قراءة كتاب The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout an anthological volume of trout fishing, trout histories, trout lore, trout resorts, and trout tackle
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout an anthological volume of trout fishing, trout histories, trout lore, trout resorts, and trout tackle
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The Determined Angler
CHAPTER I
THE HOLY ANGLERS
"... certain poor fishermen coming in very weary after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming ashore) found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for them. But it seems that He must have been busy in their behalf while he was waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals on the shore, and a goodly fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when the Master had asked them about their fishing he said: 'Come, now, and get your breakfast.' So they sat down around the fire, and with His own hands he served them with the bread and the fish."—Henry Van Dyke.
| "The first men that our Saviour dear Did choose to wait upon Him here. Blest fishers were...." —W. Basse |
"I would ... fish in the sky whose bottom is pebbly with stars."—Thoreau.
The principal fishes of the Sea of Galilee to-day are the same as they were two thousand years ago—bream and chub. These were taken in olden times by both net and hook and line.
The fishermen whom Christ chose as His disciples—Peter. Andrew, James, and John—were professional net fishermen, but hook and line fishing was a favorite pastime of the well-to-do Egyptians as well as the poor people who could not afford a net.
Weirs not unlike the modern article were used in the Holy Land in Bible time, excepting on Lake Gennesaret, where the law of the land forbade them.
The bream and the chub were eaten alike by rich and poor people. Wayfarers roasted them over chip fires in the groves and on the lake shores, housewives boiled and broiled them, and the wealthy man served them at his banquets. "Moses, the friend of God," writes Izaak Walton, in his immortal Compleat Angler, quoting from Lev. xi., 9, Deut., xiv., 9, "appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. The mightiest feasts have been of fish."
Our Saviour "fed the people on fish when they were hungry." The species is not alluded to in the Biblical paragraph, but no doubt the fish feasts of the Lord were mostly of chub and bream. Jesus loved fishermen and was in their society most of His time. No other class of men were so well favored by Him. He inspired St. Peter, St. John, St. Andrew, and St. James, poor fishermen, who drew their nets for the people, and these four fishermen, declares Father Izaak, "He never reproved for their employment or calling, as he did scribes and money changers."
The Lord's favorite places of labor and repose—the places He most frequented—were near the fishes and fisherman. "He began to teach by the seaside. His pulpit was a fishing boat or the shore of a lake. He was in the stern of the boat, asleep. He was always near the water to cheer and comfort those who followed it." And Walton tells us that "when God intended to reveal high notions to His prophets He carried them to the shore, that He might settle their mind in a quiet repose."
Bream and chub are not monster fishes—they do not average the great weights of the tarpon and the tuna; they are of the small and medium-size species; so, if the apostles were pleased with "ye gods and little fishes," we mortals of to-day should be satisfied with our catch, be it ever so small.