"SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling, Fisher?"
"FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published.  Brother
Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to produce anything
original on the gentle art.  There is good trout-fishing in America,
and the streams, which are all free, are much less fished than in
our Island, 'from the small number of gentlemen,' as an American
writer says, 'who are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
--WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London, 1835).

That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend
of Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of
Venice, was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May
months than forty Decembers."  The reason for this preference was no
secret to those who knew him.  It had nothing to do with British or
Venetian politics.  It was simply because December, with all its
domestic joys, is practically a dead month in the angler's calendar.

His occupation is gone.  The better sort of fish are out of season.
The trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no
treat to eat them.  The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run
out to sea, and the place of their habitation no man knoweth.  There
is nothing for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring,
and meanwhile encourage and sustain his patience with such small
consolations in kind as a friendly Providence may put within his
reach.

Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice.  This
method of taking fish is practised on a large scale and with
elaborate machinery by men who supply the market.  I speak not of
their commercial enterprise and its gross equipage, but of ice-
fishing in its more sportive and desultory form, as it is pursued by
country boys and the incorrigible village idler.