Ever since the time when the famous definition of angling as a
combination of "a stick and a string with a worm at one end and a fool
at the other" was first given to the world, it has been the custom of a
large section of society to disparage the particular sport, which has
for its object the catching of fish, very much more than any of the
other developments which the killing propensity takes among sportsmen.
When a man mentions that he is going off on a fishing expedition, the
announcement is not met with the respect which is accorded to him who
proclaims the fact that he has it in contemplation to spend a day in
beating the turnips for partridges, or riding across country in pursuit
of a fox. People have a provoking way of smiling when fishing is spoken
of; and when they meet you, armed with the necessary paraphernalia
which makes up an angler's equipment, their countenances directly
assume either an amused expression, indicating a state of feeling not
very remote from absolute pity, or a look of delicate forbearance which
is almost the more difficult to bear of the two.
There surely never was any pastime regarded with so little respect as
this of fishing. But one good quality (that of patience) is ever
identified with it; and even that, when connected with this particular
sport, is sometimes spoken of in a disparaging tone; so that it is by
no means an uncommon thing to hear a man brag of his deficiency in this
respect, saying, "I've not got patience enough for that sort of thing";
as if the fact redounded enormously to his credit.
"Going fishing?" says your hearty friend as he meets you in the hall,
equipped for the sport, "You must be hard up for some amusement--for of
all the deadly-lively proceedings----"
"Going fishing?" says another. "Well, it's certainly too early in the
season for anything else in the way of sport; but still----"
The very partisans of fishing, too, help, in a certain way, to bring it
into discredit. What a literature it has! The literature of all sport
is apt to be trying; but this of fishing is surely especially
disastrous. The facetious element always figures here in such grievous
force. Nor only that. Dreadful conventional forms of expression,
phrases in inverted commas, involved ways of expressing a simple thing,
abound--so that one meets continually with such expressions as the
"gentle craft" and the "finny tribe." The sportsman who devotes himself
to fishing is called a "member of the piscatorial fraternity," or a
"brother of the angle," or a "disciple of 'old Izaak,'" or by some
other roundabout and exasperating designation. Why it is that people
who write on this particular subject cannot express their ideas in
plain English and avoid such forms of speech as the above it is
difficult to say; but so it is.
These stereotyped phrases are to be ranked among the conventionalities
of "piscatorial" literature. Another of these is a perpetual insistence
upon the contemplativeness of character which this particular sport
tends to develop in those who engage in it. The fisherman is supposed
to be left by his pursuit at leisure to ponder and reflect on all sorts
of abstract questions wholly unconnected with what he is about. Fishing
is called the contemplative man's recreation, and seems, indeed, to be
looked upon by a very large section of society as a sort of excuse for
mooning. For my poor part I confess that it seems to me that the fact
is far otherwise. If there is one thing more than another necessary to
fishing, it is that the man who engages in it should have all his wits
about him, and be thoroughly absorbed in what he is doing. A fisherman
who took to being contemplative would, I fancy, stand but a poor chance
of catching anything, and would certainly find himself involved in many
difficulties connected with the management of his rod and line. While
he was contemplating, his fly would speedily get itself fastened to
some neighbouring tree, or fixed, may be, into some unattainable part
of the contemplative one's own costume; while, if the line were
suffered to remain in the water, the flies would certainly be carried
by the current into a bed of weeds, or get twisted round a stone at the
bottom of the river.
The study of the beauties of nature, again, is an occupation which
angling is supposed to lend itself to. Yet even this, as it seems to
me, is hardly likely to be carried very far by the really keen
sportsman. When walking briskly across the hill or on the moorland on
his way to the river he may, indeed, take note of the picturesque
outlines of a distant mountain or the rich colouring of a patch of
heather and fern, just as he is conscious of the freshness of the air
or the warmth of the sun; but he will hardly, when there is any fishing
to do, be likely to dwell on any of these delights, however much he may
revel in them at other times. When once he gets really to work he is
entirely absorbed in the sport, and will think of little or nothing
else till the time comes for putting up his traps and going home. And
it is just this which gives such value to every form of sport, and
makes them so essential an element in the troublous life of the
nineteenth century. They absorb the thoughts and confine the attention,
for the time being, to what--in a comparative sense--may fairly be
called trifles. You cannot occupy yourself with any deep abstract
speculation when it is a question of catching a trout or bringing down
a partridge.
