e 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,
the same unpretentious tackle which he began with as a boy.

But ah, to fish with a worm, and then not catch your fish! To fail with
a fly is no disgrace: your art may have been impeccable, your patience
faultless to the end. But the philosophy of worm-fishing is that of
Results, of having something tangible in your basket when the day's
work is done. It is a plea for Compromise, for cutting the coat
according to the cloth, for taking the world as it actually is. The
fly-fisherman is a natural Foe of Compromise. He throws to the trout a
certain kind of lure; an they will take it, so; if not, adieu. He knows
no middle path.

"This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit."

The raptures and the tragedies of consistency are his. He is a scorner
of the ground. All honor to him! When he comes back at nightfall and
says happily, "I have never cast a line more perfectly than I have
to-day," it is almost indecent to peek into his creel. It is like
rating Colonel Newcome by his bank account.

But the worm-fi