CONSIDERATIONS MORAL, TACTICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND INCIDENTAL
OF FAITH.
Among the many uncertainties which attend the sport of fly fishing,
there is one thing that may be laid down as certain, and that is that no
consistent measure of success attends a lure, whether wet, dry, or
semi-submerged, in which the angler has not faith; and it may be
shrewdly suspected that much of the ill-success which has attended the
use of the wet fly upon chalk streams in the past is due to lack of
confidence on the part of the angler. It has been laid down so
positively by the high-priests of the dry fly that the wet fly has no
chance compared with it—at any rate, on smooth water—and it has been so
freely stated that crack wet-fly anglers come down to the chalk streams
confident in their powers to make an exhibition of chalk-stream fish,
only to retire defeated and converted, that it is little wonder that the
chalk-stream angler who tries the wet fly does it half-heartedly; and it
is probable that the North-Country man coming to practise his art upon
South-Country streams, and accustomed to catch his trout in considerable
numbers, soon becomes disheartened by failure to do the like on rivers
where two or three brace is a good bag. Probably he casts a much shorter
line than is advisable on chalk streams, and so scares off or puts down
his fish, and discouragement and the sceptical attitude of his
South-Country hosts and keepers knock him off his game before he has had
time to adjust himself to the (to him) novel conditions.
Fishing a chalk stream with a wet fly is not quite like fishing a
mountain stream or North-Country river, and it is not a game to be
learnt in an hour or a day. But if the angler will fix his mind firmly
on the fact that the wet fly was for centuries the only method in use on
chalk streams, and that it brought excellent baskets to good anglers in
the past, he may set to work with confidence that in the right
conditions the wet fly will kill, and kill well, at this day, and he may
set himself with equal confidence to find out for himself how it is
done. And let him not be disturbed by the fact that there are days or
hours when it has not a chance against the dry fly; for there are days
and hours when the dry fly has not a chance against it, and there are
other occasions when the trout will take either with approximately equal
freedom.
Simultaneously with my own experiments recorded in this volume, Mr. F.
M. Halford was engaged in establishing and proving his latest series of
patterns, in which he endeavours to approximate more closely than ever
before to the coloration and attitude of the natural insects, especially
in his series of spinners. In an article over the signature “Detached
Badger,” which appeared in the _Field_ of October 22, 1904, Mr. Halford
was at some pains to prove that these spinners must be taken floating;
but the feature of these patterns is that they do not, like the old
patterns, sit cocked upon the surface, lifted half-hackle-high above it,
but, being sparsely dressed, lie low on the water, practically flush
with the surface, and thus achieve a closer approximation to the spent
natural insect than did the old patterns. This, as much as the more
exact coloration, may account for the success of these patterns. And,
after all, a fly that is flush with the water is perilously close to the
edge of wet. Tup’s Indispensable fished as a spinner in the evening rise
will often kill better semi-submerged and flush with the surface than
thoroughly dried and oiled. It usually serves me well, and I have
accordingly scarcely tried Mr. F. M. Halford’s new patterns, but when I
have done so it has been wet that they have been taken, and not dry.
I mentioned a few pages back that another Itchen angler once fished the
whole of a season—it may have been two—with the Red Quill in various
shades and sizes, and with differences introduced by the presence or
omission of tinsel tags, and he achieved a success with that one pattern
or type quite as great as he enjoyed when he allowed himself the full
range of the hundred best and some others.
Clearly, he and “Detached Badger” have had faith—the faith which, if it
does not move mountains, will at least move trout. And the angler who
takes his courage in both hands and experiments boldly with the wet fly
fished upstream to his trout, or into the place where his trout should
be, will find his faith, as mine has been, not without its reward.
OF THE BANK OF VANTAGE.
In looking back on a day’s fly fishing, one can realize how much has
depended upon the correct selection of the bank to fish from, and an
examination of some of the more important of the general considerations
governing choice may not be amiss. Special conditions, such as height of
banks, the trees and bushes thereon, and the accessibility of the water
therefrom, may force upon us deviations from what our judgment would
otherwise dictate, and it is impossible to dogmatize about these. There
are also cases where the winding character of the stream presents such a
constant variety of conditions that it is impossible to say that at the
moment of selection one bank is more worthy of choice than the other.
But, subject to such special conditions, there are a few general
principles which it is well to bear in mind in considering from which
side we shall direct our attack.
