H. V. Hart-Davis

“ If you do fish in the evening hours, recollect that you must be just as cautious in approaching fish as if it were broad daylight; that any sign of drag will as effectually put a fish down as in the earlier hours. Your fly must float and cock as jauntily as in the morning, but you lose the chief charm of fishing the floating fly, namely, that you cannot spot your fish in the water and watch their movements; you have to cast at a rise, or where you imagine a rise to have been. ”

“ The landing net is quietly disengaged and half submerged in the stream below him—for if he sees it he will be nerved to fresh efforts—and his head being kept up, he is guided without fuss into its embrace. And after he is given his instant and humane quietus with one tap, rightly placed, of the "Priest," the pipe is lit, tackle is adjusted, and there is leisure to admire the beautiful proportions of a newly caught trout, the glorious colouring of his spots and golden belly. Something has been accomplished, something done. A fair stalk has been rewarded, and it is no chance success. ”

“ Who is there that has not met, on club waters, the ardent and unsuccessful angler who wanders up and down, covering vast stretches of water, and effectually scaring many otherwise takeable fish, in the vain hope that he may find some purblind trout idiotic enough to take his proffered fly? I consider that unwritten etiquette demands that the utmost care should be taken by fishermen to do all in their power to prevent spoiling the sport of those who may be following. ”

“ Another trial provokes a rise, and you are fast in the fish; but, as anticipated, he proves to be a half-pounder, and, handling him gently, after having removed the fly, which was provokingly well fixed in his tongue, you carefully hold him in the water until he has regained his wind and recovered from his exhaustion. Whilst so engaged you hear a heavy splash to your right. Hastily glancing up, you cannot locate that rise either, but it is something that they are beginning. No sedges have appeared, so you retain your olive. A good quiet mid-stream boil above you attracts your attention. ”

“ Can it be seriously suggested that salmon can be credited with sufficient intelligence to refuse a Silver Doctor or Silver Grey and to accept only a Wilkinson? Is it not rather that the fly that was accepted was presented in a most alluring manner, whilst the others which were rejected did not come within the salmon's ken in such a way as to tempt him? Are we not all too prone to change our flies on the slightest provocation, and are we not all inclined to have our own favourite fetish—a fly that succeeds with us simply because we give it ten chances to one of any other? ”

“ Given a single-handed split cane rod, fine tackle, and plenty of fresh run sea trout in a Highland river, and you have the prospect of as good a day's sport as any you ever enjoyed. You never know what the next cast will produce; it may be a half-pounder or something twelve times as big.
The worst of sea trout, from the angler's point of view, is that they are rather gregarious and keep in shoals; they are always anxious to move up to the still deeps they love so well, and you may just miss the shoal—they may be just above your water. ”

“ Those abominable "curses," so well named, appear to be able to baffle entirely the skill of the ablest of our entomologists, and the ability of our most capable of fly dressers. No lure has yet been discovered that can have any reasonable hope of imitating them. To watch a big trout slowly and majestically sail here and there on a still, hot day, barely dimpling the surface as he sucks down one after another of these little insignificant "curses," is quite enough to satisfy you as to the remoteness of your chance of deceiving him. ”

“ Our gillies were watching intently and open-mouthed. One of them, Pat by name, had a peculiarly ugly mouth, with heavy, protruding lips; and whilst he was watching thus intently, the unkind wind brought my friend's fly, a big Jock Scott, right into his mouth, fixed it firmly into his lower lip, the forward cast sending it well home, and nearly dragging poor Pat into the river. We none of us felt equal to attacking the fly in its weird position, so we sent Pat down to the village, a mile or more away, to get the local doctor to extract it. ”

“ A man who has once hooked and played a clean-run salmon, and has experienced the thrill of excitement that continues from the rise until the salmon is safely landed, is not at all likely to forget it, or to miss any chance of renewing his acquaintance with Salmo salar.
The contest is such a fair one, there are so many chances in favour of the fish, that no element of sport is wanting. He is so strong in the water, so perfectly built for speed, that unless you handle him both carefully and skilfully you may easily lose him, even if you have brought him exhausted to the gaff. ”