The fact is that a prodigious amount of ignorance prevails in
connection with the sport of angling. People class all forms and modes
of fishing together, and include them every one under the definition
given at the commencement of this paper. The prevalent idea in the
minds of most people is that fishing consists of sitting in an
arm-chair in a punt watching a float bobbing up and down in the water,
and partaking at intervals of very flat beer served out of a stone jar
by the attendant boatman. Now this--the very lowest form of fishing
that exists, and, unhappily, the form under which it is the oftenest
and most conspicuously presented to view--so little really represents
this particular sport, that I think I am hardly speaking too strongly
in saying that no real fisherman would consent to hear such a
proceeding classed under the head of fishing at all. When a sportsman
speaks of fishing, he is thinking either of fly-fishing or spinning,
and most generally of the former.
For fly-fishing, rightly engaged in, it is not too much to claim a very
high position indeed among the sports of the field; many of the
qualities on which it makes demands being the same which are required
for the other forms of sport, while it also implies some which are not
called for in those others, except, perhaps, in that of deer-stalking.
To be a perfectly good fisherman a man requires strength, agility,
spirit, quickness and accuracy of eye, a neat hand, a nimble foot,
considerable ability as a tactician, presence of mind, and coolness,
coupled with the power of keeping his wits always about him. Nor is
this all; a fisherman must have, besides, certain moral qualifications
of an exalted nature. He must be possessed of patience, perseverance,
and good temper; and, in addition to all this, he must thoroughly well
understand his business in all its more intricate technicalities. Let
us proceed to consider some of the points here insisted on a little in
detail.
In fishing for trout with an artificial fly--a branch of sport to
which, with the reader's permission, we will in this 'Apology' entirely
confine ourselves--it is necessary, as it is in a great many other
things, that a man should thoroughly understand what it is that he is
doing--how, in short, the case stands. It stands thus. He sees before
him a sheet of water, containing, as he has reason to suppose, a
certain number of fish, some comparatively stationary, some darting
hither and thither, all very much alive, very watchful, constantly on
the look-out both for what may bring them advantage in the shape of
food of divers kinds, or for what may give them cause for apprehension,
in the shape of fish larger than themselves and of a predatory nature,
herons, otters and, above all, men. To these creatures, vigilant,
timorous, suspicious, it is the angler's business to present an object
which they are to suppose is an insect which has dropped into the water
and is floating down with the stream more or less near to the surface.
If the fisherman succeeds in conveying this impression; if his
counterfeit insect is a successful piece of imitation; if the fly which
it imitates is one for which the fish has a liking, and if the fish
itself happens at the particular moment to be "on the feed"--if all
these conditions are fulfilled, then it will happen that the trout will
rise swiftly through the water, will seize the bait, and the
fisherman's object will be gained. This desirable consummation is,
however, harder of attainment than might be supposed.
Very much is implied in the bringing that transaction which has just
been described to a successful issue. If the particular portion of the
stream into which you throw your fly is not the spot where a trout
lies, if your fly is not well imitated from nature, or does not
represent the kind of insect which the fish affects, if the hook is too
little concealed, or the line too coarse, above all, if you yourself
are conspicuous, standing on the bank, your chance of inducing a trout
to rise is slender in the extreme. The fact is that the fisherman ought
to look at this transaction from the trout's point of view and not from
his own. Of the fishing-rod and line, and of the person who manipulates
them, the trout must be kept wholly unconscious. This sounds a simple
statement enough; but it does, in fact, imply a great deal. In the
first place it implies that both the water and the atmosphere shall be
in a condition favourable to the mystifying and confusing of the fish
which we are bent on capturing. The atmosphere should not be bright and
clear to an excess, nor, by rights, the water either. The water, again,
should be, to a certain extent, troubled and agitated. This is effected
in a running stream by the current; but in lakes and calm, deep rivers,
especially in the former, it can only be brought about by a certain
amount of wind, and for lake-fishing it may therefore be confidently
asserted that a slight breeze is absolutely indispensable. A line
falling on perfectly smooth water, however fine and delicate such line
may be, or however skilfully cast, will make a certain amount of
splash, which would awaken the misgivings of any fish which happened to
be near.
One of the greatest of all the difficulties connected with the catching
of fish is that experienced by the sportsman in keeping himself out of
sight. At the first glimpse of a man moving by the side of the river,
every fish at once darts away as fast as his fins can carry him. To
this assertion there are few people who would venture to demur; and yet
how common it is to see a fisherman placed on a high bank, with his
whole figure in strong relief against the sky, and moving down the
water, with all the fish in the river facing him as they lie with their
heads up-stream. It can only be by some strange accident that he will
take a fish under such circumstances.