The first of these is to avoid such a position as will throw the shadow
of angler or rod over the fish. This is an obvious consideration, and
one that is easy of application. But it does not necessarily follow
that, because the sun will throw one’s shadow—even a long or formidable
shadow—on to the stream from, say, the right bank, one must necessarily
adopt the other. It may be that the shadow will be straight across or
even behind the angler, or, at any rate, in such a position as, for
instance, not to interfere with his casting upstream, or upstream and
across, and the river bottom may not be so bare that the fall of his
shadow will send the trout scurrying upstream to disturb and put down
the feeding fish above. In narrow streams, however, the effect of shadow
in bolting fish upstream is necessarily far more pronounced than in
streams of moderate width—say twelve to twenty yards. In like manner,
the narrow stream should not, if possible, even with a favouring
upstream breeze, be fished from the right bank, which necessitates
holding the rod and waving line and fly over the water, or one may see
one’s hopes laid low for half an hour or more, and a good stretch
spoiled by the bolting of fish which, approached from the other bank by
a more or less “cross-country cast,” with the rod held low to the right,
might have been brought to basket or turned downstream.
Probably, however, the most generally governing consideration is the
direction of the wind in relation to the general trend of the stream.
Perhaps the majority of fly-fishermen, if asked to choose a bank with an
upstream or downstream wind, would choose the right without hesitation.
But there may be a good deal to be said for the other side, apart even
from the sun and the narrowness of the stream. For instance, with an
upstream wind and a fairly wide river, especially if it be swift, the
angler on the right bank is practically confined to his own bank and
midstream fishing. If he casts for the opposite bank, he finds it
extremely difficult to be accurate, and a drag which inevitably puts the
fish down is almost certain to be set up. On the left bank, however, not
only can he approach the left bankers more closely than he dare approach
the right bankers when fishing on the right bank, not only can he tackle
the midstream fish equally well, but he can cut under and against the
wind and get across to the opposite bank far more accurately from the
left bank than from the right, where the wind follows his hand.
Take next the case of a downstream wind. Here the angler will want to
consider what he has to do. Does he wish to fish his own bank or the
opposite bank, or both? Casting from the right bank, he can cut under
the wind and get his fly over to the opposite bank far better than he
could from the left; but is it worth doing? If he can float his fly for
a reasonable distance without drag, it may well be; but if the current
be so strong as to set up an almost immediate drag, he may be
practically confined to his own bank. So he would be on the left side;
but whereas casting from the right bank he would be apt to find the
point of his gut cast forced outwards and downwards by the wind, and be
constantly landing his line on the sedges or bank, when casting from the
other side his line would fall upon the water, and the gut-point and fly
be driven inwards so as to search the water quite close under the bank,
just like a natural fly. Moreover, it would not be driven so far inward
as it would be driven outward when cast from the opposite side, for in
dropping over the bank-edge the fly and gut-point would enter, before
the force of the cast is spent, into that little cushion of calm to be
found just under the bank, and would generally straighten out in a
manner to command admiration both from men and trout.
Take next the case of an upstream wind slightly across from the right
bank to the left. Here it is even more difficult for an angler on the
right bank to fish his own bank than for an angler on the left bank,
while he has more command in cutting across to the far side from the
left bank than from the right. If, on the other hand, the wind be
upstream and off the left bank, by standing back a bit and using a short
cross-country cast the angler may get his fly very neatly over most of
the fish under his own bank, and can cut across more easily than he
could from the right bank.
Take, again, the case of a wind downstream and across from the right
bank to the left. Here again the angler on the left bank is in the
superior position for negotiating his own bank, casting almost straight
into the wind, and letting fly and point be deflected under his own
bank. On the right bank the angler would be apt to have his fly flung
out towards midstream, and the short cross-country cast would be apt to
miscarry. On the other hand, if the wind be downstream and across from
the left bank, the advantage lies slightly with the right bank, but it
is nothing like so marked (assuming, as we have been doing from the
first, that the angler is right-handed) as in the converse case.
On the whole, therefore, it will be seen that, contrary to the generally
received opinion, unless the wind be fairly direct upstream or (for
fishing the opposite bank) down, the left bank is almost invariably the
bank of vantage.
OF COURAGE AND THE JEOPARDIZING OF TUPPENCE HA’PENNY.