“ I unhesitatingly answer that it would aid him in every branch of his sport.
What angler amongst us could tie a Turle knot, or even thread an eyed fly, left-handed? We should fumble and fume, and probably give it up in despair. To the dry-fly fisherman the advantage that would accrue through equality of arms and hands would simply mean a duplication of effective power. Think of the countless occasions when an overhanging tree or obtrusive bush has rendered a right-hand cast difficult, if not impossible. In one position in particular a left-hand cast is of extreme value. ”

“ Refreshed in mind and body, you regain your favourite spot at 7 or 7.30 p.m., and the evening seems to promise well. It does not look as if those cruel mists would begin to rise at sundown; there is little or no wind; the hatch of fly throughout the day has been insignificant; surely there must be a good rise this evening, everything seems to foreshadow it. You take up your station and watch the water carefully, especially the one or two spots near the opposite bank that you know full well ought to be occupied by good fish. A few spinners hatch out and dance merrily about ”

“ He rushes hither and thither in the most unexpected manner, and having no particular stronghold or shelter to make for, such as his cousins, the brown trout, possess in their rivers, he tries by resourceful activity to rid himself of the irksome restraint of the rod and line. His rise, too, is so determined and so dashing—no quiet sucking down of a dun without much perceptible body movement, but rather a rapid dash to secure an article of food before his comrades can get it. Not much need to strike with him; he hooks himself pretty effectually by his own efforts. ”

“ As an example of how a difficulty may be overcome it was not without its value. The moral is that a fish, when first hooked and before he has realised what is happening, can be readily persuaded to act according to your will, as he will never consent to do later on. Just as a heavy trout lying amongst a bank of weeds can, if you can get his head up, be led holus-bolus over and across the weeds into reasonable water directly you have hooked him, so, in a similar manner, a salmon will often allow you a latitude in dealing with him at first that he won't give you a second time. ”

“ In the water, a clean-run fish of, say, 18 lb. really plays the angler for some space of time, and you recognise that although your experience and intelligence may enable you, within a reasonable time, to be the victor, yet that you have attached to you a quarry well worthy of your skill, and one, moreover, who may yet call forth all your activity and resource, and who cannot be accounted as caught until he is absolutely on the grass beside you.
I, on the contrary, always consider that playing a salmon is the most exciting and interesting part of the sport. ”

“ Surely that was a rising fish by the bank of rushes yonder? But the shadow of the rushes thrown by the lowered sun prevents you from locating him exactly. It was a floppy rise, probably caused by some small fish. Something must be done, for the time is short; so, letting out your line to the required length, you despatch your olive to sail down the bank of rushes. ”

“ It will not be always so; a change of temperature will come or some subtle atmospheric change about which we know so little, but which effects a wonderful change in the trout. They begin, as it were, at such changes to wake up from their lethargy, to come nearer to the surface and to re-assume their favourite positions—at the tail of yonder weed bank—or in the oily glide under the bank side. ”

“ It is passing pleasant to wander with a small 9 ft. rod up the rocky bed, casting your fly into that miniature salmon pool or into that quaint stickle, whose larger stones shelter the little denizens of the stream, which, for their size, fight like little demons, sportive, hungry, diminutive specimens of the race that produces their bulky Test and Itchen brethren. ”

“ There are days admittedly hopeless, when the river side is only sought for its companionship, and for the unknown possibilities of fortune; and others that are worse than hopeless, when to try to fish for salmon with a fly would be the height of absurdity, as, for instance, when the river is in high spate, or so full of snow brue or ice as to render your chances almost ridiculous. ”

“ The best fisherman is the best all-round fisherman, able and willing to adapt himself to the circumstances in which he may be placed. But how little of this dry-fly work is tried upon our numerous lochs?—not a breath of wind, no good to fish! ”

