Angling or, How to Angle, and Where to go - With Illustrations

ANGLING;

OR,

HOW TO ANGLE, AND WHERE TO GO.

BY

ROBERT BLAKEY,

AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, ETC. ETC.

With Illustrations.

Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

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A Short History of Fishing

Fishing, in its broadest sense – is the activity of catching fish. It is an ancient practice dating back at least 40,000 years. Since the sixteenth century fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish and since the nineteenth century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Techniques for catching fish include varied methods such as hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.

Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000 year old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish. As well as this, archaeological features such as shell middens, discarded fish-bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for early man’s survival and were consumed in significant quantities. The first civilisation to practice organised fishing was the Egyptians however, as the River Nile was so full of fish. The Egyptians invented various implements and methods for fishing and these are clearly illustrated in tomb scenes, drawings and papyrus documents. Simple reed boats served for fishing. Woven nets, weir baskets made from willow branches, harpoons and hook and line (the hooks having a length of between eight millimetres and eighteen centimetres) were all being used. By the twelfth dynasty, metal hooks with barbs were also utilised.

Despite the Egyptian’s strong history of fishing, later Greek cultures rarely depicted the trade, due to its perceived low social status. There is a wine cup however, dating from c.500 BC, that shows a boy crouched on a rock with a fishing-rod in his right hand and a basket in his left. In the water below there is a rounded object of the same material with an opening on the top. This has been identified as a fish-cage used for keeping live fish, or as a fish-trap. One of the other major Grecian sources on fishing is Oppian of Corycus, who wrote a major treatise on sea fishing, the Halieulica or Halieutika, composed between 177 and 180. This is the earliest such work to have survived intact to the modern day. Oppian describes various means of fishing including the use of nets cast from boats, scoop nets held open by a hoop, spears and tridents, and various traps ‘which work while their masters sleep.’ Oppian's description of fishing with a ‘motionless’ net is also very interesting:

The fishers set up very light nets of buoyant flax and wheel in a circle round about while they violently strike the surface of the sea with their oars and make a din with sweeping blow of poles. At the flashing of the swift oars and the noise the fish bound in terror and rush into the bosom of the net which stands at rest, thinking it to be a shelter: foolish fishes which, frightened by a noise, enter the gates of doom. Then the fishers on either side hasten with the ropes to draw the net ashore...

The earliest English essay on recreational fishing was published in 1496, shortly after the invention of the printing press! Unusually for the time, its author was a woman; Dame Juliana Berners, the prioress of the Benedictine Sopwell Nunnery (Hertforshire). The essay was titled Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle and was published in a larger book, forming part of a treatise on hawking, hunting and heraldry. These were major interests of the nobility, and the publisher, Wynkyn der Worde was concerned that the book should be kept from those who were not gentlemen, since their immoderation in angling might ‘utterly destroye it.’ The roots of recreational fishing itself go much further back however, and the earliest evidence of the fishing reel comes from a fourth century AD work entitled Lives of Famous Mortals.

Many credit the first recorded use of an artificial fly (fly fishing) to an even earlier source - to the Roman Claudius Aelianus near the end of the second century. He described the practice of Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River, ‘...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in colour are like wax.’ Recreational fishing for sport or leisure only really took off during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries though, and coincides with the publication of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler in 1653. This is seen as the definitive work that champions the position of the angler who loves fishing for the sake of fishing itself. More than 300 editions have since been published, demonstrating its unstoppable popularity.

Big-game fishing only started as a sport after the invention of the motorised boat. In 1898, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, a marine biologist and early conservationist, virtually invented this sport and went on to publish many articles and books on the subject. His works were especially noted for their combination of accurate scientific detail with exciting narratives. Big-game fishing is also a recreational pastime, though requires a largely purpose built boat for the hunting of large fish such as the billfish (swordfish, marlin and sailfish), larger tunas (bluefin, yellowfin and bigeye), and sharks (mako, great white, tiger and hammerhead). Such developments have only really gained prominence in the twentieth century. The motorised boat has also meant that commercial fishing, as well as fish farming has emerged on a massive scale. Large trawling ships are common and one of the strongest markets in the world is the cod trade which fishes roughly 23,000 tons from the Northwest Atlantic, 475,000 tons from the Northeast Atlantic and 260,000 tons from the Pacific.

