kind there is, from the big jew-fish and cavalyoes
down South, to the trout and minnies round about here.
But when I ketch a fish, the first thing I do is to
try to git him on the hook, and the next thing is
to git him out of the water jist as soon as I kin.
I don’t put in no time worryin’ him.
There’s only two animals in the world that likes
to worry smaller creeturs a good while afore they
kill ’em; one is the cat, and the other is what
they call the game fisherman. This kind of a
feller never goes after no fish that don’t mind
being ketched. He goes fur them kinds that loves
their home in the water and hates most to leave it,
and he makes it jist as hard fur ’em as he kin.
What the game fisher likes is the smallest kind of
a hook, the thinnest line, and a fish that it takes
a good while to weaken. The longer the weak’nin’
business kin be spun out, the more the sport.
The idee is to let the fish think there’s a
chance fur him to git away. That’s jist
like the cat with her mouse. She lets the little
creetur hop off, but the minnit he gits fur enough
away, she jumps on him and jabs him with her claws,
and then, if there’s any game left in him, she
lets him try again. Of course the game fisher
could have a strong line and a stout pole and git
his fish in a good sight quicker, if he wanted to,
but that wouldn’t be sport. He couldn’t
give him the butt and spin him out, and reel him in,
and let him jump and run till his pluck is clean worn
out. Now, I likes to git my fish ashore with
all the pluck in ’em. It makes ’em
taste better. And as fur fun, I’ll be bound
I’ve had jist as much of that, and more, too,
than most of these fellers who are so dreadful anxious
to have everythin’ jist right, and think they
can’t go fishin’ till they’ve spent
enough money to buy a suit of Sunday clothes.
As a gen’ral rule they’re a solemn lot,
and work pretty hard at their fun. When I work
I want to be paid fur it, and when I go in fur fun
I want to take it easy and cheerful. Now I wouldn’t
say so much agen these fellers,” said old Peter,
as he arose and put his empty pipe on a little shelf
under the porch-roof, “if it wasn’t for
one thing, and that is, that they think that their
kind of fishin’ is the only kind worth considerin’.
The way they look down upon plain Christian fishin’
is enough to rile a hitchin’-post. I don’t
want to say nothin’ agen no man’s way of
attendin’ to his own affairs, whether it’s
kitchen-gardenin’, or whether it’s fishin’,
if he says nothin’ agen my way; but when he looks
down on me, and grins at me, I want to haul myself
up, and grin at him, if I kin. And in this case,
I kin. I s’pose the house-cat and the cat-fisher
(by which I don’t mean the man who fishes for
cat-fish) was both made as they is, and they can’t
help it; but that don’t give ’em no right
to put on airs before other bein’s, who gits
their meat with a square kill. Good-night.
And sence I’ve talked so much about it, I’ve
a mind to go fishin’ with you to-morrow myself.”