That, my friends, is almost the extreme price of a trout-fly. Some cost
less. Yet how often shall you see an angler whose equipment for the
taking of trout has run into pounds, and whose railway fare and
reckoning at his inn are substantial items of expenditure upon the same
object, throw away most sporting occasions for the attainment of his end
because, forsooth, he is sure to be hung up or weeded or smashed or
something equally delightful—and bang would go tuppence ha’penny! I have
no patience with this sort of thing. The more hopeless the prospect of
getting out a trout from an impossible place, the more determined I am
to try for him. _De l’audace, encore de l’audace—toujours de l’audace!_
In May, 1909, just before the May-fly began, I was by the river-side,
when I heard a loud smacking sound, and, peering through a willow-bush,
I saw a fine trout cruising on an eddy and sucking down flies with
hearty enjoyment. If I cast over him from behind the bush, I should have
to play him on a six-ounce rod with x x x gut between a thorn-bush which
I could touch with my right hand and a willow I could touch with my
left. There were snags above and snags below. Did I hesitate? Only long
enough to tie on a new Crosbie Alder, then long enough for him to reach
the top of his beat, and then I dropped the fly behind him just before
he turned. He was the satisfactory side of four pounds, and I got his
successor next day out of the same place—three pounds six ounces. A
beautiful brace! Luck! Of course it was luck, but I shouldn’t have had
it if I hadn’t taken risks.
There was a Kennet trout under a willow in May-fly time. A weed-piled
snag in the stream just below the droop of the willow made it impossible
to get a fly over him by casting above the willow and floating down.
There was just one possible way—to make a slanting downward cut which
might bring the fly down between branches in a sort of dip in the tree,
and drop it on the fish’s nose. I left two flies in the tree, but I did
the trick and got the fish. He was only two pounds six ounces, but I
thought he was bigger. Still——
Then there was a fish which lay just above a hatch-hole through which
water ran into the meadows. The inevitable thing for him to do when
hooked was to bolt down the hatch-hole. But somehow he didn’t, and I got
him. There was a pound-and-a-half trout taking tiny pale duns on the
edge of a small pile of weeds collected against a broken bough of a
tree, into which he was sure to bolt when hooked. But somehow he didn’t,
and he was steered to the landing-net with a No. 000 dun on gossamer gut
attached to his nose. Then there was that trout which I got over a
barbed wire crossing the stream eight or ten yards away.
There are countless such instances—I tell of some more under the head of
“Impossible Places”—but there is one thing that may safely be deposed
to, and that is, that there is no place so desperate that, with luck and
management, you may not get a well-hooked trout out of it.
OF IMPOSSIBLE PLACES.
The habit of a lightly hooked trout, of floundering on the surface, is
too well known to need enlarging on. Sometimes his antics will be varied
by leaps into the air. But is the tendency of a hard-held fish to go to
weed or snag equally well realized? Yet from a consideration of these
two established tendencies may not a highly unorthodox method of
extricating a good fish from the impossible position be evolved? What is
the theory? This: Let him think he is lightly hooked.
It was on the banks of the Itchen that the first glimmerings of the idea
suggested themselves. A novice with the dry fly was walking disconsolate
up the stream, bemoaning himself that he could not find a rising fish.
Coming up with a brother angler just about to settle down to a rising
trout in some quick water, he was invited to cast over it. The fly
covered the right spot, and brought up his troutship, who fastened, and,
turning at once, bolted at express speed downstream. The novice,
unaccustomed to anything more formidable than Devonshire brook trout,
disregarded his companion’s advice, “Run, man, run downstream for all
you’re worth!” and backed, open-mouthed, slowly upstream, letting out
line as freely as the reel (a checkless one) would let it go. So long as
the line put no check upon him the trout ploughed downstream close to
the surface, but the moment the reel was empty and he felt the check he
was deep in a weed-bed. He stayed there till the angler had reeled up
and put on another fly. _The checked fish goes to weed._ That was the
first lesson.
The second was in this wise: On a September morning a good many years
back, a brace of trout were rising, a yard or so apart, above a tree
which overhung the same water on the side where the angler stood
knee-deep in a swampy reed-bed. It was possible to reach them if,
holding by his left hand to a bough, and resting one foot on a root
while dangling the other in the water, he hung over the river at an
angle of forty-five degrees, and threw his line underhand up the stream.
