PLEASURES OF FISHING

3

Yet compared with the serious things of life, fishing is after all a trivial business. The thoughtful angler must frankly confess this. It adds to the difficulty of the problem when he asks himself why the pleasure of catching a few trout is so great and failure so disheartening. The eagerness and excitement with which one sets about fishing water which holds big fish is almost childish. The value of the prize is in no way comparable to the desire it arouses. When the fish are rising and showing themselves, the longing to hook them which one feels is almost insane. And again when we see them feeding regardless of our fly or dashing off terrified at our efforts to delude them, the resentment which the fisherman feels is almost like the anger of a madman. These emotions resemble the longing, the despair, or the indignation of childhood. To tell the truth, fishermen remain always boys so far as their amusement goes. Yet they learn something by experience, and no one will pretend that as we get older the disappointment of losing a big fish, just when it was nearly landed, is quite as bitter as

it was when we were younger. With youthful envy we watch experienced fishermen catching fish when we only bungle and fail. Admiration at their skilful powers and humiliation at our own clumsy casting make us ready to give years of our lives to attain the art which they possess. Perhaps in time we reach the same degree of skill and find ourselves able to catch those shy and cautious trout which seemed formerly so impossible to delude. The satisfaction is very great and well worth the labour and time it has cost to attain. But perhaps, like many things in life, when we have got our desired object we take it as our due; and the satisfaction is not as lively as the desire might lead us to expect. So success and failure in fishing show us, as in a mirror, the careers of men in the great world. But it is all in miniature, and the emotions of the actors are those of children. It may be, perhaps, because men become again, as it were, little children that fishing gives those who love it such great pleasure and keeps them young.

Most, but not all, anglers are lovers of

COMPETITION IN FISHING

5

nature. Many get a large part of their pleasure from the charm and beauty of the surroundings amidst which it is their good fortune to fish. It is not uncommon, on the other hand, to read bald and stolid accounts of fishing which betray no feeling whatever for the happiness of the open air, and which contain nothing but a chronicle of weights, flies, tackle, sandwiches and flasks. It may be that the baldness of these narratives is more due to a small vocabulary than to want of feeling for the beauties of nature and the charms of rivers and lakes. It is, I think, essential that a good fisherman should be keen to catch fish ; and though he may affect a philosophic air over a blank day, he should at heart feel a great sense of disappointment. If others fishing the same water have caught fish, it is right and proper that disappointment should be tinged with humiliation. Competition of a moderate and unselfish kind gives flavour to the pleasure of angling, but angling competitions for prizes are detestable. A man may enjoy a day's fishing up to a certain point though he has failed to catch anything; but if

he maintains that he does not care whether he catches fish or not he is a trifler. For the end of fishing is to catch the biggest fish possible and to kill them. To catch fish and throw them back is futile labour and unworthy of a serious angler.

To return, however, to the question that was originally propounded. Can any fisherman explain, to one that is not an angler, the extraordinary pleasure that fishing affords? I doubt it, and no book on fishing, I fear, conveys to those who have not the taste any real impression. of the angler's pleasure. To say that Piscator nascitur non fit is to offer no explanation and is probably often untrue. Some men become anglers because they have the opportunity in youth, but more have the opportunity and do not avail themselves of it. A man who has the real passion for fishing, so that his mind is constantly occupied with thoughts of it, must be very unfortunately placed if he does not find opportunities. There are, of course, men of very diverse characters who have been fishermen. The notion is deeply rooted that fishing requires

PATIENCE IN FISHING

7

infinite patience and is, as the phrase goes, the contemplative man's recreation.

Often may patience, wisdom's meek-eyed friend,
To every form'd recess his steps attend;
And then propitious to the vot'ry's skill,

Flow soft ye waters, and ye winds be still!

This is a mistaken notion so far as fly-fishing for trout goes, though it may be true when one sits watching a float. In every sort of fly-fishing a man's attentive and observant faculties are stretched to the utmost. For if there is no rise, one waits and watches for the slightest sign of fly appearing or fish feeding, so as to pick up any chance trout that one can. Trout fishing is too absorbing for a man to become impatient.

To tell the truth, there is such variety in fishing and the occupation is so absorbing that one can fish day after day through a season and not weary. Much fishing and many bad days take the keenness off the edge of angling excitement; but it is rare to find a fisherman sated and indifferent. It is a strange thing, too, that of the famous men in history who have been anglers, few, if any, have been bad men. But