The Complete Angler

                                                       The Complete Ang

www.thecompleteangler.net                                                 The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton & Charles Cotton

ler

THE SECOND DAY.

(Continued.)

CHAPTER VI.

FISHING AT THE TOP CONTINUED---FURTHER DIRECTIONS FOR FLY-MAKING---TIME WHEN THE GRAYLING IS IN SEASON---ROCK IN PIKEPOOL.

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Pisc. jun. Boy! come, give me my dubbing-bag here presently. And now, sir, since I find you so honest a man, I will make no scruple to lay open my treasure before you.

Viat. Did ever any one see the like! What a heap of trumpery is here! certainly never an angler in Europe, has his shop half so well furnished as you have.

Pisc. You, perhaps, may think now that I rake together this trumpery, as you call it, for show only; to the end that such as see it, which are not many I assure you, may think me a great master in the art of angling: but let me tell you here are some colours, as contemptible as they may seem here, that are very hard to be got; and scarce any one of them, which, if it should be lost, I should not miss, and be concerned about the loss of it too, once in the year. But look you, sir, amongst all these I will choose out these two colours only, of which, this is bear's hair, this darker, no great matter what: but I am sure I have killed a great deal of fish with it; and with one or both of these, you shall take trout or grayling this very day, notwithstanding all disadvantages, or my art shall fail me.

Viat. You promise comfortably, and I have a great deal of reason to believe every thing you say: but I wish the fly were made, that we were at it.

Pisc. That will not be long in doing: and pray observe then. You see first how I hold my hook, and thus I begin. Look you, here are my first two or three whips about the bare hook; thus I join hook and line; thus I put on my wings; thus I twirl and lap on my dubbing; thus I work it up towards the head; thus I part my wings; thus I twirl and lap on my dubbing; thus I nip my superfluous dubbing from my silk: thus fasten; thus trim and adjust my fly: and there's a fly made. And now how do you like it!

Viat. In earnest, admirably well; and it perfectly resembles a fly; but we about London make the bodies of our flies both much bigger and longer, so long as even almost to the very beard of the hook.

Pisc. I know it very well, and had one of these flies given me by an honest gentleman, who came with my Father Walton to give me a visit; which, to tell you the truth, I hung in my parlour window to laugh at; but, sir, you know the proverb, "They who go to Rome, must do as they at Rome do;" and, believe me, you must here make your flies after this fashion, or your will take no fish. Come, I will look you out a line, and you shall put it on, and try it. There, sir, now I think you are fitted; and now beyond the farther end of the walk you shall begin. I see at that bend of the water above, the air crimps the water a little, knit your line first here, and then go up thither, and see what you can do.

Viat. Did you see that, sir?

Pisc. Yes, I saw the fish, and he saw you too, which made him turn short; you must fish further off, if you intend to have any sport here; this is no New River, let me tell you! That was a good trout, believe me; did you touch him?

Viat. No, I would I had, we would not have parted so! Look you, there was another! This is an excellent fly!

Pisc. That fly, I am sure, would kill fish, if the day were right; but they only chew at it, I see, and will not take it. Come, sir, let us return back to the fishing-house; this still water I see will not do our business to-day. You shall now, if you please, make a fly yourself, and try what you can do in the streams with that; and I know a trout taken with a fly of your own making, will please you better than twenty with one of mine. Give me that bag again, sirrah. Look you, sir, there is a hook, towght, silk, and a feather for the wings: be doing with those, and I will look you out a dubbing, that I think will do.

Viat. This is a very little hook.

Pisc. That may serve to inform you, that it is for a very little fly, and you must make your wings accordingly; for as the case stands it must be a little fly, and a very little one too, that must do your business. Well said! believe me you shift your fingers very handsomely: I doubt I have taken upon me to teach my master. So, here's your dubbing now.

Viat. This dubbing is very black.

Pisc. It appears so in hand, but step to the door and hold it up between your eye and the sun, and it will appear a shining red: let me tell you, never a man in England can discern the true color of a dubbing any way but that; and therefore choose always to make your flies on such a bright sunshine day as this, which also you may the better do, because it is worth nothing to fish in. Here, put it on; and be sure to make the body of your fly as slender as you can. Very good! Upon my word you have made a marvellous handsome fly.

Viat. I am very glad to hear it; 'tis the first that ever I made of this kind in my life.

Pisc. Away, away! you are a doctor at it: but I will not commend you too much, lest I make you proud. Come, put it on, and you shall now go downward to some streams betwixt the rocks below the little foot-bridge you see there, and try your fortune. Take heed of slipping into the water as you follow me under this rock. So, now you are over, and now throw in.

Viat. This is a fine stream indeed! There's one! I have him.

Pisc. And a precious catch you have of him; pull him out! I see you have a tender hand. This is a diminutive gentleman, e'en throw him in again, and let him grow till he be more worthy your anger.

Viat. Pardon me, sir, all's fish that comes to the hook with me now. Another!

Pisc. And of the same standing.

Viat. I see I shall have good sport now. Another! and a grayling. Why you have fish here at will.