Almost the first thing which the fisherman should think of in setting
about his business is to conceal himself as much as possible. There are
several ways in which this may be effected. In the first place, if the
wind will at all allow of it, he should always fish up-stream, as he
will then have the backs of the fish turned towards him instead of
their faces. Fishing up-stream is more difficult and more laborious
than fishing down, the current bringing the line back almost as fast as
it is thrown in, so that the labour of casting it is almost incessant.
Still, for the reason given above, it is better. It is good again for
the angler to get behind some big rock or bush large enough to hide the
greater part of his figure, remaining there, with as little motion as
possible, till he has thoroughly fished every speck of water within his
reach. Or if there are no bushes or rocks to be had for purposes of
ambush, it behoves him to crawl along on the lowest part of the bank on
his knees, aiding himself with the hand which is not engaged with the
fishing-rod, and sometimes even to wriggle himself along after the
manner of a snake--anything to diminish his conspicuousness.
Now all this is not by any means easy of accomplishment. To creep along
in the manner just described, encountering some obstacle at almost
every step--huge stones which, unless he is very careful, he tumbles
over, small tributary streams which he plunges into--to get over and
through all these difficulties, in a doubled-up position, which renders
feats of agility very difficult indeed to accomplish, is not an easy
task, especially as all the time he has to wave his line round and
round in the air, to be ready for a long cast when he at last sees his
way to that consummation. This is arduous work, depend on it, and yet,
short of this, I don't know how, under some circumstances, his object
is to be obtained. For fly-fishing, to be attended with success, is not
a simple operation, but, on the contrary, a very complicated one, as
any proceeding involving so exceedingly intricate a _ruse_ as this one
does, inevitably must be. That it _is_ a _ruse_ there can be no sort of
doubt. Unless you succeed in taking this creature in, you will never
succeed in capturing him. This is no open onslaught, as is the case in
shooting and hunting. Strategy is your only chance, and the more deeply
laid your plot, the greater is your chance of succeeding.
There is one element in the construction of this deeply-laid scheme
which requires to be considered with an especial carefulness. The
structure of the fly which is to be set before the trout on whose
capture we are bent is an ingredient in the transaction the importance
of which must by no means be overlooked. It should of all things--and
this is a point not enough considered by the makers of these little
works of art--be one which looks well in the water. There are many
flies sold which appear perfectly right and natural while they remain
out of the water, but which, when once they are thoroughly wetted,
assume an entirely different and most inferior appearance. The loose
wool and feather strands, which form the body of the fly, get matted
together and the whole mass of them much reduced in size; the wings
cease to stand out away from the body and from each other, and the
hook, owing to the reduction of the size of the fly generally, which is
effected by the tightening influence of the water, is left much too
bare and prominent. The best way to obviate these difficulties is to
make the body of the fly somewhat fuller and more fluffy than it is
intended to be, and to dress it as far down towards the bend of the
hook as is compatible with symmetry of structure. The hook is sure to
be conspicuous enough at best, but every pains should be taken to make
it as little so as possible. We are particular about all sorts of
minute considerations of colour and form; we refuse to allow of the
deviation of the sixteenth of an inch from the right standard in the
length of a tail, or of the faintest false shade in the colouring of a
wing--in all these matters we are exact and scrupulous, and rightly so;
but is it quite consistent with such close attention to detail that we
should be indifferent to so remarkable a deviation from the right model
as is found in the immense and conspicuous hook which protrudes beyond
the body of our counterfeit insect, and which seems quite as much
calculated to attract attention as any other part of the fly? Of
course, to some extent, this cannot be helped, the hook being a
necessity of the fisher's case, but surely it might in many instances
be much more carefully concealed than it is. The fly might, for
instance, be dressed not actually on the shank of the hook, but on a
piece of gut or bristle attached to it and hanging loose on the hook so
as almost to hide it. In putting on a worm as a bait--the worm having
the advantage of being the real thing--we take the utmost pains to
conceal the hook; in putting on the fly--which has the disadvantage of
being not the real thing but a counterfeit--why should we not do
precisely the same thing?
It cannot be insisted on too strongly and too frequently that the whole
of this transaction, which we call fly-fishing, is, from beginning to
end, a most elaborately carried out piece of deception. But troublesome
and difficult and inseparably connected with all sorts of
disappointments as it is, yet is the game unquestionably well worth the
candle, fishing, when really successful, being beyond all question one
of the most delightful of occupations, while even when only moderately
successful, it is full of charm and interest to any one who takes it up
in earnest.