Fisherman

“ 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! ”

“ As the tide rises, lithe and glashin, brazers, gurnet, rock codling, and crowds of cuddings come here to feed, and the fisherman, on those rare days, when he can land at all, may count on bringing home with him great bunches of fish strung through the gills. ”

“ To the peaceable and industrious fisherman they scarcely pay any regard, whether he drags his heavy net along the shore, or patiently waits until his well-baited hook is gulped below the dancing yet well-anchored bark, over the side of which he leans in constant and anxious expectation. ”

“ Fishing for a cod is not an occupation calling for very much industry. The fisherman baits his line, ties it to a stake fixed on the river bank, and on the stake hangs a bell. Then the fisherman gets under the shadow of a gum-tree and enjoys a quiet life, reading or just lazing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few fishermen with their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their great living-rafts of poplar and alder, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof woven out of thick rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are wafted to and fro by the changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it is but by chance; and so gently, too, that the sleeping fisherman is not awakened by the shock. Should he wish to land, it is merely because he has seen a large flight of landrails or plovers, of wild ducks, teal, widgeon, or woodchucks, which fall an easy pray to net or gun. ”

“ The life of the fisherman is the most hard that any human toilers have to endure. Violence from the wind and waves, and pelting from firestones out of the sky are their daily portion; the great beasts that dwell in the seas hunt them with savage persistence, and it is a rare day when at least some one of the fishers’ guild fails to come home to answer the tally. ”

“ Long, you are, I have heard, an enthusiastic fisherman; that is no common pleasure which you feel when your rod is bowed by some enormous trout, cunning and strong, who may break the whole of your tackle, and get away, after all, but who also may be landed helpless on the bank, a victim to your skill and patience. ”

“ Once his head is turned, providing he is well hooked, he is safe, and although it may take you ten minutes ere you haul him into such shallow water that he cannot swim upright, and he falls over upon his broad, noble side, and slides out upon the sand, it is a ten minutes of joy unalloyed to the youthful fisherman who takes no heed of two other lines as taut as his own, and only prays softly to himself that his may be the biggest fish of the three. ”

“ In this domain, removed from the haunts of men and far away from the noise and dust of their turmoil and strife, the fishing that can fully delight the heart of the true fisherman is found; and here in its enjoyment, those who fish are led, consciously or unconsciously, to a quiet but distinct recognition of a power greater than man’s, and a goodness far above human standards. ”

“ Then turning to the fisherman: "Good fisherman,” quoth he, “I thank thee. Yet had I found thee less hospitable and kind, methinks thou wouldst scarcely have got quit of me to-day. For, as I see, there is a broad lake before us, and behind lieth the wood. God forbid that I should ride back into its mysterious depths, now that the shades of night are falling.”
“Nay, nay,” quoth the fisherman, “we will not speak too much of that!” So he led his guest into the cottage. ”

“ And towards the strand now the fisherman makes.
And up when the fisher his fishing-line drew,
A fine golden fish on the hook met his view.
Then he laughed in his beard: “I’ve of fish seen a store,
But ne’er one with golden cloth kirtle before.
“If I a gold piece for each gold-scale possess’d,
With poverty I should no more be distrest.”
p. 26With its tail the fish ’gan the bench furious to smite,
And a strange dance it seemed to the fisherman’s sight.
“Thou wealthy man, be not, I pray thee, so gay,
A much quieter part a poor fisher should play.” ”

“ To make it disgorge the fish which it has swallowed, the fisherman holds the bird with its head downwards, and strokes its head with his hand. Some are so well trained as to have no occasion for the ring. They bring their prey honestly to their master, and when they have caught as much he wants, he allows them to fish for themselves. ”

“ The art of fishing is one of the oldest in the world, yet even to this day the fisherman is simply a hunter, gathering where he has not sown, and differing little, save in mechanical efficiency, from his primitive ancestor fishing with spear and trap. ”

“ Though the fisherman about his fire up under the lee of the pines on shore loves to tell tales of the fish of other days and other ponds he is far from garrulous when on the ice and hard at it. And usually he is too busy to talk. ”

“ A fisherman caught one about three feet long, a most vicious little brute, who snaps at everyone and everything; he is tied by the middle with a piece of string, and swims about in a bath; he will probably be eaten when his master gets hungry. ”

“ If the mackerel, herring, cod, and haddock upon which the fisher folk depend for their living, were more regular in their habits, ami turned up at the same place at the same time every year, so that the men with the nets and hooks could count upon their harvests as the men with the scythes and hoes can upon theirs, the fisherman's lot would be a fairly comfortable one. ”

“ He knows their habits better and the best kind of bait to use. A lover of fishing should take a personal interest in his equipment and should desire to have the best he can afford.
The chief requirement of a successful fisherman is patience. Next to that is a knowledge of the waters fished in and the habits of the fish and how to attract them. A man or a boy who will sit all day in the hot sun waiting for a bite is not always a good fisherman. ”

“ A helper stands behind the fisherman to assist in raising the haul,—to give the fish a tap on the nose, which kills him instantly,—and finally to carry him ashore to be split and dried, without any danger of his throwing himself back into the water from the hands of his captors, as might easily happen by omitting the coup-de-grace. ”

“ There was an ancient, but hale and opulent Fisherman, who had fished with much success for many a day in troubled waters. This practice of his involved him, of course, in extremely arduous labours, but resulted, generally, in securing him a fair share of hard-earned spoil, to the great envy of other fishermen of less hardihood and enterprise. He imposed it upon himself, however, as a law, not to cast his nets save during a certain season—or session, as he called it—which usually arrived but once a year. ”

