Fishing in Le Morvan--The naturalists--The _Gour_ of Akin--The
English lady--The mountain streams--Château de
Chatelux--Sermiselle--New mode of killing pike--Pierre Pertuis--The
rocks and whirlpool there--The syrens of the grotto--Château des
Panolas--The Cousin--The ponds of Marot and lakes of Lomervo--Mode
of taking fish with live trimmers--The Scotch farmer.
Having disposed of the quadrupeds of Le Morvan, I must enlarge a little
upon the finny tribe of my native province, who would, I feel sure, be
not a little annoyed if after having mentioned nearly every other
creature capable of affording amusement to the sportsman I were to pass
them over in silence. Besides, the shade of Izaak Walton would haunt me,
and his disciples no doubt wish me well hooked, if I omitted to give
them a chapter on angling,--but it shall be short, and I will avoid all
scientific discussion. Theories sufficient have been hazarded, and books
written without number from the days of old Aristotle, who arranged them
in three great divisions, the Cetaceous, the Cartilaginous, and the
Spinous; down to Gmelin, who divided them into six orders, the Apodal,
the Jugular, the Thoracic, the Abdominal, the Branchiostagous, and the
Chondropterygious.
How men, learned and scientific men, can be so barbarous as to invent
such grotesque names as these is surprizing, or why Apicius should be
remembered for having been the first to teach mankind how to suffocate
fish in Carthaginian pickle; or Quin, for having discovered a sauce for
John Dories; or Mrs. Glasse, for an eel pie; or M. Soyer, celebrated for
depriving barbel of their sight, in order to make them grow fatter, and
be more acceptable to the epicure. Into this wilderness of discoveries,
I have no intention of introducing you, gentle reader. The wisest plan
is to cook and eat your fish in the ordinary mode--fry, broil, bake,
boil, or grill; and call a perch, a perch, not a thoracic; a pike, a
pike, &c., and pay little attention either to cooks or naturalists.
Le Morvan, intersected by numerous rivers, streams, and runs of water,
in the liquid depths of which the various species of the fresh-water
fishy-family are found from the powerful, swift, and travelled salmon,
to the modest little gudgeon that stays quietly at home, is a country
where the angler may live in a state of perpetual jubilee; the carp, the
eel, and the pike attain an enormous size, particularly near the dams
and flood-gates, where the depth of water is great, and in the _Gours_
or water-courses which, diverging at several points on the stream, are
constructed for supplying the flour and paper-mills with water.
The punters of Richmond, Hampton Court, and Chertsey, with their
magnificent tackle, gentles, ground-bait, and comfortable chair, &c.,
would be astonished to see the quantities of fish that are taken in one
of these _Gours_ by a half-naked peasant, with a line as thick as
packthread, during a sultry tempestuous evening in the month of June;
from thirty to forty pounds' weight of carp and eels is by no means an
unusual take,--Apodal and Abdominal, as the learned Gmelin would say.
These _Gours_ are perfect jewels in the eyes of our fishermen; on very
great occasions, for instance, when the miller marries, or an infant
miller makes his appearance, if the occurrence should happen during the
summer season, the flood-gates of the _Gours_ are opened, when the
waters being let off to within a few inches of the bottom, the quantity
of fish taken with the casting-net is enormous. In the large _Gour_ of
Akin, the longest, the deepest, and containing more fish than any on the
Cure or the Cousin, which I mention as representing the ten or twelve
second-rate rivers of Le Morvan, I have seen as much as four horse-loads
of fish taken, though every fish under two pounds was thrown back. The
average depth of water in these rivers is from three to four feet,
except near the dams and flood-gates, where it is from twelve to
thirteen. With rivers so well supplied, sport is invariably obtained; so
that patience, a virtue generally considered absolutely necessary in the
angler, is scarcely required here, and fishing is actually a pastime of
the _beau sexe_.
Well do I remember the astonishment, the pleasure, the delicious joy of
a young English lady we had the good fortune to have with us at Vezelay,
some few years since (where, by-the-bye, she made quite a sensation),
when for the first time, and seated comfortably upon the soft turf by
the river side, she gracefully threw her line into the great _Gour_ of
Akin; the bait had scarcely sunk, when the float was dancing about like
a dervish, and finally disappeared; the lady pulled, the fish resisted;
excited beyond measure, she redoubled her efforts, and tugging away with
both hands, at length drew from his watery home a large carp, which
flying through the air, described a splendid parabola, and landed in the
adjoining field, to the great joy of the young lady, who showed her
white teeth and laughed with might and main. But the poor devil of a
servant to whom was confided the delicate task of impaling the bait,
disentangling the line, and searching for the fish, when thus projected
over the lady's head into the long grass behind her, had plenty to do I
can aver, and did anything but laugh.