“ On the whole, perhaps, there will be less divergence of opinion about that singularly fortunate combination of fur, feather, and tinsel, termed the Jock Scott. It seems, to an extraordinary degree, to be effective on most rivers where the artificial fly is used. The combination of colour is most happy, and the fibres of its mixed wing give it, in the water, a most life-like appearance. ”

“ The very drying of your fly is too severe upon the heads of gut-mounted flies. Eyed hooks have, however, had to fight their way to the front, so prejudiced are we all, and I can picture to myself now a prominent legislator, a great angler and the author of one of the best sporting books published of late, standing by me on Test side, on a meadow near Longparish, his cap literally covered with artificial flies attached to strands of gut—a most extraordinary sight. The fish were most unkind, taking greedily some kind of small black insect, or fisherman's curse. ”

“ In considering the merits and demerits of dry-fly fishing, one cannot be altogether blind to the fact that down-stream fishing must inevitably prick and therefore educate many more fish than the floating fly. This being so, it is still more inexplicable that in former days, in chalk-stream waters, our forerunners were able to account for far heavier baskets of trout than we are, despite the heavy restocking our streams now receive, to their great advantage; and we necessarily come back to the old point, what can we do to secure an adequacy of free-rising fish? ”

“ With river-bank fishing, and it is with that that we are dealing, it would be a bold fisherman indeed that would count a fish hooked as a fish landed, and a half-hearted angler that would be content to hand over to the gillie the cream of the contest between the fish and the man. ”

“ It goes without saying that the fly that is most in the water, in the fishable parts of the pools, of course, will catch most fish. The patient, persistent angler has that great advantage over his less energetic brother of the angle. What angler is there, who ties his own flies, who has not built up a combination of fur, feathers, and silk by the river side, and, on trying the novelty, perhaps after days of disappointment, has found it unexpectedly to succeed, and who has thereupon fondly imagined that he has found a "medicine," only to be equally disappointed the next time it is tried? ”

“ Not for a moment would I suggest or imply that equal care is not needed in casting with the May fly if you wish to fill your creel; but, all said and done, a bungling cast will often secure a good fish with that lure which would inevitably have put him down and scared him had he been feeding upon the ordinary flies. It is very noticeable nowadays how capricious the rise is. ”

“ We have often tried for him, but the pace of the stream between us, stand where we will, has always beaten us: no sooner has our well-cocked fly sailed into the head of the glide than it is hurried across it, leaving a most unnatural trail, or wake, behind it such as no living insect ever made. This trail of the serpent, or "drag" as it is called, is one of the greatest difficulties that we have to cope with in angling with the floating fly. ”

“ Is there any phase of life in which ambidexterity would not be a factor of the greatest value? Would it not be a priceless boon equally to the soldier, the surgeon, the engineer, the craftsman, the clerk, or the artisan? And does not the same apply in the domain of sport? In shooting, would you not be at an advantage if you could shoot equally from either shoulder? ”

“ Near this tussock, or a little above it, you note the dimple of a feeding trout; he is in a position where all the duns are brought quietly sailing past his vantage post. A well-cocked fly must inevitably secure him. You watch the duns one by one taken by him; he is feeding steadily, and seems to be a good fish. To reach him you have to cast with the right hand over the left shoulder. It is ten to one that, if the length of cast is correct, the fly will be guided, partly by the wind and partly by your arm, into the fringing grasses. ”

“ Personally, I would just as soon follow a good angler down a pool as precede him. Unless a fish breaks the water in his rise, the fisherman can tell little of what is happening below the water level, except when, by chance, a glimpse of a silver flash is accorded him. But he may have moved a fish with his fly, and, knowing nothing, will have moved a yard down stream, his next cast being a yard below the fish. The next fly, suitably offered, if it be about the same size, may lure our friend to his destruction. ”