These truly staggering amounts show just how much fishing has changed; from its early hunter-gatherer beginnings, to a small and specialised trade in Egyptian and Grecian societies, to a gentleman’s pastime in fifteenth century England right up to the present day. We hope that the reader enjoys this book, and is inspired by fishing’s long and intriguing past to find out more about this truly fascinating subject. Enjoy.

[Front.

ANGLING

CONTENTS.

PART I.—HOW TO ANGLE.

CHAP.

     I.—INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

    II.—ON TACKLE AND BAIT FOR ANGLING

   III.—OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF FISH—THE SALMON

   IV.—THE TROUT

    V.—THE PIKE

   VI.—THE GREYLING

  VII.—THE PERCH

 VIII.—THE CARP

  IX.—THE TENCH AND BARBEL

   X.—THE CHUB, BREAM, AND ROACH

  XI.—THE GUDGEON, DACE, AND EEL

 XII.—THE CHAR, BLEAK, LAMPREY, LOACH, MINNOW, RUFF, ETC.

XIII.—LAWS AND REGULATIONS FOR TAKING FISH

PART II.—WHERE TO GO.

CHAP.

  I.—ENGLAND AND WALES

 II.—SCOTLAND

III.—IRELAND

IV.—CONTINENTAL STATES

ANGLING.

PART I.—HOW TO ANGLE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

THE art of angling is one of the most ancient amusements and practices of which we have any record in the history of the human family. We read of it in the Old Testament; and in the records of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and the whole of the eastern section of the globe, once the seat of powerful empires, and of a civilized people, we have innumerable testimonies in their several sepulchral and architectural remains, that angling—as we angle at this day—was an art well known, and generally practised, both as an amusement, and as a means of support. In the polished and literary states of Greece and Rome we have still more pointed and irrefragable testimony of the high antiquity of the art. The bucolic writers of Greek poetry descant upon the subject in a variety of forms; while graver historians among that singular and enlightened people dwell upon the art as one firmly embedded in the permanent customs and habits of the nation. The literature of Rome likewise portrays the existence of the gentle art among the warlike conquerors of the world. Not only formal works were composed on the subject, but we find that the classic poets, both serious and comic, make many direct allusions to the amusement of the rod-fisher, and to the fish he was in the habit of catching.

From the Christian era, and during the first centuries of the decline of Roman power and conquest, we find that angling continued to be one of the common pursuits of many nations, then in a state of transition from barbarism to refinement and knowledge. Pliny wrote on fish; and Ausonius, between the third and fourth century, expatiates with rapture on the abundance of fine salmon that were caught in the blue Moselle; a river in France, that flows into the Rhine on the northern frontier of the country. The old chroniclers and scholastic writers often mention the piscatory art; and the Church, then in full power, took the subject of fish generally under its own guidance, and regulated both the sport in taking them, and the using of them for food. In every country in Europe, where any degree of progress had been made in learning and civilization during the middle ages, we find numerous traces of fishermen and their labours, even long before the art of printing became known and practised.

It is now an established fact, admitted by all writers, that the English nation has been, from the earliest days of its history, the most distinguished and zealous propagators of the art of rod-fishing. And it is interesting to remark, in passing, that the historical memorials we possess, of the state of the angling art among the Anglo-Saxon tribes who first settled in this country, throw a great light on the origin of this striking predilection for the sport. The Anglo-Saxons, we are told, ate various kinds of fish, but the eel was a decided favourite. They used these fish as abundantly as swine. Grants and charters are sometimes regulated by payments made in these fish. Four thousand eels were a yearly present from the monks of Ramsay to those of Peterborough. We read of two places purchased for twenty-one pounds, wherein sixteen thousand of these fish were caught every year; and, in one charter, twenty fishermen are stated, who furnished, during the same period, sixty thousand eels to the monastery. Eel dykes are often mentioned in the boundaries of their lands.*

In the dialogues of Elfric, composed for the use of the Anglo-Saxon youth in the learning of the Latin tongue, we find frequent mention made of fishermen, and matters relating to their craft. In one dialogue the fisherman is asked, What gettest thou by thine art? Big loaves, clothing, and money. How do you take them? I ascend a ship, and cast my net into the river; I also throw in a hook, a bait, and a rod. Suppose the fishes are unclean? I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for food. Where do you sell your fish? In the city. Who buys them? The citizens; I cannot take so many as I can sell. What fishes do you take? Eels, haddocks, minnows, and eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and whatever swims in the rivers. Why do you not fish in the sea? Sometimes I do; but rarely, because a great ship is necessary here.†