Near the forests and the hills the rivers are much more shallow, more
clear and limpid, and flow, dance, and bubble over a gravelly bottom or
golden sands. In these the voracious trout abounds; he may be seen
allowing himself to be lazily rocked by the eddy, by the twirling
current, or reposing under the shadow of the large rocks, which,
detached from the adjacent mountains, have fallen into the river, and
been arrested in their course; here he waits for the delicious May-fly,
and the fisherman's basket is soon filled--so soon that a celebrated
doctor in our neighbourhood, whose house is situated near one of these
streams, used to send his servant every morning to take a fresh dish for
his breakfast. The largest and the best trout are found near Chatelux,
in the heart of the Morvan,--an old _château_, on the summit of a high
rock, ornamented with towers and turrets, and surrounded by thick and
solitary woods, in itself a lion worth seeing.
The present Count de Chatelux was aide-de-camp to Louis Phillipe, and a
great friend of that sovereign. The river Cure flows at the foot of the
hill on which the castle is situated, and its bed at this part is
frequently divided, and forms many little islets, full of flowering
shrubs and forest trees, which give the landscape a pleasing and
picturesque appearance. From hence, for nearly twelve miles, roach,
dace, chub, and trout are numerous, and take the fly well.
Besides the _Gours_ we have mentioned, there are three spots in the
Morvan that deserve attention in connection with fishing. These are
Sermiselle, Pierre Pertuis, and the Château des Panolas. Sermiselle, at
the junction of the Cure and the Cousin, at which point the road from
Paris to Lyons passes, is a charming village, full of life and gaiety.
At this spot the river begins to make a respectable figure; deep,
solemn, and silent, it seems proud of its boats and ferries; but its
waters have not that transparent appearance, that vivacious, laughing,
and brawling character which distinguished them some miles further up.
The fish in like manner resemble the stream; there are in this part
monstrous carp, majestic eels, and solemn pike; and the line should be
doubly strong if the angler is desirous of ever seeing a fish, or his
hooks again.
At some distance above Sermiselle, where the silence and solitude of the
country still reign, a very curious mode of fishing is adopted during
the burning heat of the summer months. About mid-day, when the sun in
all its power shoots his golden rays perpendicularly on the waters,
illuminating every large hole even in the profoundest depths, the large
fish leave them, and, ascending to the surface, remain under the cool
shade of the trees, watching for whatever tit-bit or delicacy the stream
may bring with it, while others prefer a quiet saunter, or, with the
dorsal fin above the water, lie so still and stationary near some lily
or other aquatic plant, that they seem perfectly asleep.
The enthusiastic sportsman, who fears neither storms nor a
_coup-de-soleil_, makes his appearance about this time, without, it is
true, either fishing-rod, lines, worms, flies, or bait of any
description, but having under his left arm a double-barrel gun, in his
right hand a large cabbage, and at his heels a clever poodle. The
fisherman, or the huntsman, I scarcely know which to call him, now duly
reconnoitres the river, fixes upon some tree, the large and lower
branches of which spread over it, ascends with his gun and his cabbage,
and having taken up an equestrian position upon one of the projecting
arms, examines the surface of the deep stream below him. He has not been
long on his perch when he perceives a stately pike paddling up the
river; a leaf is instantly broken off the cabbage, and when the
Branchiostagous has approached sufficiently near, is thrown into the
water; frightened, the voracious fish at once disappears, but shortly
after rises, and grateful to the unknown and kind friend who has sent
him this admirable parasol, he goes towards it, and after pushing it
about for a few seconds with his nose, finally places himself
comfortably under its protecting shade. The sportsman, watching the
animated gyrations of his cabbage-leaf, immediately fires, when the
poodle, whose sagacity is quite equal to that of his master, plunges
into the water, and if the fish is either dead or severely wounded fails
not to bring out with him the scaly morsel; thus so long as the heavens
are bright and blue, the water is warm, the large fish choose to
promenade in the sun, and the sportsman's powers of climbing hold out,
the sport continues. Sometimes the poodle and the fish have a very sharp
struggle, and then the fun is great indeed, unless by chance the
sportsman should unfortunately miss his hold in the midst of his
laughter, and drop head-foremost into the water with his cabbage and his
double-barrel.
