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book lies in his minute and anxious directions as to the best method of fishing a stream. Notwithstanding the diminution in the numbers of the trout, arising from the causes to which we have already referred, he says, somewhat positively, that "there are not three days, perhaps not even a single day, from May till October, in which an angler, thoroughly versed in all the mysteries of the craft, should not kill at least twelve pounds' weight of trout in any county in the south of Scotland, not excepting Edinburghshire itself." With great submission, we demur to this statement; and we think that very few anglers indeed, if any, will back up Mr Stewart in his assertion. In certain waters such a feat, continued day after day, may be possible, but we do not think so; and we should like to see the experiment tested by some of the regular Tweed fishermen, who are probably the best in the country. If any one of these men, knowing his own river thoroughly, and having the choice of his hours, can capture with rod and line every day, Sundays of course excepted, a minimum weight of twelve pounds of trout, we shall esteem that the most marvellous angling feat which ever has been achieved; and yet such a feat would be short of Mr Stewart's range. For he is not speaking of the Tweed alone, but of the rivers generally of the south of Scotland; and in saying this we cannot help thinking that he passes utterly beyond bounds. We never know the angler yet who would undertake to kill throughout the season, without discrimination of days, twelve pounds per diem on the which, taking the ordinary run of trout at the estimate, high for streams, of four to the pound, would be equivalent to a daily slaughter of four dozen. Now, four dozen of trout constitute by no means a bad day's fishing. We regard the man who can extract that number and weight on an ordinary day, out of any unpreserved water in Mid-Lothian, as singularly lucky; and certainly we should not like, before starting, to offer a heavy bet upon our chances of doing so. That the thing may be done occasionally we know, but not often; and there are many more days

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than three in the season, when no angler, even if he had the persuasive powers of St Anthony of Padua, who made the fishes listen to his preaching, could hope to put a couple of pounds into his creel. Without guddling," a noble but recondite science to which we were once much addicted, we hold the alleged or rather asserted feat to be impossible; nor shall we alter our opinion until we have satisfactory evidence that any angler in the south of Scotland, not restricting his operations to one river, has captured each successive lawful day, three only excepted, during four months of the year, not less than twelve pounds' weight of trout.

So much by way of "snubsky" to Mr Stewart, who, we are sure, upon reflection, will see that he has gone too far. But it is a fine boast, arising from a noble enthusiasm, and we let it lightly go by.

The chief point upon which Mr Stewart insists, is the superior advantage of fishing "up stream" instead of "down stream," which lat ter is the practice of the great majo rity of anglers. There certainly must be some fascination in the wrong method, for we have repeatedly observed men-fair anglers too-whose way lay up a river, proceeding directly to the top of each stream, and then fishing it down, which, as a matter of course, involved an unnecessary loss of time. That, however, was of minor consequence; for by the waterside we are apt to take little note of time, and the shades of evening find the loiterer and the galliard alike standing by the pool. Indeed, we are rather of opinion that the indif ferent angler, who makes sporting his pretext for enjoying the sights and sounds of nature, which nowhere are more pleasant and sweet than by the banks of a running stream-who can lie for an hour at a stretch upon the sward in a dreamy reverie, watching the shadows of the clouds chasing each other along the slopes of the opposite hill, inhaling the fragrance of the thyme and yellow whin, or listening to the notes of the linnet -experiences a more intense and unalloyed delight than does his active companion, who strides onward through ford and shallow, nor inter

mits the waving of his wand. But the keen angler, though by no means insensible to the charm of surrounding objects, regards the capture of fish as the chief end of his being, and would feel as much mortified and ashamed if compelled to return home with an empty basket, as a cateran of yore who had failed in the driving of a creach. To the aspirants after piscatory renown Mr Stewart addresses himself; and albeit he speaks, as is common with him, magisterially, we opine that there is much wisdom in his words.

"The great error of fly-fishing as usually practised, and as recommended to be practised by books, is, that the angler fishes down stream, whereas he should fish up.