The historian Bede tells us, that Wilfrid rescued the people of Sussex from famine in the eighth century, by teaching them to catch fish: for though the sea and their rivers abounded with fish, they had no more skill in the art than to take eels. The servants of Wilfrid threw into the sea nets made out of those by which they had obtained eels, and thus directed them to a new source of plenty.‡

It is an article in the Penitentiale of Egbert, that fish might be bought, though dead. In the same work, herrings are allowed to be eaten; and it states that, when boiled, they are salutary in fever and diarrhœa, and that their gall, mixed with pepper, is good for a sore mouth.*

Such are the historical relations between our Saxon forefathers and the art of angling; and we can trace no abatement in the original impulse to cultivate and extend its practice in the subsequent epochs of our nation. We carry, at this moment, a love of the sport to every quarter of the globe, wherever our conquests and commercial connections extend. In fact, we are the great piscatory schoolmasters that are abroad, teaching all mankind how to multiply their rational out-door pleasures, in the pursuit of an amusement that is at once contemplative, intellectual, and healthful.

Nor are there any good grounds for complaining that other nations have been slow or dull scholars in taking advantage of our zealous labours and instructions. Within the last forty years, since the intercourse with our continental neighbours has been upon the most intimate and visiting footing, there has been a very marked improvement, not only as it relates to the practising of rod-fishing itself, in all its various forms, but likewise in the spirit in which the amusement is followed, and the literary taste evinced in describing and treating it. In Belgium and the Rhenish provinces generally, we have at this hour angling clubs in almost every locality contiguous to where there are eligible fishing-streams, all conducted upon the same principles, and influenced by the generally prevailing sporting sentiments which regulate similar institutions in our own country. Here a free and gentlemanly intercourse takes place among the brethren of the angle; fishing exploits and adventures are rehearsed over for the common amusement of the members; and we have had, of late years, some specimens of the poetic efforts made to grace the meetings of this order with something of the sentimental and humorous vein. In every department of France there has likewise been, since the close of the last general war, a great increase in the number of rod-fishers. The English modes of angling, especially for trout, have obtained considerable attention, and in some of the finest river-fishing districts are now commonly in vogue among all amateur or professed piscatorians. Many books on the art have also issued from the Paris and provincial presses, containing much useful information, and written in a truly genial and literary spirit; and, on the whole, there has been a very great change in reference to the extension of this out-door species of amusement among all classes of the people.

In Italy, Switzerland, and even in Spain, there has been a considerable augmentation of piscatorians within the last century. Some of the rivers in these countries are most munificently supplied with fine, rich trout; and, in their higher localities, the scenery upon some of their banks presents some of the most bewitching views to the eye of one who has any artistic idea of landscape sketches.

In the northern countries of Europe, angling, chiefly by English sportsmen, has been successfully practised to a great extent. In Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and even in Russia, the British mode of angling is now well known, and even followed with enthusiasm, by many of the nobles of those respective countries.

But the most cheering view for the angling enthusiast in England, who revels in the delightful anticipation of seeing his favourite sport becoming universal, is the rapid progress which the amusement has made in the United States of America. Here we see the accounts daily, from the provincial prints in every section of the Union, that angling clubs, and gatherings, and parties, are now becoming quite fashionable in every direction where there are fishable streams and rivulets. Almost the entire district, from the New England States to the foot of the Rocky Mountains west, and even to the very shores of the Pacific Ocean in the Columbian district, has been visited, within the space of a few years, by professed anglers. And it is no uncommon thing to undertake a fishing tour of a month or two, and devoting the chief portion of the time to the search of new and unfrequented localities for the prosecution of future piscatory pastimes. We read in a recent number of a Cincinnati newspaper, that Mr. Such-and-such-a-one had just arrived at his own place of abode, all well, after a two months’ fishing excursion; and that there would be a meeting of the friends of the art, who lived in the town, to congratulate him on his return. The angling literature of the States is increasing daily, and assuming that scientific form and polished taste which show that the mass of the people look upon the art as a truly improvable and intellectual one. We find, in the American fishing-books, a number of spirited angling songs, worthy of taking their place among the very best specimens of lyrical composition either in the English or any other language; and, with respect to prose compositions on angling topics, few English writers have come up to the spirit and life which the Americans embody. Witness the following description of an angling tour, written by the late Hon. Daniel Webster, one of the most able legislators and men of genius of whom the United States can boast:—