But how if he hooked his fish? There was a bank of weeds, dense and
long, a yard or two above. Well, he must chance it. The likelihood of
losing the fish seemed overwhelming, the chance of killing him slight;
for the position was so awkward that, in order to get back to terra
firma, there was nothing for it but to tuck the rod under the arm and
trust to chance while recovering equilibrium and a footing. Yet the
angler got both these fish. Situated as he was he could put no pressure
on them; he could not even keep the line taut. But each of the fish when
hooked came floundering and splattering unresistingly downstream, trying
to throw out the stinging insect that adhered to his jaw. By the time
the angler was prepared to deal with him the fish was in open water and
was easily played. Result, a brace of one and a quarter pounders and the
second lesson. _The unchecked fish flounders on the surface._
What these two lessons have been worth to the angler it would be tedious
to relate, but one or two instances may illustrate. There was that
fish—one and three-quarter pounds he proved—rising on the far side of a
dense bank of weeds in a channel two feet wide. He had to be approached
with reverence on one’s face, and from twenty feet out in the meadow. He
took the Pink Wickham at the first time of asking, and the angler,
having fastened, dropped his rod-point instantly. The fish with a
startled plunge rushed up the channel and out into the open water, and
began to flounder. Before he knew where he was the angler turned him,
brought him down the right side of the dangerous weed-bank, and duly
netted him out.
Then, again, there was that black fish between two pollard willows on
the Darenth. He was rising eighteen inches out from the bank. The
willows were two yards apart, and their roots formed a mass of snags
below him, while just downstream of them was a plank bridge a foot above
the river. Here again it was a case of kneeling far out in the meadow
and dropping the Yellow Dun exactly over the nose of the fish. He came
with the most confiding simplicity. Had he been checked he would have
been in the snags before one could say “Knife,” but the angler, mindful
of his lesson, held him not. So it befell that he rushed out into
midstream and leapt four several times, much as does a pricked fish that
is not hooked at all. But ere he could do more the angler was on terms
with him, and held him out from the bank, up from the bottom, and away
from the plank bridge, till the landing-net received his one pound six
ounces.
Finally, let the tale be told of a trout of the Kennet that had his holt
in a corner of a little bay, whence a willow-bush had fallen into the
river, leaving on the bank side a tangle of broken roots, in the river
to the right, some three yards off, the half-submerged willow, while
above and below were heavy patches of long swaying weed. It was an ideal
place for a trout to feed in—and to break away. The water came into the
bay in a little defined channel between weeds, and in this a foot below
the entry a sizable neb was showing at intervals. A small Green Champion
May dropped exactly in the channel, and trotted down the prescribed
distance and disappeared. Again the tactics of the loosened line, again
the hooked fish rushed out from his almost impregnable holt into the
open, and was presently netted out by the triumphant angler—a handsome
and, he thinks, a not ill-deserved three pounds ten ounces. A week later
the same tactics produced another fish of two pounds eleven ounces from
the same hole.
OF THE USE OF THE LANDING-NET.
There is a common superstition among anglers that the primary use of a
landing-net is to land fish. Let us rather say that the use of a
landing-net, rightly understood, is to assist in the capture of fish.
Not to catch fish, for the catching of fish in the landing-net is mere
poacher’s work, but to aid in the catching. Some anglers tell you you
must never show your net to a fish until ready for netting. But why not,
if it will help you to kill him? There are many more or less desperate
cases where the net may be of the profoundest service long before it is
called to operate at the final ceremony of dipping out. I will give one
or two examples in an ascending scale of complexity.
Firstly, a new use for the handle. Under the left bank of a
South-Country chalk stream a trout is taking every dun that goes down
alongside the cluster of cut weed under which he shelters. The angler’s
Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear lighting delicately a foot above, with the gut
resting on the weed, is accepted and carried straight down into the
weed-bed below. The angler reels up tight over the fish, but fails to
move him. Ah, there is the long-handled landing-net! A few
judiciously-placed prods with the butt bring him plunging stupidly out,
and he is bustled down into open water and promptly dipped out with the
other end.
Secondly, the use of the mesh. Scene: A hooked fish racing downstream
towards a dense weed-bed on the angler’s side. The angler offers the
net, and the fish sheers off into midstream, and is towed past the
dangerous obstruction. Very simple examples these.
