Fishing with a Worm | Page 4

a heavy trout
breaking the surface as he curves and plunges, with the fly holding well,
with the right sort of rod in your fingers, and the right man in the other
end of the canoe, and you perceive how easy is that Emersonian trick of
making the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
But angling's honest prose, as represented by the lowly worm, has also
its exalted moments. "The last fish I caught was with a worm," says the
honest Walton, and so say I. It was the last evening of last August. The
dusk was settling deep upon a tiny meadow, scarcely ten rods from end
to end. The rank bog grass, already drenched with dew, bent over the
narrow, deep little brook so closely that it could not be fished except

with a double-shotted, baited hook, dropped delicately between the
heads of the long grasses. Underneath this canopy the trout were
feeding, taking the hook with a straight downward tug, as they made
for the hidden bank. It was already twilight when I began, and before I
reached the black belt of woods that separated the meadow from the
lake, the swift darkness of the North Country made it impossible to see
the hook. A short half hour's fishing only, and behold nearly twenty
good trout derricked into a basket until then sadly empty. Your rigorous
fly-fisherman would have passed that grass-hidden brook in disdain,
but it proved a treasure for the humble. Here, indeed, there was no
question of individually-minded fish, but simply a neglected brook, full
of trout which could be reached with the baited hook only. In more
open brook-fishing it is always a fascinating problem to decide how to
fish a favorite pool or ripple, for much depends upon the hour of the
day, the light, the height of water, the precise period of the spring or
summer. But after one has decided upon the best theoretical procedure,
how often the stupid trout prefers some other plan! And when you have
missed a fish that you counted upon landing, what solid satisfaction is
still possible for you, if you are philosopher enough to sit down then
and there, eat your lunch, smoke a meditative pipe, and devise a new
campaign against that particular fish! To get another rise from him after
lunch is a triumph of diplomacy, to land him is nothing short of
statesmanship. For sometimes he will jump furiously at a fly, for very
devilishness, without ever meaning to take it, and then, wearying
suddenly of his gymnastics, he will snatch sulkily at a grasshopper,
beetle, or worm. Trout feed upon an extraordinary variety of crawling
things, as all fishermen know who practice the useful habit of opening
the first two or three fish they catch, to see what food is that day the
favorite. But here, as elsewhere in this world, the best things lie nearest,
and there is no bait so killing, week in and week out, as your plain
garden or golf-green angleworm.
Walton's list of possible worms is impressive, and his directions for
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