Pisc. Come, come, cross the bridge, and go down the other side, lower; where you will find finer streams, and better sport, I hope, than this. Look you, sir, here is a fine stream now. You have length enough, stand a little further off, let me entreat you; and do but fish this stream like an artist, and peradventure a good fish may fall to your share. How now! What is all gone?

Viat. No, but I touched him; but that was a fish worth taking.

Pisc. Why now, let me tell you, you lost that fish by your own fault, and through your own eagerness and haste: for you are never to offer to strike a good fish, if he do not strike himself, till first you see him turn his head after he has taken your fly; and then you can never strain your tackle in the striking, if you strike with any manner of moderation. Come, throw in once again, and fish me this stream by inches; for I assure you here are very good fish: both trout and grayling lie here; and at that great stone on the other side, 'tis ten to one a good trout gives you the meeting.

Viat. I have him now, but he is gone down towards the bottom. I cannot see what he is, yet he should be a good fish by his weight: but he makes no great stir.

Pisc. Why then, by what you say, I dare venture to assure you 'tis a grayling, who is one of the deadest-hearted fishes in the world; and the bigger he is, the more easily taken. Look you now, you see him plain; I told you what he was. Bring hither that landing-net, boy. And now, sir, he is your own; and believe me a good one, sixteen inches long I warrant him: I have taken none such this year.

Viat. I never saw a grayling before look so black.

Pisc. Did you not? Why then let me tell you, that you never saw one before in right season: for then a grayling is very blck about his head, gills, and down his back; and has his belly of a dark gray, dappled with black spots, as you see this is; and I am apt to conclude, that from thence he derives his name of umber. Though I must tell you this fish is past his prime, and begins to decline, and was in better season at Christmas than he is now. But move on, for it grows toward dinner-time; and there is a very great and fine stream below, under that rock, that fill the deepest pool in all the river, where you are almost sure of a good fish.

Viat. Let him come, I'll try a fall with him. But I had thought, that the grayling had always been in season with the trout, and had come in and gone out with him.

Pisc. Oh, no! assure yourself a grayling is a winter-fish, but such a one as would deceive any but such as know him very well indeed, for his flesh, even in the worst season, is so firm, and will so easily calve, that in plain truth he is very good meat at all times: but in his perfect season, which, by the way, none but an overgrown grayling will ever be, I think him so good a fish, as to be little inferior to the best trout that ever I tasted in my life.

Viat. Here's another skip-jack; and I have raised five or six more at least while you were speaking: Well, go thy way little Dove! thou art the finest river that ever I saw, and the fullest of fish. Indeed, Sir, I like it so well, that I am afraid you will be troubled with me once a year, so long as we two live.

Pisc. I am afraid I shall not, Sir; but were you once here a May or June, if good sport would tempt you, I should then expect you would sometimes see me; for you would then say it were a fine river indeed, if you had once seen the sport at the height.

Viat. Which I will do, if I live, and that you please to give me leave. There was one; and there another.

Pisc. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of your own making! Why what a dangerous man are you!

Viat. I, sir, but who taught me? and as Damaetas says by his man Dorus, so you may say by me:

-------If my man such praises have,
What then have I, that taught the knave?

But what have we go here? A rock springing up in the middle of the river! this is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw.

Pisc. Why, sir, from that pike, that you see standing up there distant from the rock, this is called Pike-Pool. And young Mr. Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in landscape in black and white, in a blank book I have at home; as he has done several prospects of my house also, which I keep for a memorial of his favour, and will show you, when we come up to dinner.

Viat. Has young Master Izaak Walton been here too?

Pisc. Yes, marry has he sir, and that again, and again too, and in France since, and at Rome, and at Venice, and I can't tell where; but I intend to ask him a great many hard questions so soon as I can see him, which will be, God willing, next month. In the meantime, sir, come to this fine stream at the head of this great pool, you must venture over these slippery, cobbling stones. Believe me, sir, there you were nimble, or else you had been down! But now you are got over, look to yourself; for, on my word, if a fish rise here, he is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle. How now!

Viat. I think you have command here over the fishes, that you can raise them by your word, as they say conjurors can do spirits, and afterward make them do what you bid them; for here's a trout has taken my fly. I had rather have lost a crown. What luck's this! he was a lovely fish, and turned up a side like a salmon!

Pisc. O sir, this is a war where you sometimes win, and must sometimes expect to lose. Never concern yourself for the loss of your fly; for ten to one I teach you to make a better. Who's that calls?

Servant. Sir, will it please you to come to dinner?

Pisc. We come. You hear, sir, we are called: and now take your choice, whether you will climb this steep hill before you, from the top of which you will go directly into the house, or back again over these stepping-stones, and about by the bridge.

Viat. Nay, sure, the nearest way is the best: at least my stomach tells me so: and I am now so well acquainted with your rocks, that I fear them not.

Pisc. Come, then, follow me: and so soon as we have dined, we will down again to the little house, where I will begin at the place where I left off about fly-fishing, and read you another lecture; for I have a great deal more to say upon that subject.

Viat. The more the better; I could never have met with a more obliging master, my first excepted; nor such sport can all the rivers about London ever afford, as is to be found in this pretty river.

Pisc. You deserve to have better, both because I see you are willing to take pains, and for liking this little so well and better I hope to show you before we part.