This book is included in the Self Reliance Hunting, Skinning & Tanning section.
INTRODUCTORY. SEVERAL times of late uninitiated persons have approached me with inquiries as to whether, in my opinion, any gain would accrue to them by admission into the brotherhood of anglers, and if so what would be the best way for them to set about it. The angler, as Walton has informed the world, is "born so" that is to say, he has a natural disposition for the quiet pleasures of the country, for green grass, clear water, shady trees, and for nature in all her moods; he has, withal, a decided taste for matching his wits against difficulties, and feels a lively pride when he has done so with, success. But these qualities are, of course, not vested solely in the angler as an angler; many people possess them to the full who have never wetted a line, and who could not tell you the difference between a perch and a roach. Walton might have called them "anglers-spoiled," and he would certainly have tried to persuade them of their error in matching their wits against golf balls and other small deer when they might have been dibbling for chub not that I would say a disrespectful word about the royal and ancient game; many honest anglers of my acquaintance tell me that it goes hand in hand with fishing very well, and is not really worse for the temper. There are some potential anglers, too, who do not play golf, and who, for one reason or .another, do nothing else which would give their natural propensities full scope. They, I take it, are the people who look on at one's fishing with great sympathy but little understanding, and who sometimes express a wish that they had had opportunities of becoming anglers when they were young, regretting that they are now too old to learn. In this last assumption I think they are wrong, deluded, perhaps, by the popular idea that angling is a mystery, which in its turn is a delusion partly based upon Walton's often-quoted dictum. Angling is not a mystery, though some of its component parts are mysterious. In itself it is the simple process of a person with the proper temperament trying to catch fish with rod, line, and hook, and he (however badly he does it) is an angler. Therefore it is open to any "angler spoiled" to rectify the error of fate and to turn with profit and pleasure to, the pastime for which he is equipped in all but actual knowledge. Nor do I think, in his case, that lack of youthful experience is an irredeemable loss; at any rate, it need not lessen his pleasure, which is the main thing to be considered. And, from instances I have known in which men have taken to fishing long after they were grown up, I do not think it need necessarily affect his eventual skill. Skill after all, given a natural aptitude, is more the result of application and practice than of anything else, and is within the reach of most people who will and can fish enough. Therefore my answer to the uninitiated who ask what they would gain by becoming anglers would depend on what I imagined to be their mental attitude in the matter. Suspicion that they were merely looking for a new sensation after a variety of other sensations all more or less unappreciated would make me urge the royal and ancient game, or mountaineering, or some other pursuit in which my interest is impersonal, upon them, as presenting greater scope for excitement than does fishing. But in the case of the "angler spoiled" no exposition of profit and loss would really be necessary; the fact that he had made such inquiry would prove that he knew for himself what was to be gained. He sighed after some interest to take him out of a troublesome world, after refreshment for his tired spirit, after a tonic for body and soul, and he asked whether angling would prove to be all this, not because he doubted it, but because he doubted himself. I should tell him not to doubt, but to begin fishing at once. One novice of my acquaintance, no longer in his first youth, bought his first rod (not a fly rod) about two years ago; he now ties his own flies, bristles with theories as a porcupine with quills, and advises me about pike baits. But at the beginning he doubted like anything. Which shows once more that Walton was right, and that I am right too. The second question, how a would-be angler is to set about it, is more complicated in its issues, for it opens the road to those component parts of the sport which I have admitted to be mysterious, and it requires an answer which must be lengthy if it is to be effective. From the frequency of the question, however, I believe that an answer would be of some small use, and, as one who has been painfully through the mill of apprenticeship, I have set down a few hints for the young angler (youth in angling matters is not, I take it, a question of years, but of spirit) who wishes to begin at the very beginning, and who, it is presumed, starts without any preconceived ideas on the subject at all. With the many admirable books of instruction on fishing I can, of course, make no attempt to vie; what I have to say will barely serve as an introduction to them, but it may perhaps make reading them later a little more profitable for the beginner. Equally of course, I make no pretence of instructing the practised angler, who has his own store of experience at his back; he instructs himself at the riverside, which is the best school of all. But the absolute beginner needs a few hints before he enters it, and those I have tried to give. The book makes no pretence of exhausting its subject; there is, for example, much left unsaid with regard to tackle, natural history, and other things which properly receive an angler's attention. Nor is abiding merit claimed for some of the methods suggested; that is to say, experience is quite likely to make a novice discard them for others. But when he feels able to take his own line he may fairly consider himself a novice no longer. What I have chiefly tried to ensure in these pages is simplicity and developement by easy stages dwelling more fully on beginnings than on ultimate ambitions. The first salmon may be placed in the last category, but it is for the novice a thing of the future, and by no means so important as the first perch, which is among the beginnings. