True Fishing Stories.
Some years ago an acquaintance of mine solemnly assured me that he had
once, when fly-fishing for trout, hooked a rabbit on the bank behind
him, and with his forward stroke brought it over his head and dumped it
down among the trout he was seeking to capture. Possibly he was using a
“hare’s lug,” and let his imagination do the rest. Of course, I was too
polite to question the performance. It is surprising what a good fly-rod
will stand in this way. Fishing in wooded streams you now and then get
very fast in a branch behind, and you do not find it out till the full
force of your cast comes into action, and then the tree seems to be
almost coming up by the roots, while rod and tackle do not give way, and
are not a bit the worse. This reminds me that one day a few years ago I
lent my rod for the afternoon to a man, a more or less distant cousin,
who had come without one. He was a fisherman of long experience, so I
had no misgivings about it. When I came in towards evening I found that
he had been unfortunate enough to catch up in a tree and break the top
just at the ferrule, and had had it mended by the village joiner.
Accidents will happen in the best regulated families, but I did wish he
had let the joiner alone. He then proceeded to add insult to injury by
telling me that it was _my_ fault for having such a “rotten” rod, and a
good deal more in the same strain. I have had worse rods and I have had
better ones in my possession, but I had caught a great many trout with
it at one time or another, and it was the only one I had with me. No
doubt it is a good thing we are not all turned out of the same mould,
but had the positions been reversed I am certain that I should have
absolutely grovelled abjectly in my desire to avert his wrath and obtain
his forgiveness.
But to go back to the rabbit. The nearest approach I ever made to this
feat was when on a certain occasion I was fishing just above the town
bridge at Marlborough, and my pal was standing on the bridge looking on.
I suddenly heard a yell from him, and—well I did not throw _him_ over my
head impaled on the hook of a “red quill,” but only a piece of his nose!
It was at this very same place, possibly the same day, that I was
drawing in a fish of quite a respectable size, when a small boy in the
gallery sung out “Whoi don’t cher chuck down the rod and ketch ’old o’
the string?” I daresay the method might have been quite as successful. I
know it is not, or was not then, a very attractive spot to be fishing.
It is an unsavoury place, but I was there all the same, and some one ate
the trout: _I_ did not. Then here is another incident bearing on the
subject. When I was at Winchester, alas! many years ago, I was down
“Water meads,” and saw a cow tearing along at full tilt, pursued at a
distance of about thirty yards by a youth with outstretched arm, and a
rod presented horizontally in the direction of the animal, also going
for all he was worth, and he looked as if he soon would be worth very
little. He had hooked “the coo,” which not unnaturally took to its
heels, and he was no doubt anxious to save some of his cast, or haply
his fly, or even land the coo. I do not remember how it ended, but
possibly in after years he may have related to his sons, who I hope are
also Wykehamists, how he once threw a coo over his head with a
“Hammond’s guinea rod” into the Itchen!
Many of your readers have probably occasionally hooked a swallow or
martin; on the two or three occasions on which this has happened to me
the bird has not been hooked in the mouth, but round the neck, the fly
forming a running noose on the gut. But I do not think many will have
bagged a duck with a fly. It was a large bushy fly, and the wind caught
it as I cast, and instead of its falling under the opposite bank, about
two yards of gut stood straight up out of the water, and then fell over
up stream just in time to meet an old Aylesbury duck with a brood of
ducklings paddling down stream. It fell by the side of her, and though 1
tried to pick it up before she got it, she was too quick for me and
snapped it up. There was “such a row as never was.” She quacked and
splashed, and beat with her wings, and dived and did all she knew. This
time I did “chuck down the rod and ketch ’old o’ the string” for fear of
breaking my top joint. I hand-played her and landed her, and she was no
worse for her adventure, being only just held by the skin of the mouth.
I lately saw a note in the _Field_ about a trout which had been hooked
twice in the same day, having got the fly the first time, both flies
being found in its mouth. I once came across a good trout rising in a
still mill-tail; the wheel was at rest and all the water going round the
other way; I rose him and left my fly in his mouth. As I observed that
he did not seem to have taken much interest in the proceeding I put
another fly on as quickly as I could, cast over him, hooked and landed
him, and took both flies out of his mouth. His size, so far as I can
remember, would have been somewhere about 1½ lb. Evidently he could have
suffered no pain, and there can be little doubt that when the hook gets
hold of just the skin of the mouth, which happens the most frequently in
fly-fishing, though sometimes painful places are pierced, the fish feels
only the resistance and the pull which tells him he has to fight for his
life. One would think that a trout of about ¾ lb. could hardly swallow a
pebble 2 inches across without, if not pain, at least some
inconvenience. Yet it took my fly and appeared fairly healthy. One
wonders why or how it came to get such a thing inside it. Last spring I
twice caught in a north country river, in the same pool but not on the
same day, a trout weighing 6 oz. or 7 oz., with a big stone loach jammed
tight down its throat, and the tail sticking out of its mouth. It was
quite a question whether the loach could be pulled out without breaking.
Yet both of these trout took the fly with a dash, and made a gallant
fight in the rather swollen stream, considering their inches. Those who
know the Broad Water at Wansford in the East Riding are aware that the
field on the west side slopes abruptly down considerably below the level
of the water. I was once casting over a rising fish some distance out,
and in drawing in for a fresh cast my line had to travel back over the
edge of the bank itself, so that the fly might very easily get hung up
tight on a snag or plant: this was what I supposed had happened, so I
began pulling to see if it would come away without my having to go and
release it and so scare the fish, when to my astonishment the line flew
off in the direction of the opposite bank. I had actually hooked in the
belly a fish lying under the bank, which was played and duly brought
into the net.
I one day hooked a fish in Foston Beck, which dived straight into a bed
of weeds from which no persuasion could move it. I tried hand-lining,
but could do nothing; then an idea occurred to me: I spiked the rod in
the ground, reeling up the line till it was just taut without any strain
on, and strolled a couple of hundred yards down the bank to where my
friend was fishing. I told him what had happened and stayed with him a
bit, and then by-and-by returned to my place. Nothing was changed; the
line stretched straight from the top ring to the weed as if purposely
fastened there. I picked the rod up very carefully, and putting on a
sudden strain hauled down stream, when out came the trout before he knew
what was up, to be towed over the weeds into the net, and finally the
basket.
Foston Beck reminds me of an incident which I would have gone a long way
to see, but which I had the good fortune to witness while I was sitting
on the bank under a thorn-bush eating sandwiches. I suppose I must have
been very quiet, for a kingfisher came and pitched on a twig of the
thorn, and remaining there a short time presently quitted it, hovered a
moment over the water, pounced down, and came up with a little fish in
his bill, just steadied himself on the twig, and then flew off. It was a
pretty sight, and one that it is not often given to an angler to see,
although he sees many pleasing things which no one else does. And now I
must bring my rambling paper to an end; but just one more story first.
Every one knows what a bore it is to have to seem amused at sallies of
wit which do not appeal to one, but a bit of unconscious humour from one
who would be astonished to be thought funny makes one sometimes want to
shout with laughter. On a certain day I was counting the spoil
preparatory to going home. I do not think the bag was anything very
striking, but there was a long, black, unwholesome fish among the
others, which I suggested to the keeper had better be thrown away. “Oh,”
said he, “there’s a gentleman there who has come a long way and has not
got anything; I think he would be rather glad to have it to take home.”
So he took it off and entered into negotiations with the said angler who
was taking down his rod close by. I did not hear what went on, but just
caught one sentence, viz., “H’m, the gentleman must be an ‘eepi-kewer,’”
and he put it in the bag.