The third and next is more complex. Scene: A hatch-hole which lets water
from the same stream into a carrier in the water-meadows. Camp-sheathing
on both sides of the hatch, supported by three successive crossbars from
four feet to eight feet long as the sides diverge. Under the middle bar
lies a good trout, very evidently feeding. Problem, how to get him. It
is impossible to cast underneath the crossbars. One can only cast over
them, and trust to luck and judgment to get the fish out if one hooks
him. If he runs downstream the line is doubled over the crossbar and a
break is assured. But how is he to be prevented? The angler knows that
under the apron of the hatch there is a big hole, and he sets to work
with confidence. The fly is dropped from below, just over the third or
shortest bar. The drag of the oiled silk line brings it back till it
passes over the third bar, and drops softly on the water with a foot or
two to float before it can drag. Presently it is taken, and the hooked
fish has turned to bolt down the carrier. But there the angler is ready.
Landing-net in hand, he gesticulates wildly at the advancing fish, which
bolts upstream again and buries itself in the hole under the apron.
Softly the rod is passed under the second and lowest crossbars, then the
point is brought down to the water’s edge, and with a steady strain and
a jarring tap on the butt of the rod the trout is brought down out of
his fastness and killed in due course.
Lastly, another example of a similar method. Imagine a strong stream
some three yards wide and one hundred yards or so long, running down
from a similar hatch to a big cross-dyke reaching out on both sides. The
angler is on the right bank, and the current turns to the left on
reaching the dyke. The water for the latter half of the carrier is too
deep for wading. In the broad gravel shallow at the tail of the patch a
big two-pounder is lying. The angler has already been run by a much
smaller fish down to the verge of the carrier, where the stream turns
off, and only netted his trout just in time. For various reasons the
other bank is unsuitable to fish from. To begin with, the big trout is
not accessible from that side. Even from the left bank it is difficult
to cast over him, but presently our artist with the landing-net gives
the appropriate response to the dimpling rise with which he takes the
Ginger Quill, and a good sound working connection is established. For a
moment the angler does not put a pull on him, and he moves out into the
strong water, shaking his head to get rid of that objectionable insect
that has fastened in his palate. The angler rapidly winds in line, and
begins to hold him firmly. His aim is to keep him tiring himself in the
strong water—not to drive him up under the apron (it is unnecessary to
run that risk now), but to keep him from running down. The stream is
narrow enough to enable the angler, by dipping his rod-point to right or
left, to turn the fish from every upward rush to such a holt, but in a
few moments comes the downward rush. Now for the landing-net. In an
instant the fish has turned and is back facing the strong water, and
engaged in fighting to get up into the shelter of the hatch. But again
and again he is turned and brought down to the edge of the gravel shelf
where the stream is strongest, when a hint from the landing-net sends
him up again straining with all his force against both stream and line.
Presently, tiring of the game, and failing in his efforts to rub out the
hook against the camp-sheathing, he turns and bolts downstream with such
suddenness as to evade the threatening net, and is gone forty yards
before the angler is level with him. Then again a threat of the net
turns him, and he makes a dash for a weed-bed some ten yards or so
above. From this he has to be turned down, and his downward rush stopped
with the net as before. From this point the fight resolves itself into a
series of downstream rushes, alternating with much briefer trips
upstream, terminated by the necessity in each case for pulling the trout
down out of the weed-bed he is bolting for. At last, at the very bottom
of the straight, on the edge of the dyke, the fish, not yet half beaten,
has to be dragged willy-nilly into the landing-net, or else he must
escape down the dyke which streams away on the far side.
Finally, and in conclusion, one more example. The _locus in quo_ is a
piece of fast water some eight or ten yards long, a sort of
tumbling-bay, from which the water escapes at racing pace through a
culvert twelve or fourteen feet long, which passes under a farm road,
thence along some two hundred yards of narrow weedy carrier to an
irrigation hatch. In the tumbling-bay are three or four fine fish, one
of them something over two pounds. All are feeding on something under
water, probably nymphs. A dry fly would drag at once. A double-hooked
Greenwell’s Glory, as used on North-Country rivers, might do the trick.