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute. Contents PRELIMINARIES. What to fish for; The town angler's ideal; The tackle shop; The general rod; The reel; A good line; How to put it on the reel; Creel, landing-net, and tackle-book; Floats, gut, and sundries; The pleasure of neat gear; Worms, how to catch and keep them; Making up lines. CHAPTER II. - A MORNING'S FISHING. Preparations for starting; The millpool; Putting the tackle together; Finding the depth; A bite; Playing a fish; The first perch; Unhooking, weighing, and killing fish; Size of perch; A chub. CHAPTER III. - AFTERNOON AND EVENING. The quiet time; An eel; How to cook a perch; Tea and its uses; A gudgeon; A lost pike; "Caught up"; Dace and roach; A feeding trout; A bream; Drying the line. CHAPTER IV. - SPECIALISING. Bad days; Need for adapting method to circumstance; Different fish to be differently attacked; Roach fishing; Ground-bait and hook baits; A roach swim; How to fish it; Roach bites; Tight- corking; Baiting a bream pitch; Baits for bream; Need for a longer rod for roach and bream; Fine-drawn gut and single hair; A few more baits. CHAPTER V. - FISHING AT A DISTANCE. Float-casting for chub; To make the line float; Baits for chub; Bream fishing on the Broads; Bubbles; Rudd; Surface baiting for rudd; Where to fish for them and how; Fishing in the Nottingham style; Legering; Barbel; Baiting a barbel swim; Uncertainty of the sport; Big barbel; Carp; Their artfulness; Baits for carp; Fishing for carp in shallow water; Potato and baiting needle; Fishing on the surface; Tench Baits and methods. CHAPTER VI. - THE WET-FLY EQUIPMENT The call of spring; Fly-rods and their cost; A suitable rod; "Medium action"; Reel and line; Backing; Casts, fly-book, and damper; Wading stockings; Flies; A first list; "Points"; Number of flies required; Uses of a small creel; Staining a creel; How to make up a collar; Knots; Combination of flies. CHAPTER VII. - USING THE WET FLY. In the west-country; A licence; Casting the flies; Need for practice; Making the rod work; Fishing up stream; A rise; Hooked and netted; Unhooked trout; Nettles or paper for the creel; A samlet; How to distinguish it from a trout; "Hung up"; Watching the line; Dead water; Haunts of trout; Down-stream fishing, when necessary; How to do it; Short rises; Advantage of up-stream method. CHAPTER VIII. - DRY FLY PRELIMINARIES. Merits of dry-fly fishing; Dry fly streams; The "purist"; The rod; A new line and reel; To make the line float; Oil-bottle, cast case, and fly-box; Tweezers; Flies; A list of thirteen; The Wickham Knot for tying on a dry fly; Drawn gut; India rubber boots. CHAPTER IX. - A DAY'S FISHING. A favourable day; An olive dun; The Wickham as a first fly; Oiling a fly; Taking grease off the gut; Getting close to one's fish; Where to place the fly; Hooking a trout; The dangerous word "strike"; To get the fish out of weeds; The size limit; Frayed gut; Newspaper for fish; The "drag"; How to avoid it; Changing flies; "Smutting" fish; The black spider; Fishing it sunk; "Bulging" fish; Small flies for the evening rise. CHAPTER X. - SEDGE AND MAYFLY. Sedges; Food of big trout; A brief period of fishing; The "path of light"; Fishing the sedge; Rarity of a good evening; The Mayfly; Why it appears in June; Fragility of artificial Mayflies; Hackle flies less expensive and more durable; Mayfly fishing not easy; Nerve and striking from the reel; "Nymphing" trout; Fishing the fly wet; How to catch a big fish. CHAPTER XI. - GRAYLING A cousin of the trout; A "poor relation"; Accusations made against it; An opinion on the grayling question; Size of grayling Flies; Wet-fly fishing; Watching the line; On the chalk stream; Watching the fish; Not easily put down; A strong fighter; Why grayling are lost; Hustling a fish; Bait fishing. CHAPTER XII - THE BIG FLY Cannibal trout; Their food; The size which they reach; The "big fly"; A short list; Sizes and cost; The Turle knot; How to fish the fly; To make a line sink; Time to fish; "Short-rising" trout; Loch- fishing and loch flies; Boat and shore fishing. CHAPTER XIII. - COARSE FISH AND THE FLY Other uses for the fly-rod besides trout fishing; Chub; Stalking them; Their wariness; Big flies; Hot weather required; Small dry flies; "Not taking"; Feeling the fish; Strong gut; Dace; Lost flies; Their quick rising; Dry-fly fishing; Big dace rise more slowly; Roach and rudd; Perch sometimes take a fly; So do pike. CHAPTER XIV. - LIVE-BAITING FOR TROUT AND PERCH. The bait-can; Its inconvenience; The best kind; Trout and live bait; Tackle Baits; The Thames style; "Prodigies of patience"; Float-fishing; Paternostering; Roving; Roving with a worm. CHAPTER XV. - THE ART OF SPINNING. Justification of spinning; Taking on ambition; A four-pounder; Tackle; Rods; Traces; Leads; The Thames flight; How to adjust it; The fan flight; Artificial minnows; How they should be mounted; Dead baits; How to catch and pickle baits; Salting them; Casting from the reel; Its difficulties; Casting from the coil; Coiling line on the hand. CHAPTER XVI. - PIKE. Pike or "jack" Rod, line, and tackle; Wire traces; Spinning flight and artificial baits; Livebaiting; Snap-tackle; Paternoster Float and pilots; Trolling; Snap-trolling tackle; The drop-minnow; A light landing-net; The gaff and how to use it. CHAPTER XVII. - SALMON AND SEA-TROUT. The pains and pleasures of Salmon fishing; Selecting a rod; Weight of rod and line; Gut and flies; A small stock; Gaff, landing-net and glove; Waders; Learning a river; "Taking places"; Running fish; Casting the fly; The Spey cast; Ambidexterity; Fishing the fly; How to land a salmon; Spinning; Spinning with the fly-rod; Spoonbait; Spare triangles; Casting and working the spoon; Bait fishing; Sea-trout; Ways of catching them; Bull-trout; Night-fishing. CHAPTER XVIII. - CONCLUSION "Where?"; Difficulty of getting fishing; Some useful guide-books; A word of caution; Enquiries; Local tackle-dealers; Fishing clubs and societies; Free fishing; Hotel waters; Fishing by permission. End of Preview. 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