Pierre Pertuis on the Cure, is also a famous place for fishing, and an
extraordinary spot, and the Morvinian peasant, a highly
poetically-flavoured individual, has made it the theatre of some very
fantastic scenes. Imagine a yellow rock, of gigantic height, terminating
in a point, with its sides full of fissures, holes, and crevices,
inhabited by crows, owls, and bats, having its base in the river and its
summit crowned with a rough _chevelure_ of brambles and large creeping
plants. The lower part of this rock is intersected by holes, through
which the water rushes, tumbles, and whirls. The peasants pretend that
the river near the rock cannot be fathomed, and that this particular
spot is inhabited by fairies, nymphs, syrens, and other amiable ladies
of this description, who have superb voices, and sing from the interior
of their grottos delicious melodies of the other world, with the
charitable intention of attracting the passing traveller or fisherman,
and drowning him in the whirlpool beneath--a fate that would certainly
be inevitable, if the attraction in question could bring them within
its vortex, for certain it is that neither sheep-dogs or cattle which
have fallen in, or been drawn within reach of its power, have ever been
seen again. When the tempest rages here, the wind, rushing into the
holes and fissures, produces a kind of moaning Æolian noise, and this
with the cries of the owls and the rooks when the _mistral_ blows and
they have the rheumatism, produces, and no wonder, a superstitious
feeling of awe in the mind of the ignorant peasant.
On the Cousin, which flows majestically through some of the most
magnificent pastures in the world, and on the summit of a large hill,
stands the charming Château des Panolas, the towers and walls of which,
covered with pointed roofs and weather-cocks, and surrounded by domes,
belvederes, and old-fashioned dovecots, give it at a distance the
appearance of some oriental building. The weather-cocks in particular
are of the most fanciful and grotesque designs, and it is said, and I
should think there can be no doubt of the fact, that in no other
structure have so many been seen together: it is calculated there are no
less than three hundred. In going and returning from the forest, many a
time have I and my friends, in the hey-day of youthful iniquities,
knocked one of them off with a ball from our guns, to the great anger
of the proprietor, who threatened us with his mahogany crutch from the
hall door.
In the great ponds of Marot, and in the lakes of Lomervo--immense liquid
plains, deep and surrounded in their whole circumference by a forest of
green rushes, water-lilies, flags, and many other aquatic plants,
forming a wall of verdure--the enormous quantity of fish of every kind
is almost incredible. Nor is this extraordinary, for the waters of at
least a dozen streams from the mountains, which swarm with life, fall
into these vast reservoirs, and they are only fished once in every five
years. This is a delectable spot for fishermen; but, on the other hand,
as the value of these sheets of water is well understood by their
proprietors, they are sharply looked after by them and their keepers,
and it is almost as difficult to find an opportunity of throwing a line
during the day, as it is for a poacher to throw a casting net on a
moonlight night.
Nevertheless, as the appropriation of other people's property has an
exquisite charm for some temperaments,--as a stolen apple to a child's
palate is much more delightful than one that is not--the demon of
acquisitiveness is always leaning over a man's shoulder,--that is to
say, a poacher's shoulder, or even that of a gentleman with poaching
tastes and inclinations,--to breathe in his ear bad advice. As to the
peasants in the neighbourhood, they are always consulting together, or
inventing some method by which they may circumvent the proprietors and
appropriate their fish to themselves.
One of the happiest discoveries of the kind I ever heard of,--not the
most recent but the best,--is the following. Every person in the
possession of a cottage, possesses also a few ducks and geese, which
paddle about their humble habitations. A man who has an itching for the
thing, and who desires to become a pond-skimmer, as they are called,
carefully selects from his squadron of _palmipedes_, the strongest, the
most intelligent duck or goose of the party; his choice made, he
immediately sets to work to give him the education befitting a bird
destined for so honourable and diplomatic an employment.
After very many trials, lessons, and lectures, more or less difficult
and tedious, the bird is taught to swim to a distance right ahead--to
turn to one side when his master sings, and return to him when he
whistles. These two primary and elementary movements, which appear so
very natural, demand, nevertheless, wonderful patience, and no little
cleverness and tact in the professor to instil--for his pupils, be it
remembered, are ducks and geese--and furnishes an example of how the
hope and love of gain has its effect on mankind. These very peasants,
who never would take the trouble to learn their letters--only
twenty-four--who would not many of them go two miles to learn how to
sign their own names, pass whole days in the gray waters of these
marshes, more often than not up to their waists in mud, whistling and
singing and twitching the legs of their unfortunate birds, and nearly
pulling them off with a string, when they either do not comprehend, or
obey as quickly as they might, the orders they receive.
