One Darn Thing After Another.

Man'S relaxations are called spare-time pursuits. The word “pursuit” is a hang-over from the happy hunting grounds of the distant past when the pursuit of something or other was man's wholetime job. He pursued his dinner, his wife, his neighbour, and his father-inlaw.

To-day, most pursuits have to be pretty safe before the pursuer will take a hundred-per-cent. chance on them; although there are unenlightened people who still take the bull by the horns, the rhino by the tusk and the tiger by the tail. But most pursuers naturally want a guarantee that the one in front will stay in front until laid low by lethal weapon or legal document. Taking everything at farce value it is not surprising that the conglomerate stew of spats, ties, lipsticks and loin cloths is designated “the human race.”

Pursuing the Improbable.

Much of man's pursuing to-day is confined to abstract quarries such as an ambition to catch up with the hypothetical golfing achievements of that mendacious old bore, Colonel Bogey, getting as close as possible to the wildest improbability on a chess board, or getting the wood on the fickle “Kitty” on a bowling green.

When the concrete is pursued it usually takes the form of stag, rabbit, fish or football.

The object of this document is to glance fleetingly at the atavistic adumbrations of “homo roamo” in his relaxed moments. The basic idea of all pastimes is to pursue something whether it be an idea, an ideal, or something round that rolls, soars, bounds or trickles, in addition to the furred, feathered and finned children of the wild.

Hearts and Homes.

Winter is the season when pursuits are the more rugged and reckless–when man grasps gun, niblick, football and hockey stick and unleashes the rude health bequeathed to him by his ancestors of the Stone-and-bone Age and his pal Flintface. The word “sport” is described by optimistic lexicographers as meaning “play, romp, frolic, gambol, frisk.” Such a definition hints that the domed dictionarian is either a bit of a wag or blinded to reality by his long hair. He certainly knows little of the indignity of sport, more especially the brand called hunting, which entails hanging by one's chin-bristles to a sapling while grandpa boar sharpens his tusks on the soles of one's boots; or lying with one's face nestling in nettles whilst the melancholy moose moseys round the skyline with unchristian suspicion in his heart and nostrils.

“The hypothetical golfing achievements of that mendacious old bore, Colonel Bogey.”

Hunting Humour.

Humour is described in the dictionary as “a mental quality which delights in ludicrous and mirthful ideas.” But a page 53 better definition of the humour of hunting is: “Something funny—that happens to someone else.”

Hunting has always been fraught with fright. It calls for a happy, carefree, hardy nature, but, bless your heart, the chief pursuit of all pursuits is the pursuit.

The “Why?” in Golf.

Take golf! Why do men leave wives, children, mothers-in-law and mortgages—when the wind howls round the radio aerials and sailors at sea are battening down the bilge for a dirty night—just to pursue a vindictive little ball through wet grass with a bit of bent iron. Why? Otherwise “why?”

Summer yields a less fierce form of pursuits, the most mild and ruminative of which is fishing—either with rod and fly or beer and boat.

Fly and Lie.

The fly-fisher believes that “everything comes to him who wades.” He is a piscatorial Macawber, wading for something to turn up. The scope of his wandering is so wide that a legend has arisen relating to his poverty of veracity. There are even coarse persons who call him a liar. This is not fair; he is a creative artist who occasionally gets confused between (1) the fish he hopes to catch, (2) the fish he has caught, and (3) the fish he thinks he has caught. He simply has to be a man of imagination, for troutery demands strange knowledge far beyond the limits of mere fishing. Trout fishing is temperamentally affected by practically everything ranging through the value of the yen, the scarcity of calories in the Russian Diet, and the price of minnows in Minorca. A fly-fisher needs to be versatile, and if he is really earnest he takes a course in navigation, bone-setting, hammer-throwing, mesmerism, and pancake-tossing—just to be on the safe side.

“The keg is mightier than the book.”

The Riddle Of The Deep.

Sea-fishing is nothing less than the pursuit of blind faith. In this it differs from other sports. When you shoot a duck you like to see it somewhere about; but when you go sea-fishing you simply sling your hook blindly, sustained by a couple of “quick ones” and a whole heap of faith. For all your eyes tell you the sea may be as devoid of fish as a bullock's breakfast. The fisher merely tosses a challenge to Chance. He may bring up a brace of schnapper or a bottle of Schnapps, a groper or a gridiron, a bonita or a boot. It's this haunting mystery of the sea, this riddle of the deep that gets him. For:

Ten million million fish there be,
Invisible within the sea.
It's very hard indeed to ponder,
With all those flashing fish down yonder,
That seldom, when I drop a hook,
Do fishes give the bait a look.
The schnapper and his salty donah,
Jush flip a fin and gurgle, “Jonah!”
But still, where breakers shoot the
schute,
We stick to this sublime pursuit
For, though some people vote it slow,
Our motto is “You never know.”

Bites and Gulps.

In sea-fishing the keg is mightier than the hook. The two forms of seafishing are known as fishing “with” and fishing “without.” Fishing “without” is only indulged in by vulgar seekers after profit, men without souls and thirsts, men who throw wet fish over everybody in the boat so that they can't get a wink of fishing.

Fishing “without” is never indulged in by men who thirst after things higher, but not drier, than fish. Such a fisher doesn't need to worry about bites so long as there are gulps. In fact, he often leaves his fishing gear at home and has been known to push fish out of the boat rather than allow his pints to be disturbed by gills.

It is not difficult to grasp dear old Izaak Walton's idea about the soulful somnolence of fishing—provided you don't run away with the idea that fish are necessary to fishing. Of all the pursuits give us fishing.

A keg of beer lashed safely in the
bow,
A warming sun, a fisher's thirst—and
how!
Ah, this is Paradise enow.