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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 2 (June 1, 1927)

Anglers

Anglers

Ihave seen every beauty these eight days,
The crag, the mountain meadow and the peak,
The wide-horned buck, majestical and sleek,
High cloud in the candescent West ablaze,
Hill torrents hurling down vertiginous ways
In a glory human words may never speak,
And a valley paven with a long green streak
Of river cliffed and walled with chrysoprase.
I have looked on every beauty, and have harked
To every wild and woodland melody.
I have trod jasper and chalcedony.
And yet I stand alone, and damn my eyes
For my shins are scraped and every knuckle barked,
All for those cursed trout that will not rise.

—Leonard Bacon.

To those who have not tried this fascinating sport, the angler is a mystery very unlike the Sphinx.

The Sphinx is a sublime silence.

It takes years to acquire the necessary skill to make a successful angler, and it is in the first few years that the pupil learns why it is called “The contemplative man's recreation”;—he has to muse on some new and plausible story after every unsuccessful fishing trip.

Royal Train, 26 years ago. Our present King and Queen (then Duke and Duchess of York) were aboard this special—leaving Auckland for Rotorua. (J. class engine, No. 262.)

Royal Train, 26 years ago. Our present King and Queen (then Duke and Duchess of York) were aboard this special—leaving Auckland for Rotorua. (J. class engine, No. 262.)

If he has the gift of metre and an extensive vocabulary to draw from, he may still lead on his auditors till they forget to ask, “Where are those trout you promised us?” Yea, anglers must have imagination. Even Zane Grey—of whom it may be truly said he is not lacking in that attribute—is now angling as a stimulus to greater storytelling. Just why this mild form of delusional insanity is associated with fishing, more than with any other sport, is a problem. We all have heard of how Maui fished the South Island (or was it the North Island?) out of the sea with a hook made from the jaw-bone of an ass. That Maui had the nerve to tell such a tale is proof that strength of jaw was a special feature of the family. Angling seems to produce a mental aberration similar to motoring. A dismounted angler and a dismounted motorist are normal individuals. Motorists mounted, however, have been known to kill their best friends.

In the course of time, the angler achieves success in two directions. When he can tell fish stories that look like fairies garbed in truth he can also catch trout. Some truths are paradoxical.

Dante could not visualise any special end for anglers, but of this we can be assured—they lie still.

page 44