Dozens of ducks and geese that would in London or Paris be considered
highly curious and infinitely wiser than any of their species--even
those of the Capitol--are thus trained every year in Le Morvan, without
any one giving them a thought, and may be purchased, education included,
for two shillings a piece. When these winged students are so thoroughly
qualified for their duties, that they can go through their exercise
without a mistake, and are considered worthy of taking the field, the
peasant puts them into his bag, and setting off very early in the
morning to one of the great ponds I have mentioned, conceals himself
behind a thick tufty curtain of flags, from whence he can see without
being seen.
Here, opening his bag, he takes out the half suffocated ducks or geese,
which are glad enough to find themselves once more on their favourite
element; and the intelligent birds have scarcely regained their liberty
when the peasant commences his ballad, and immediately the anchor is
apeak and they are off; he sings, he whistles, and they turn, like two
well-manned frigates, and come back to him without a moment's delay. The
act is so natural, so simple, that no one can be attracted by it; nor is
it possible to suspect a goose or a duck with its head down searching
for food, that paddles about in the weeds or on the shore, or dabbles
amongst the rushes. Should the keeper appear, the peasant is sure to be
found lying on his back half asleep, or singing or whistling, as if
mocking the lark in the clear blue sky above him.
Nevertheless, this goose, this duck, and this man are first-rate
thieves,--cracksmen of their class; for the peasant, before he confides
his poultry to the waves, makes their toilette; sliding under the left
wing and over the right, across the body, like a soldier's belt, a
strong and well-baited pike-hook. Thus equipped and ready for the start,
the pirate birds leave on their buccaneering expedition; but they are
scarcely a stone's throw from the shore, and well clear of the little
islands of flags, when a hungry pike, observing the delicious frog
towing in the rear, seizes it, and makes off to his hole, to gorge the
bait at his leisure. More easily thought than done;--the goose stoutly
resists, and refuses to accompany the fresh-water shark to his weedy
home. A warm and obstinate engagement is the result; the peasant
watches, with approving eye, the embarassment of his feathered
accomplice, until he thinks it time to put an end to the scrimmage, when
he whistles like an easterly wind in a passion. The goose, rather
encumbered by the carnivorous gentleman below him, endeavours for some
time but in vain to obey the signal; he flaps his wings, works away with
his legs, and cackles without ceasing. The poacher encourages him with
another whistle, and at length the bird, in spite of all his adversary's
attempts to the contrary, leads the "greedy game of the deep" to the
shore, and delivers it to his master. This is, certainly, a very curious
mode of taking pike, and the live trimmer looks very puzzled when the
voracious fish is hooked; but the following anecdote, taken from the
scrap-book of Mr. M'Diarmid, shows that a Scotchman once adopted the
same method, though for a different reason. "Several years ago," he
writes, "a farmer, living in the immediate neighbourhood of Lochmaben,
Dumfriesshire, kept a gander, who not only had a great trick of
wandering himself, but also delighted in piloting forth his cackling
harem, to weary themselves in circumnavigating their native lake, or in
straying amidst forbidden fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to check
this flagrant habit, the farmer one day seized the gander just as he was
about to spring upon the blue bosom of his favourite element, and tying
a large fish-hook to his leg, to which was attached part of a dead frog,
he suffered him to proceed upon his voyage of discovery. As had been
anticipated, this bait soon caught the eye of a ravenous pike, which
swallowing the deadly hook, not only arrested the progress of the
astonished gander, but forced him to perform half-a-dozen summersets on
the surface of the water! For some time, the struggle was most
amusing--the fish pulling, and the bird screaming with all its
might,--the one attempting to fly, and the other to swim, from the
invisible enemy--the gander one moment losing and the next regaining his
centre of gravity, and casting between whiles many a rueful look at his
snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out their sympathy
for their afflicted commodore. At length Victory declared in favour of
the feathered angler, who, bearing away for the nearest shore, landed on
the smooth green grass one of the finest pike ever caught in the Castle
Loch."
This adventure is said to have cured the gander of his desperate
propensity for wandering.