“ Rich gives a lively description of the old fishing days, when “all Yankees fished with hand-lines from the vessel.” “The model fisherman keeps his craft snug and taut. He has tested her temper and strength through storm and calm. He will defend her sea-going and fast-sailing almost with his life. A larger fleet and finer manœuvring have never been seen than in a fleet of fishermen. Sometimes three or four hundred sail, from forty to perhaps one hundred and forty tons, all sea-going, well equipped and well-manned, haul aft their sheets in a freshening breeze to reach a windward harbor. ”

“ The moment you have passed the fisherman, and the noise and movement of the steamer have frightened the fish toward the shore, he darts out in his boat with one end of a net of many roods in extent, takes a semi-circular sweep and frequently draws in again with very little delay fraught with a school of most luxurious Shad. ”

“ A very inferior kind of fishing is carried on in places where the bed of the river is muddy. The fisherman wades into the river up to his knees or deeper, and every now and then strikes the surface of the water violently. As he does so, the fish which love such localities dive under the mud, where they are felt and held down by the bare feet of the man. As soon as he feels the wriggling of a fish under his foot, he stoops down, often having to plunge entirely under water, draws the fish from under his foot, and drops it into his basket. ”

“ The boatman’s business is to watch for a shoal, which can be seen by their breaking, and when he has found it, by repeated tacks to keep the boat in or near it; the fisherman’s duty is to haul in steadily and regularly immediately on feeling a bite, and to get out his line again as soon as possible. ”

“ The best fisherman, however, will come to shame in streams bordered by pollard willows, and among queer nooks, which can be only fished down-stream. I saw, but the other day, a fish hooked cleverly enough, by throwing to an inch where he ought to have been, and indeed was, and from the only point whence the throw could be made. ”

“ And there came down certain fishermen to the beach to prepare their tackling for fishing: and with them there came one that, as I noted, was no fisherman (for he was not girt as a fisherman) : and he walked down to the brink of the waters and looked out steadfastly to the deep. ”

“ Fearing and two or three friends who own the bass-fishing stands, at the end of one of which a gentleman was then busily 131 engaged in his pastime, for the sea comes rolling up upon the rocks within some forty or fifty yards of the sward of the green meadows on which the house is placed. From it projects into the breakers a platform supported on iron pillars, at the end of which there is an enlargement of the structure to enable the fisherman and his attendants to stand at their ease—the one in hurling the bait and the other in preparing it. ”

“ He is an excellent fisherman, and manages to capture his prey without even a hook. He ties a bait on the end of the line, dangles it before the fish, and gradually coaxes it toward the surface of the water. ”

“ They cannot always come right all at once. When a fisherman angles for large fish, he provides himself with a flexible, elastic rod, and a good long length of line; and when he has hooked his prey, he gives it the line without stint, and allows it to dart to and fro, and plunge and flounder at pleasure, till it has tired itself well, and then he brings it to the bank with ease. ”

“ A SALMON LOCH IN SUTHERLAND Fishermen’s stories are said to be proverbially untrustworthy, and the great majority of people—at any rate of those who are not themselves fishermen—never seem to suppose that in the case of a fisherman, as in the case of every one else, truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction. ”

“ In a fish country he searches for fish and occasionally catches live ones; but he is too restless or shiftless to be a good fisherman. I have seen him catch fish by thrusting his nose in root entanglements in the edge of a brook; sometimes he captures salmon or trout that are struggling through shallow ripples. ”

“ That the mackerel fisheries are profitable may be judged from the experience of one fisherman who took 7000 of the largest possible size—"so big their tails had to be turned up in packing"—from a string of 35 nets in a single night. ”

“ The oldest fisherman will always find something to be learnt from men who have passed their lives on a particular stream, and have studied it from their boyhood. There is, however, only one general principle, and that will always hold good. By this the experienced fisherman will never be at a loss about suiting his fly to the water. ”

“ The old fisherman used to go about with a fishing-rod and tackle to the rivers and lochs and every place where fish resort, and he was killing salmon and other fish to keep the life in himself and his wife and son. ”

“ There wuz everything that could be thought on, or that ever wuz seen in the form of fishin' apparatus—every kind of hook, and spear, and rod, and queer-lookin' baskets and pots, and tackle to catch eels and lobsters, and then there wuz models of fishin' boats and vessels, and everything else under the sun that any fisherman ever sot eyes on, from Josiah back to the Postles, and from the Postles down to any fishin' club in 1893. ”

“ An account of a native Australian fishing describes him lying athwart his bark canoe, with his spear-point dipping into the water ready to go down without splashing, and what is more remarkable, the fisherman keeping his own eyes under water, so that not only the ripple does not disturb his view, but his aim is not interfered with by the refraction of light which makes it so difficult for a man out of the water to hit an object below the surface. ”

“ "Where are the fish, though?"
"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a fisherman's proverb. ”

“ The principal occupation of the inhabitants is fishing. To catch the flying-fish a large torch is burned in a dark night upon a fast sailing canoe. The fish fly toward the glimmer and either strike the sail and fall down or are caught by the skillful fisherman with a long-handled net. ”

“ With Photogravure Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 5s. net.
This is a very charming little book containing the reflections on things piscatorial of a 'dry-fly' fisherman on a south country stream. Although the Author disclaims any right to pose as an expert, it is clear that he knows well his trout, and how to catch them. He is an enthusiast, who thinks nothing of cycling fifteen miles out for an evening's fishing, and home again when the 'rise' is over. ”