We were lost standing, says he, "at the upper part of Sage’s ravine, with some forty trout in our basket, when the time was up, the mail must go, the article must be cut short, and all the best parts of it, that for which all the rest was but a preparation, must be left unwritten. The same visitor never comes twice to the eye of the pen. If you scare it away, you might as well fish for a trout after he has seen you, and darted under a stone, or beneath his overhanging bank or root. But trouting in a mountain brook is an experience of life so distinct from every other, that every man should enjoy at least one in his day. That being denied to most, the next best I can do for you, reader, is to describe it. So then come on.

"We have a rod made for the purpose, six feet long, only two joints, and a reel. We will walk up the mountain road, listening as we go to the roar of the brook on the left. In about a mile the road crosses it, and begins to lift itself up along the mountain side, leaving the stream at every step lower down on our right. You no more see its flashing through the leaves; but its softened rush is audible at any moment you may choose to pause and listen.

We will put into it just below a smart foamy fall. We have on cow-hide shoes, and other rig suitable. Selecting an entrance, we step in, and the swift stream attacks our legs with immense earnestness, threatening at first to take us off from them. A few minutes will settle all that, and make us quite at home. The bottom of the brook is not gravel or sand, but rocks of every shape, every position, of all sizes, bare or covered; the stream goes over them at the rate of ten miles an hour. The descent is great. At a few rods cascades break over ledges, and boil up in miniature pools below. The trees on either side shut out all direct rays of the sun, and for the most part, the bushes line the banks so closely, and cast their arms over so widely, as to create a twilight—not a gray twilight, as of light losing its lustre, but a transparent black twilight, which softens nothing, but gives more ruggedness to the rocks, and a sombre aspect even to the shrubs and fairest flowers. It is a great matter to take a trout early in your trial. It gives one more heart. It serves to keep one about his business. Otherwise you are apt to fall off into unprofitable reverie; you wake up and find yourself standing in a dream—half seeing, half imagining—under some covert of overarching branches, where the stream flows black and broad among rocks, whose moss is green above the water, and dark below it. * * * * But we must hasten on. A few more spotted spoils are awaiting us below. We make the brook again. We pierce the hollow of overhanging bushes—we strike across the patches of sunlight, which grew more frequent as we got lower down towards the plain; we take our share of tumbles and slips; we patiently extricate our entangled line again and again, as it is sucked down under some log, or whirled round some network of broken beechen roots protruding from the shore. Here and there we half forget our errand as we break in upon some cove of moss, when our dainty feet halt upon green velvet, more beautiful a thousand times than ever sprung from looms at Brussels or Kidderminster. At length we hear the distant clamour of mills. We have finished the brook. Farewell, wild, wayward simple stream! In a few moments you will be grown to a huge mill-pond; then at work upon its wheel; then prim, and proper, with ruffles on each side, you will walk through the meadows, clatter across the road, and mingle with the More-brook—flow on toward the Housatonic—lost in its depths and breadths. For who will know thy drops in the promiscuous flood? Or who, standing on its banks, will dream from what scenes thou hast flowed—through what beauty—thyself the most beautiful.

Such writing as this shows the refined and healthy tone of the angling literature and taste among our American cousins. With respect to the angling prospects of our own country at the present day, they are the most encouraging and hopeful. At no previous time of our history has the amusement been pursued with a keener relish than in the present age; and works on this subject are constantly appearing, which demonstrate the firm hold that it has on the public sentiment and feeling.

* Dugdale’s Monas., p. 244.

† Turner’s Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 23.

‡ Bede, lib. 4.

* Wilkins, Conc. p. 123.

CHAPTER II.

ON TACKLE AND BAIT FOR ANGLING.

HOW TO ANGLE?

THIS question or proposition embraces two or three very obvious divisions. First, our rod and tackle, then our baits, and then our fish. We shall in this chapter keep to the consideration of the two first items. These constitute the materials of angling—the instruments or contrivances by which fish are commonly captured.

