Association, M: Anglers' Evenings

Excerpt from Anglers' Evenings: Papers by Members of the Manchester Anglers' Association

It is permissible to express a hope that the critics of the present volume will not be inferior fishermen to the critics of fifteen years ago, and that the book may receive as kindly a greeting as was accorded then.

The contributors to this volume have not con scrously any very ambitious aims; like virtue, they find their reward in the pleasure of being. They seek to promote the true spirit of their craft less by preaching than by recording. Yet it may well be that the future historian, whether New Zealander or Perfected Anarchist, will give this volume a leading position amongst the progressive works of the present age. True, it does not attempt to compete with the contemporary novel with a purpose; for though traces of passion may be found in its pages, anglers are not, as a rule, perplexed by spiritual uncertainties and Gallic heart-yearnings; such troubles they have left behind with the measles. But who that perusesthese pages and learns that while one fisher, who loves the Derbyshire waters formerly fished by Walton and Cotton, prefers small takes of good fish to larger numbers of smaller fish and is satisfied with an average of 1 lb., another looks on 2 lbs. As only a respectable average, and a third condescendingly refers to 2 lbs. As a nice little fish will fail to perceive the relation between angling and economics? All that is needed for the solution of the economic problems of the time is an enterprising and, withal, cheerful and contented spirit, and this is the outcome of the angler's art.

While the book has been passing through the press it has had to be recorded of one of its contributors - the author of the paper on Trout Fishing in Otago, New Zealand, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.

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