"We believe we are not beyond the mark in stating, that ninety-nine anglers out of a hundred fish down with the artificial fly; they never think of fishing in any other way, and never dream of attributing their want of success to it. Yet we are prepared to prove, both in theory and practice, that this is the greatest reason of their want of success in clear waters. In all our angling excursions, we have only met one or two amateurs, and a few professionals, who fished up stream with the fly, and used it in a really artistic manner. If the wind is blowing up, anglers will occasionally fish up the pools-as for fishing up a strong stream, they never think of it but even then they do not do it properly, and meet with little better success than if they had followed their usual method. They will also, if going to some place up a river, walk up, not fish up to it, their plan being to go to the top of a pool, and then fisli it down, never casting their line above them at all.

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"We shall now mention in detail the advantages of fishing up, in order to show its superiority over the old method. "The first and greatest advantage is, that the angler is unseen by the trout. Trout, as is well known, keep their heads up stream; they cannot remain stationary in any other position. being the case, they see objects above and on both sides of them, but cannot discern anything behind them, so that the angler fishing down will be seen by them twenty yards off; whereas the angler fishing up will be unseen, although he be but a few yards in their rear. The advantages of this it is impossible to over-estimate. No creatures are more easily scared than trout; if they see any

object moving on the river's bank, they run into deep water, or beneath banks and stones, from which they will not stir for some time. A bird flying across the

water or the shadow of a rod will sometimes alarm them; and nothing connected with angling is more certain than this, that if the trout see the angler, they will not take his lure. He may ply his minnow in the most captivating manner, may throw his worm with consummate skill, or make his flies light softly as a gossamer, all will be unavailing if he is seen by the trout.

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'The next advantage of fishing up we shall notice, is the much greater probability of hooking a trout when it rises. In angling down stream, if a trout rises and the angler strikes, he runs a great risk of pulling the flies straight out of its mouth; whereas in fishing up, its back is to him, and he has every chance of bringing the hook into contact with its jaws. This, although it may not seem of great importance to the uninitiated, tells considerably when the contents of the basket come to be examined at the close of the day's sport; indeed, no angler would believe the difference unless he himself proved it.

"Another advantage of fishing up is, that it does not disturb the water so much. Let us suppose the angler is fishing down a fine pool; he of course commences at the top, the place where the best trout, and those most inclined to feed, invariably lie. After a few casts he hooks one, which immediately runs down, and by its vagaries, leaping in the air, and plunging in all directions, alarms all its neighbours, and it is ten to one if he gets another rise in the pool. ing up saves all this; the angler commences at the foot, and when he hooks a trout, pulls it down, and the remaining portions of the pool are undisturbed. This is a matter of some importance; and we have frequently, in small streams, taken a dozen trout out of a pool from which, had we been fishing down, we could not possibly have got more than two or three.

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"The last advantage of fishing up is, that by it the angler can much better adapt the motions of his flies to those of the natural insect. And here it may be mentioned as a rule, that the nearer the motions of the artificial flies resemble those of the natural ones under similar circumstances, the greater will be the prospects of success. Whatever trout take the artificial fly for, it is obvious they are much more likely to be deceived by a natural than by an unnatural motion."

One special recommendation of this book, as an angling treatise, is the clearness with which Mr Stewart lays down his positions, and the care which he has bestowed on the proof. He does not content himself with merely giving directions: he explains, and always lucidly, why such directions are given. With regard to the point under consideration, we hold him to be perfectly sound-indeed, it would be very difficult, with any show of reason, to maintain the opposite argument; and although this is no new discovery, our author is entitled to praise for having so strenuously advocated that method of angling which, being formed upon close observation of the peculiar habits of the fish, must necessarily be, and is, superior to any other. There is plenty of scope for variety of opinion in minor matters. For example, many may dissent, and with good show of reason, from Mr Stewart's notions touching the length and elasticity of rods, and also as to the inutility of a varied stock of flies. In such matters men will be guided by predilection and experience; but the question as to the best mode of fishing a stream, under certain given conditions, involves a principle to which the author has most properly given minute and deliberate atten

tion.

