SNUB

SNUB MEJB By Ted Kestmg Do fishing contests aid or injure angling as a sport? Bill Wolf, the foremost iconoclast among out door writers, is again them. He says there is a commercial or cainglorious motive behind all of them, even in their most innocent forms, and it is impossible to see how any contest furthers fishing as a sport. No one needs the lure of a possible prize to find fishing Interesting. Such competitive events foster cheating, lying and other unscru pulous practices. They breed bit terness and quarrels. They dis courage sportsmanship. They pat the fish killer and the fish hog on the back, because contests musti have dead entries. They make a mockery of conservation, and turn the quiet, contemplative non-competitive sport of angling into a crass, commercial competi tion. Let's look at children's contests, surely the most innocuous kind— or are they? Wolf tells of such a contest held annually near his home. Merchants and individuals donate prizes and there are so many that the officials had to invent categories. There were prizes for the fattest boy angler, the prettiest girl, the smallest child, the one who came the greatest distance. All a child had to do was catch a fish to win something.