One pickerel in the pond carries a flag. Another
tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat upon the ice. The bait has
been stolen. You dash desperately toward the third flag and pull in
the only fish that is left,--probably the smallest of them all!
A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three
dazzling chances.
There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed
part of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin
Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he
said, "and the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast
as I pulled 'em in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't
bait the hooks. But the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in
June. So I jus' took a piece of bait and held it over one o' the
holes. Every time a fish jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on
the ice. I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds
of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 't was a big lot, I 'low, but then
't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like cordwood."
Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a
chilling and unsatisfactory imitation of real sport.
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