In addition to his accomplishments as a clergyman, prelate, and scholar, Bishop Cheshire attained considerable skill and reputation as a sportsman. Fishing and hunting were the sports he liked best and the only ones he indulged in. He once remarked that he had been fond of fishing from his boyhood, but he thought his liking for it increased with age. His prowess as a fisherman was well known to his churchmen from the coast to the mountains of North Carolina. During the 1890's, when he was building up his mountain work, he would sometimes allow himself a few hours of relaxation to fish for the fine trout in the cold mountain streams. As a good fisherman should, he always carried his tackle with him when traveling near promising streams. In later years, whenever he had the opportunity, he returned to the mountains for a brief vacation of fishing. On one of these trips, accompanied by his son, Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr., he was fishing in the Watauga River. When they came to a ford, the Bishop recalled that he had an old friend, Bill Holler, living a short distance away, whom he would like very much to see. Accordingly, they walked up the road about a half mile. Pausing at the foot of a mountainside, the Bishop asked his son to climb up and tell Mr. Holler that an old friend wanted to see him, but not to mention his name. Shortly afterwards, his son returned accompanied by a little old man, with long white hair and beard and a pleasant, wrinkled face. As soon as the old man saw his visitor, his face lit up with a smile, he threw open his arms, rushed up to the Bishop, and embraced him, crying: "Lord! It's the old Bishop, the old Bishop, the old Bishop!" The Bishop's fondness for hunting was almost as great as that for fishing. He began hunting in early boyhood but, according to his own statement, he never became a good shot. Many of his hunting companions, however, would undoubtedly contest the point. Among the people of his Diocese he was famous for his skill in wild turkey hunting. Strange as it may seem, he did not kill a wild turkey until he was sixty-four years old. Up to that time he had hunted partridges a great deal, but as he grew older, he had to give it up because it required so much walking. Hunting wild turkeys, although strenuous enough, was better suited to his years. After his first kill, scarcely a season passed that he did not bag at least one turkey. As the Bishop's enthusiasm for this sport grew, he made an interesting collection of turkey calls. They ranged from several varieties made from the wing bone of the turkey to the box type, which was usually made of cedar. [Illustration: _Bishop Cheshire fishing in the French Broad River, September, 1912._] [Illustration: _Photograph by Bayard Wootten The Parker-Cheshire House in Tarboro, birthplace of Bishop Cheshire. The house was built by Theophilus Parker, the Bishop's grandfather._]