But the hooked fish will to a certainty bolt down the culvert, and then
it will be a case of smash at once, or weeding with a long line, and the
impossible task of bringing the fish up the racing stream into the
tumbling-bay again, or of passing the ten-foot rod through a twelve-foot
culvert. Happy thought! there on the bank is a plank that has been
floated down the stream above, there is some string, and there is the
watcher to lend a hand. He receives the landing-net, and goes below some
fifteen yards or so. Presently the fly drops well soaked on the water,
and swings over the best of the trout, which the next minute has raced
down and through the culvert, tearing out line until—yes, until the
menacing net in the hands of the watcher sends him securely to weed. Now
for the plank. A minute serves to tie on the rod and to send the plank
floating down through the culvert. The watcher is ready on the other
side with the landing-net, and draws the plank to the side. The rod is
released, and soon the angler stands over the fish with a short line.
Now for the net again. A few well-directed prods with the butt brings up
the fish, who bolts for the culvert. But the net is before him on the
far side, and he gets back into the tumbling-bay. Guiding the line with
the butt, a pull is got on him which soon brings him down again below
the culvert. The only remaining dangers are the weeds and the hatch-hole
at the far end. From this last the net is again ready to keep him, and
the great battle ends as every such battle should.
OF THE WEEDING TROUT.
It has been shown how it was frequently possible to extract a big trout
from an apparently impossible fastness by a tactical trick. Every angler
knows that a trout who is, or conceives himself to be, lightly hooked
will thrash about upon the surface in his effort to dislodge the fly,
very often with success, though not always; for occasionally the hook
will have a small but sufficient hold in some inaccessible place, such
as the corner of the jaw, and all is well with the angler. It is by
playing upon this idiosyncrasy and slackening on a fish immediately
after it is hooked that the trout may frequently be induced to run from
an impenetrable holt into the open in order to kick himself free from
the surface. The same idiosyncrasy may be worked upon with a weeding
fish, with gratifying results. If the angler hooks a fish which turns
and bolts downstream below him, he will note that the fish will not go
to weed until he is held. The moment he is held he will whip into the
first available weed-bed. That is the first step in our argument. The
next is this: The harder he is held the more frightened he becomes, and
the deeper and the more desperately he will burrow in the weeds.
But one day it occurred to me to try upon the trout that has got to weed
the tactics of inducing him to believe himself lightly hooked. To let
him go altogether for a time till he recovered his nerve and came out
was an old and often unsuccessful device. To hand-line him was to put a
much harder pull upon him than could be put on with a rod, and though it
sometimes worked, it was by no means always successful. For the new
method, therefore, it was necessary to maintain a light pull upon the
fish, but so light that the rod-top gave to every movement, leaving the
fish almost as free as if he were loose, but with just the difference
that there was enough strain to keep him beating, and enough to provide
a fulcrum for him to beat from. The experiment was brilliantly
successful. On the first occasion on which it was tried, three trout
(all over two pounds) were hooked in a weedy portion of the Itchen upon
the lightest tackle and a delicate rod. Each went to weed. The angler
held his hand high (for the rod was but nine feet), and kept the very
lightest strain, with the result that the fish began to beat among the
weeds as he would on the surface, and in a few moments had lashed the
weeds aside and kicked himself free of them, and was on top. Once there
he was resolutely hauled downstream and bustled into the net. This
method has been worth many a good fish since that day; indeed, given a
fairly soundly hooked fish, there have been no failures. Of course,
nothing will save a fish so lightly hooked that the first touch of weed
or obstruction releases him. In applying this method, the light rod,
which has come to be so common, has an advantage over the big, heavy,
and clumsy weapon so frequently in the hands of dry-fly men in the
recent past. This is indeed a notable instance of the superiority of the
_suaviter in modo_ over the _fortiter in re_.
OF THE LIGHT ROD ON CHALK STREAMS.
In the catalog (I quote the word in the American spelling) of the house
of William Mills and Son of New York there is a portrait of Mr. Humphrey
Priddis (whose signature “Dabchick” at the foot of Itchen reports is
familiar to all readers of the _Field_) holding up a two and one-eighth
pound trout which he had just killed on a two and one-eighth ounce
Leonard rod, the property of young Mr. Mills, a son of that house. I was
down on the Itchen the afternoon on which that feat was done. I saw the
rod, the fish, and the captor, and the place was pointed out to me. The
water was full of dense masses of waving weeds, and in accomplishing the
capture of such a fish—a large one for the water—on such a rod there is
no doubt that the angler executed a feat of which he had every right to
be proud. He declared himself amazed at the power of the rod, and that
he could throw three-and-twenty yards with it.