A considerable variety of articles are required for an angler’s complete outfit: that is, to place him in a position to be ready at an hour’s notice for angling any river or piece of water in any section of the kingdom. But there are more limited establishments which can answer all the rational ends or purposes of an angler, whose real sport does not depend upon, nor is regulated by the extent, variety, and cost of his stock of implements. Where economy or necessity demands a more curtailed stock of materials, the energetic and zealous rod-fisher will prosecute his favourite amusement with ardour; and invention and contrivance will, for the most part, supply the place of a more formal and ostentatious assortment of fishing-tackle. We shall give a list of a few articles which most anglers consider requisites.

Rods for salmon and trout fishing, trolling, worm, and fly-fishing, spinning the minnow and the bleak.

Hair lines, Indian weed, plaited silk and hair, and patent and other lines for trolling.

Reels for running tackle.

Hooks for trolling on wire or gimp, for the gorge or the snap.

Minnow, gudgeon, and bleak tackle, and baiting needles of different sizes.

Loose hooks of all kinds.

Paternosters for perch-fishing.

Cobbler’s wax, sewing silk, and a few balls of small twine.

Floats of various sizes, and plenty of spare caps for floats.

Split shot and bored bullets of various sizes.

Disgorger, and clearing ring and drag.

Landing net, a gaff, and kettle for live bait.

Gentle-box and bags for worms.

A fishing-basket, creel, or game pouch.

A pair of pliers, a pair of scissors, and a good pocket-knife, both with large and small blades.

A parchment book of artificial flies.

A parchment book for general tackle.

A book for containing the various articles requisite for making artificial flies; the following list of materials is necessary for this purpose.

Cock and hen feathers or hackles of all colours; as red, ginger, black, dun, olive-grizzle, and stone-colour. Peacock’s herl, copper-coloured, green, and brown. Black ostrich’s herl. Fowls’ spotted feathers.

The feathers of the turkey, the partridge, the grouse, ptarmigan, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, dotterel, landrail, starling, golden plover, common pee-wit, wild mallard, bustard, sea-swallow, wren, jay, blackbird, thrush, blue pigeon, silver-pheasant, parrot, and the tame and wild duck.

The fur of the water-rat, and hare’s ears.

Mohair dyed all colours.

Fine French sewing silk of all colours.

Flos silk of all colours.

German wools of all colours.

Silk twist and bee’s-wax.

A pair of pliers, a pair of fine-pointed scissors, a small slide vice, and a few fine-pointed, strong dubbing needles.

Silkworm gut, from the finest to the strongest; and salmon gut single and twisted.

Length of the white and sorrel hairs of stallions’ tails.

And lastly, a variety of fly-hooks.

Of course fancy has a great deal to do with all arrangements of this kind. We find no two fishers alike in this instance. Some anglers prefer one kind of hooks, some another; we have the London hooks, the Kirby sneck, and the Limerick bend. A fair assortment of essentials should be the guide.

FISHING RODS.

A good fishing-rod is one of the essential instruments for the angler, and one to which he commonly pays the greatest attention; and this is more particularly the case in London, and in other large towns, where articles of this kind can be procured of the best quality and most polished workmanship. But in remote country districts, where there is often the best angling, we may daily meet with the frequenter of the streams, furnished only with a straight hazel rod, or perhaps two rudely spliced together, following his vocation with ardour and success. It is often surprising, and not a little instructive withal, how necessity sharpens the intellect of the angler; and how he shifts on, from the simplest and rudest implements, and really procures a fair day’s sport under the most apparently discouraging circumstances. Every person who has visited the rural districts of England and Wales, with the rod in his hand, must have seen many instances of this kind, and felt a sort of inward self reproach, that with all his superior outfit, he could not hope to surpass the success of the simple, but indefatigable rustic craftsman.

The qualities which a good and handy rod must possess, will, of course, vary with the nature of the angling. There need be no very great difference between a salmon and a trout rod, for fly fishing, except you fish in very wide streams, or on lakes in open boats. In such cases, we would recommend a good double-handed rod, from sixteen to eighteen feet in length, as the best that could be made for salmon fishing, in such kinds of water as we have just noticed. A rod of this size, and for this specific purpose, ought to have a free and equal spring in it, from the butt end to the top. This is of vital importance in dealing with large fish, whether hooked and run in rivers or in lakes.