We would also, at this season of the year, recommend to the angler's attention the chapter on fishing with the May-fly, or rather stone-fly, which is the Scottish_equivalent for the green drake. Every one who has frequented the waters in the earlier part of the month of June, must have observed among stone beds near streams, or shingle on the margin of lochs, an ill favoured insect, rather black than yellow, bearing a close resemblanceto an exaggerated earwig, which scuttles about with extreme celerity, and which is not inviting to touch. That is the stone-fly, just developing into maturity; and while it lasts, no more deadly bait can be employed for the capture of trout. Strange to say, it has hitherto been very little used by our Scottish anglers, body seem to despise the natural fly, though probably the ifliculty of collecting and keeping

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these insects may account for this neglect. For that reason we have never essayed this kind of fishing seriously, though we have occasionally, out of curiosity, made a cast with a stray creeper, and been rewarded by the capture of a good trout. We are now, however, persuaded that we have been in the wrong, and we intend, upon the very first occasion, to give the stone-fly a deliberate trial. Maggots we detest, as also does Mr Stewart, and we are not inclined to disagree with him in his general strictures upon the use of salmon-roe.

We think, however, that he is wrong in maintaining that trout are not attracted from any considerable distances by the smell or taste of salmonroe in the water, as stated by Mr Stoddart in his Angler's Companion. That gentleman, who is second to none in piscatory accomplishment and experience, states two instances in which, without moving from the spot, he made extraordinary captures with the roe: and he gives a distinct, and, to us, satisfactory reason for his belief that the fish were so attracted. Here are Mr Stoddart's words :

eight o'clock A. M., and left off, my bait "I commenced angling precisely at being wholly exhausted, at ten minutes before one, the whole period of time occupied by me extending to nearly five hours. The number of trout captured was in all two hundred and twelve, several of them weighing a pound and a half. I hooked and played also two bull-trout, or large whitlings, but, owing to the undersize of my hooks, or some other cause, they made their escape. As on the former occasion, the fish, when I was compelled for want of bait to abanhumour-more eager, indeed, and ravendon the sport, were still in feeding ous than during any other portion of the forenoon. The spot I occupied on the above-mentioned day lies at a distance of three hundred yards from the junction of the Teviot with Tweed, and as the two varieties of the common or parr trout inhabiting the two rivers are quite

distinct the one from the other in external appearance, I was at no loss to

specify and assort them. I came, accordingly, to the conclusion that, at the

by me belonged to Tweed, and that these, fewest, two-thirds of the fish captured owing to the attractive qualities of the salmon-roe, had traced their way up to the bait, some of them, I have no doubt,

out of Maxwheel pool, situated at the distance of half a mile from the spot in question."

To this conclusion Mr Stewart objects, and starts the hypothesis, "that on the occasions alluded to by Mr Stoddart, he captured the trout, which belonged to a part of the river so much below where he was, not because they had been attracted all that distance by the smell of the roe, but because, when a flood begins to subside in the fall of the year, they travel upwards in search of spawning-ground." But the peculiarity of Mr Stoddart's statement is this, that two-thirds of the common trout which he then caught belonged, as was evident from their distinctive markings, not to the Teviot, in which river he was fishing, but to the Tweed. Now, although it is impossible to speak with certainty upon a subject so beset with doubt and difficulty as the movements of fish, almost all naturalists and anglers agree in thinking that the common trout do not shift their ground, or pass, at least in considerable quantities, from one river into another. Their spawning-grounds lie in the river in which they were bred; and therefore we regard Mr Stewart's hypothesis as being ex facie much less probable than the conclusion at which Mr Stoddart arrived. Besides, we can testify from our own experience that trout are attracted, and from considerable distances, by the odour or taste of salmon-roe in the water. Some years ago, in early spring, when fish are not on the move for spawning, we tried salmon-roe in the Talla, a small tributary of the Tweed. The water was then swollen with rain, and for the first half-hour we had but little sport. Gradually, however, the fish became more numerous and larger, and finally we succeeded in filling our basket, leaving off simply on account of the bait failing us. Now the Talla is by no means overstocked with trout, and we cannot account for the number killed on that occasion otherwise than by supposing that they were allured from streams much lower down the water by the flavour of the roe. Again, shortly after

Mr Stoddart's work appeared, we made an experiment with the roe in the upper part of the Esk in Dumfriesshire, in order, if possible, to test the soundness of his views. The water was then low and clear, the time being the latter part of August, and hardly a trout was to be seen. We threw into a long slow-running reach, where the current was not strong enough to carry them down, several pellets of roe; and after watching for a time in ambushment, we saw the trout coming up in considerable numbers from a lower stream, as also eels, of which there are great numbers in the Esk. They swam slowly upwards, questing, as it were, for something which they expected to find above, until they reached the pellets, which they seized and devoured. We hold this to be proof positive that the taint of the roe is very strong in the water, and that it will attract fish from a much greater distance than Mr Stewart is willing to allow

-a fact which by implication shows the utility of the artificial spawningbeds or ponds lately formed on the Tay, in which the ova of the salmon are safely preserved from the gluttonous ravages of the trout.

