Chapter 5. The Fly-Fisher's Aftermath

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter five of an Angler's Hours by Hugh Tempest Sheringham.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter five
The fly fishers after Math. The mayfly goes out, summer
comes in, and trout fishing is over. This was the

(00:23):
strong statement made to me the other day by friend,
who was somewhat disappointed at the poor results which had
attended his efforts on a noted dry fly water. I
upbraided him for being a pessimist and not a strictly
truthful one to boot. But though I would be the
last to admit it to his face, I am by

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no mean sure that there is not a good deal
of justice in his observation. I am not myself so
far gone in pessimism as to assert that trout fishing
is altogether over. But the hammer of adversity has impressed
me with the fact that the glory of it is departed.
The progress of the trout fisher's year is not unlike

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that of courtship. The trout is as capricious as any maid,
now hot, now cold, now kind, now disdainful, never to
be depended on until its capture is an accomplished fact.
And as the convenient irishman would say not always then,

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for there are such things as unfastened kreols, and rotten
landing nets, and even unretentive hands. One might pursue the
illustration a little further. Let us say that the angler
has had the privilege of an introduction to the trout
on some west country stream in March. If it leads

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to even so much as an acquaintanceship and recollection at
the next meeting, he may consider himself fortunate. For there
is a certain vile east wind which commonly blows in March,
and is most biting to all young things love among
the rest. However, now and then towards the end of

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the month, he will find that his intimacy is progressing,
for even an east wind will not blow forever, and
when it is not blowing, sport is always possible. As
he angles on into April, he will meet with still
more success, and by the end of the month he
may almost dare to call it friendship. I am not

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speaking of the past most miserable April, when the wind
blew steadily, mercilessly and unceasingly from the east. Footnote The
sentence was written some years ago, but it seems to
have acquired some of the qualities of a permanent truth.
April is a month sadly changed for the worst, and

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a footnote. All through May, he may venture to use
more and more the privileges of a friend, and on
the first day of June he may seek for his opportunity.
He will find it very soon afterwards, on a day
when he reaches the river and finds that the may
fly is really up the river boiling with hungry trout,

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and the air alive with equally hungry swallows. The chances
are that he will need no encouragement then. But if
he should let the settling of a may fly on
his nose be a signal for putting it to the issue,
if after that he does not win his suit, write
him down a blunderer and unworthy to succeed. It is

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an open question which is the happier the lover at
the supreme moment of affirmative or the fisherman when he
sees his may fly taken at the first cast by
a fish that seems to disturb the whole river by
its size and eagerness to avoid controversy. Let it be
said that they are equally happy on the summit of

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the good things of life. However, I must pause, for
the pursuance of the illustration down the other side might
prove distressing to Love's young dream, and I would chatter
no ideals. It has, in fact, sorrowfully to be confessed
that in fishing, at least the great too much, as

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Shakespeare feelingly calls it, induces satiety in the fish, if
not in the man. And I have no hesitation in
speaking of the mayfly as too much. Viewed from any aspect,
it deserves the censure. The fish eat too much, they
eat too quickly, and they are too full afterwards. Indeed,

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one might almost say that the angler catches too many.
There is nothing in the least admirable about the pride
which many men take in being able to say that
on Friday last they took five dozen fish, weighing anything
they care to put them at, or best omitting the weight,
as Christopher North in the noctase Ambrosiennae one hundred and

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thirty in one day in Locke or James, as I
hope to be saved, not one of them under hmm,
and the candid shepherd puts in the details for him
A dozen puddin, and two thirds of them are boot
alla gither a ton. With a growing candor, he elaborates
a little story for himself, wherein he figures as the

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captor of some sixty three dozen trout in one day,
a carful the kinder of flk thought they were a
carful of herrings. But this is digression. I admit that
it is a pleasant thing to have a good basket
of fish, but an inordinate basket does not materially add

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to the angler's satisfaction, and it does materially injure the
stream on which he fishes. Many good fly fishermen have
a private limit of size, below which they never retain
a fish, and this is an excellent method of being
sure of not taking too many, though for different streams

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it is necessary to fix a different standard. It would
naturally be observed to return everything under a pound in
the West Country, for instance, where a fish of that
weight is a great rarity. But in such rivers as
the Cannet, a pound and a half would not be
too high a limit at any rate. In the mayfly season,

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and as a matter of fact, on some waters it
is possible to take as many fish as one can
carry with the mayfly. I have known one rod on
the tame to catch over two dozen trout up to
two pounds and a half, and none of them under
a pound in one day, but that is somewhat except optional.

