunnery in Hertfordshire, England. "She was an illustrious lady, abundantly gifted, both” in body and mind,,and charming in the elegance 0! her mien,” as a gallant biographer re- counts. - ‘AME JULIANA was no novice in the art of angling. She not only advised her readers to go a-fishing but told them how to proceed. In that early fisherman's manual she instructs how to make a rod, how to make lines of horse- hair, and how to make hooks. , You must, pronounces Dame Juliana, keep ever from the sight of the fish; you must avoid casting your shadow on the water, your bait must be right; the hour and day must be correctly selected; the weather must be propitious. “And if,” says this wise prioress, “the angler. take fysshc; surely, thenne, is there noo man mericr than he is in his spyryte." ' In these times“ the angler wishes to know the probable weather conditions for a_day of his favorite sport he need only pick up the newspaper to learn what the scientific men have forecast. But for the ancient angler there was no such and. Yet he was not without his Carefully he scanned the or not conditions were promising. Many of his methods make fascinating read- ing today. _ - “Against rain, fleas bite more than common," writes one weather prophet of» an ”earlier century. “Spiders crawl abroad, bees stir not far from their ‘- hive. In meh frequently aches, wounds and come are more troublesome. ,f‘Before sny.eonsiderable quantity of rain, moles work harder than ordinary. they throw up more; earth and do some- times come forth; thewormi; do so also; swine discover great uneasihess, as do likewise sheep, com and oxen. . “If a new moon happen at 12 at night rain is lately observed to follow. “So long as the swallovvs fly aloft after their prey we ‘think ourselves sure of a serene sky; but~when they ‘skim along nearpthe ground we judge the rain" is not far off, and the observation will seldom fail. ' . “‘Dogs grow sleepy and stupid before s. rain: [water fowl dive and wash them. selves more than ordinary; flies seem w l p be. more townhouses." FROM the direction of the wind itself, those old authorities believed they could foretell their fishing luck. The following doggerel once had, and may still have, many earnest believers: “When the wind is in the east. Then1the fishes do bite the least. , When the wind is in the west, ‘7' .' ,Thcn the fishes bite the best. y ‘ When the wind is in the north, 1 .\ . Then the fishes do come forth. till When ma wired into the‘ south, It blows the bait in the fish's mouth.”- Search if‘you willi'the modern’sport's- man’s manuals, but you will not unCover so popular a bit of ”advice as the follow- . ing, offered by one Thomas Best in “his “Concise Treatise on the Art of An- gling," published in England shortly after the American Revolution: “Let me advise you whenever you are out in the heat of summer fishing and are thirsty nearer to drink water. as the consequences arising from such an indis- crefion may prove fatal; but either take a little brandy or rum out with you in a wicker bottle or wait till you come to some house where you can have a little; the effects it has ,of quenching the thirst , and cooling the body are instantaneous.” Dame Juliana ‘Berners recommended fysshyng to cause the heltho of your body and specyally of your soule, but Master Best believed in fysshyng for i‘ysshe. A convivial soul, he suggested making even the fish drunk, and quoted numero'us obscure authorities to show how it could be done. . “Take,” he advised, “the berries of the Oriental scene, a quarter of an ounce; of cumin and boiling water, each two ounces; of choose, one ounce, and of meal, three ounces; after bruising them to- gether form them into small balls. A simple ball of the powder bf these intoxi- cating berries is efficacious in stupefy- ing and at last killing fishes. I readily grant that by these balls fishes are ren- dered vertiginous and, as it were, intoxi- cated”, ‘ . ' ANY men have asked what there is about the process of catching fish with a hook and line that so appeals to instincts deep in'the human breast. Few have anSWeredmthey have pre- ferred to go fishing‘instead. But re- cently one member of the Gatalina Light Tackle Club, of the Pacific Coast, at- tacked the problem in the , Catalina Islanderfrom the point ofrview of the psychologist. ' , '7 , An angler, he decided, thrills to the combat with a living thing; a throbbing, vibrating", swiftly moving captive. He learns the art of patience while Waiting for the bite. He is torn byremotionsl excitement when it arrives. “He concen- trates on the battle; he fills his lungs with pure fresh air; he breathes method~ ically,’and fights}? ’ So much for the psychologists and for the Westhwhere men are men and fish are fighters- ‘ , ‘ But somehow one likes to turn a in to old Izaak Walton and recall his gn- tlc explanation: , A " “When I ,Would beget content, and increase confidence in .tbepowcr and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadow by some gliding stream.” 1 “ ' - . ‘ Boyhood sndmsnhood both-can find > .profit in such a pastime. , , comm for room Indoor comm“ \ I?"
Norwalk Chronicler