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Page:Caine - An Angler at Large (1911).djvu/176

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XXIV
Of the Perfect Thrill

I once read in a book on fishing these words: "No angler who has not landed a trout upon a fly of his own making can say that he has known the perfect thrill." Now, I am an amateur of thrills and sensations of every kind. I believe that every thrill, whether it be gained in the concert-room, in the theatre, at the dinner-table, or in pursuit of sport, is worth knowing, and to get a new one I will take any trouble. As far as the thrills of trout-fishing go, I had thought, before I read the words which I have quoted, that they were exhausted, always excepting the never-to-be-exhausted thrill of landing the largest-fish-yet. I had caught trout in all sorts of places, though, perhaps, not with all sorts of lures. I had never, for example, employed either poison or dynamite, but there are sensations which an angler, however curious and refined his taste may be, must deny himself.

And here was a thrill which I did not know. This alone made it attractive. But the "perfect"

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