But a truce to these disquisitionsfor, oh joy of joys, the wind has gone round to the west! there have been soft showers, and now the sun, as Ossian phrases it, is riding in his azure fields, and the leaves are impetuously rushing forth, and the dandelion is bedizening the grass with its yellow stars. Who would tarry in the town when lambs are frisking on the turf, and the cuckoo is vocal on the hill-side? Not we! Bound are we by a solemn pledge, on the first apparition of spring, to meet with the friend of our bosom on the banks of Loch Awe; and not for all the lands that ever called a son of Diarmid master, will we break the troth we have plighted to him of the sporting-jacket. So then, let us give this book of Mr Stewart a place on the shelf of our library which contains the works of Walton, Stoddart, and other acknowledged masters of the gentle craft, and in that honoured company let it rest. And now for an inspection of our gear.

MANCHESTER EXHIBITION OF ART-TREASURES.

building the diverse nations of the earth brought together, each speaking the same tongue, to all alike intelligible and eloquent-the one common language of art expression. It is true that this language has fallen into diverse dialects and idioms, according to the wants and the ideas of varied peoples; yet however modulated, and in some instances corrupted, this universal art-language does, especially in an Exhibition like the present, still attest the essential unity of humanity, and confirm the truth that God made of one flesh all the dwellers upon earth.

THE enthusiasm of the nation is appealed to, and ought to be aroused, by the rich treasures here brought together, to allure the senses and inform the intellect. If the end of art be high enjoyment, then, the present Exhibition is a grand success. All that can minister to delight in an interior at once architectural and pictorial, decorated and adorned with works of poetic beauty; all that can feast the eye with lovely forms, or delight the ear by pleasant sounds, here seeks to minister to the refined epicurean sense of high civilisation. It is not, however, because this Exhibition is a gorgeous spectacle, but In what sense, then, is this collecrather because it is an educational tion educational? Because it teaches museum that it now merits our special by that example which is stronger notice. It is educational because at than precept. The public have once chronological, historical, and heard much of pre-Raphaelitism and international. It is chronological in post-Raphaelitism, and have prothe arrangement of the schools-his-bably formed no very definite idea of torical as including a series of works more consecutively complete than the world has yet seen under one roof in any one city. In the art of painting, for example, it extends from Duccio and Cimabue, in the latter end of the thirteenth century, down to our own times in the second half of the nineteenth. Thus extending over time it becomes historical; by the wide sweep it takes over space it is no less international. The national arts of India, China, Byzantium, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Holland, and lastly of our own country, are here brought together for mutual comparison or contrast. Under this one roof, within the survey of a few hours, are collected the arts of hostile races and nationalities, of rival civilisations or barbarisms, of diverse or repellant faiths-Pagan and Christian, Roman and Protestant; all these arts here peacefully-shall we not say beneficently-meet together, offering for our present instruction all the beauty and the truth which has given to each an immortality of fame. The language of art through the eye differs in this from the language of the tongue, that it has never

Babel.

the meaning of the terms. Let them
come here, then, and reduce the
vagueness of words to the positive
evidence of their senses. They have
heard of the ideal beauty of Italian
art, and of the literal truth of the
early German; let them come to the
saloon where these two nationalities
are on opposite walls contrasted, and
then determine the character and the
value of the qualities which, in the
works themselves, have thus been
the subject of praise or censure.
They may have been told that our
English school of portraiture is too
much under the sway of Vandyck—
too little under the influence of Hol-
bein. Let them cross over, then, to
the English gallery; examine well
the characteristics of our portraits,
and returning to Holbein, judge
whether, and in what degree, this
painter is entitled to be our present
instructor. Lastly, they may have
heard some few years since, that the
influence of the Carracci school in this
country was too great; that it was
still extending, and ought to be
diminished.
put this hearsay charge to the more
Let them, then, now

certain test of ocular demonstration.

This Exhibition,

Thus do we find in this used, ought to disabuse the public

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