IN DEFENSE OF WORMS

Essays on the healing art of fishing as against the artificial, high cockalorum procedures of the snobbish angler, these are good tempered, highly individual pronouncements of beliefs fashioned over years of the sport. From the relationship of fishing to a feeling for religion, he goes on to the unimportance of the catch as contrasted to the moments of happiness that fishing provides, to the heresy against flies and casting in favor of a return to using worms (fish like them so why not use them?), to the anti-climax of catching salmon, fishermen he doesn't want as companions, the joy of the dub fraternity instead of the rigid protocol of the autocratic stickler, problems of conservation, and fishing tales of local and faraway waters. He has some points to make of serious import, but the whole offers a mellow blend for the brotherhood.