Young Mr. Mills was fishing with a nine-foot rod weighing five ounces, a
delightful tool capable of casting a heavy tapered Halford line with
wonderful command. I had the privilege of trying it, and I promptly
acquired its duplicate, in addition to the ten-footer of the same make
which I already possessed and had used the previous season.
I am not going to reargue here the long controversy of light rod
_versus_ the old-style ounce-to-the-foot weapon. The light rod has won
its place, and has come to stay. Those who have tried it fairly are
convinced that it will answer all necessary calls for casting, that it
is fully equal to butting and killing large trout, and that it adds a
daintiness to the art of fly fishing which the old-time anglers of the
heavy rod were hardly conscious it lacked. But I do want to press three
points in its favour beyond those enumerated: (1) It casts a delightful
_short_ line, and I confess to fishing consistently with the shortest
line I dare use, often with most of that in the country; (2) it can be
fished steadily all day, wet or dry, without tiring the hand—what a
change from those terrible wrist-breaking, hand-paralyzing,
blister-producing flails of the eighties and nineties! and (3) it
enables one to play light with unequalled sensitiveness. When I was a
boy at Winchester, old John Hammond had the length commonly known
nowadays as Chalkley’s, and I well remember the rods which old John used
to turn out for fishing the Itchen. They were soft and floppy to an
extent which would nowadays lead to their immediate rejection; but I
have seen the maker with one of them steer a good fish, hooked under the
opposite bank, by sheer handling, over dense weed, into the waiting
landing-net. And remembering this, and remembering how a fish which goes
to weed can, if lightly handled from the first, be forced, by play on
his idiosyncrasy, to beat himself free and up to the surface, I am
inclined to think that the modern angler is far too much inclined to use
force in handling a hooked fish, and that a rod which achieves—as the
light split canes of the highest class do—a combination of steely
quickness and casting power with something of the sensitive delicacy of
the wood rods of old John Hammond is the equipment to have in a tussle
with a big fish on fine tackle.
To kill a brace of trout one of over four pounds and the other three
pounds six ounces on x x x gut in deep weedy and snag-infested water
between two bushes which I could touch with either hand, and which
prevented movement up or down stream, is a feat which I am sure my
old-time heavy rods could have done no better than did my six-ounce
ten-footer in 1909. Force was no good in such a place, and force was
never used until each trout had been sufficiently bewildered and
fatigued by beating in vain against the nothing which restrained him to
be kept more or less under the rod’s point till ready for the net.
OF WET-FLY CASTING.
The use of rods which carry a heavy reel-line is so general on chalk
streams that probably the easy drying of the fly and cast is taken as a
matter of course, and it is little recognized how much is due to the
weight of the line driving the fly rapidly through the air. If the
angler were devoting himself to wet-fly fishing on a rough river, he
would avoid such a casting line, and if he means to fish a chalk stream
wet-fly only, he would do the same. But he would need to be able to
propel his fly and line upstream against the wind, and to cast a fairly
long line not infrequently, so that a line with more weight in it than
would be required for a rough river would be essential on a chalk
stream. But if, as is the wiser course, the angler proposes to fish
either wet or dry, as occasion demands, his equipment must be still more
of a compromise. He must use a rod which will carry a line that will dry
the fly with sufficient speed, but preferably not a line of the heaviest
class; and he must trust to the make of his flies, and to the soaking
they get through trailing in the water before the cast, to get them to
go under on lighting. The knack can be acquired without difficulty, but
if the dry-fly habit has become inveterate he will need to be
continually watching himself when he desires to fish wet.
The line should be flicked as little as possible, and the angler should
try (generally speaking, but not always—see chapter on Nerves) to float
the gut while letting the fly go under. Then he secures the double
advantage of not lining his trout and of getting an indication from the
movement of the gut should the fly be taken without his otherwise
detecting it. The fly, being once delivered, may be allowed to come down
with the stream precisely like a dry fly except for its being under
water; but it can be recovered sooner and with less disturbance of the
surface, because the fly is drawn under and not along the top of the
water. The withdrawal should, however, be as gentle as possible, in
order to retain as much moisture as can be in the fly to sink it at the
next cast. If there be enough wind to raise waves, or even a strong
ruffle, this is of less consequence, as the make of the fly should be
such that it can only float, if at all, while quite dry on perfectly
smooth water. It is in general no use to put up the ordinary dry flies
to fish wet.