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At any rate, the fact remains that given a good
rise of the mainfly, a moderately skillful angler is practically
certain to take a good basket of fish on almost
any water. It is natural that after so large an
anquet as is provided for them by the short lived insect,
the trout should not feed as well as they did

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before it, and that the angler should consequently fare worse.
And it is also natural that he should grow somewhat
weary of the ill luck, which is usual in July
and August. By usual, I do not mean to say invariable,
for of course fish may be caught on the most

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hopeless days. But in these two months empty baskets are
sure to be frequent, and the sport on the whole poor.
The general fisherman will not complain at the behavior of
the trout in the dog day, for he has his
bottom rod to keep him employed. And there is really
no reason for the flyfisher to complain either, for if

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he follows the example of his fellow angler, and directs
his energies to the capture of other kinds of fish,
which provide excellent sport to the fly and are in
their several ways just as interesting to fish for as trout.
I think that angling writers have never yet done sufficient
justice to the pleasure of fly fishing for coarse fish.

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Many of them describe it in detail, with full instructions,
but they all seem to regard it as something inferior
and subordinate to trout fishing, whereas in my opinion it
is an entirely separate branch of the art and entitled
to quite as much respect. It has. Moreover, the advantage
of being at its best when trout fishing is at

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its worst, and it has yet another advantage over trout fishing,
in that it is less practiced and yet far more
easily obtained. I have often wondered why so few fly
fishermen take it seriously. There must be many busy men
who able only to take their holiday in July and

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August rush away to Wales or Devonshire for fly fishing.
They get little sport, as to be expected in rivers
which are probably low and which have been fished hard
and often in the spring months, and they are disappointed.
Were they to apply their skill to the despised corse fish,

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their sport would almost certainly be quite good enough to
satisfy them. The corse fish that take a fly best
are roach, rud, Dace and chub in an ascending scale
of merit. Of the two first, I will say, but
little roach take a fly as a rule in very

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hot weather. Oddly enough, a friend of mine once caught
several roach in the Hampshire Avon with a dry fly
in February, and most of the remarks which I shall
have to make on Dace will apply to them. Rod
are not very widely distributed over England, but where they
are found, principally in the rivers and broads of the

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eastern counties and in the tidal pools of the South coast,
they give splendid sport to the fly. As they are
bold risers and plucky fighters. They grow to a considerable
size too. Fish of two pounds or more are not
uncommon in some waters, while three pounders are not unknown.

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A Norfolk Rudd once smashed a fly rod for me
in a way suggestive of a five pound trout, but
the scales are were not warranted. Dace and chubb will
best repay the trouble of the fly fishier One or
other of them is found in nearly every river in England,

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and in most they are both common. However, they require
to be fished for in somewhat different ways. For though
a chub may take a dace fly and vice versa,
it is best to aim specifically at the one or
the other, and to use different sorts of tackle. Dace

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do not grow to a great size. A fish of
a pound is an uncommonly large one, and though I
have heard of a dace of a pound and a half,
I suspend a judgment until I have actually seen them.
My own aspirations, at present unrealized, do not go beyond
the pound. Fish up to three quarters of a pound, however,

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are fairly common in some rivers, notably the Coal, the Kennet,
the Dorsetshire Stour, and some of the tributaries of the
Great Ooze. The cam is famous among anglers, first for
the size and beauty of its dace, and next because
of the town to which it gives its name. Though
the great unthinking world would possibly reverse the order I've

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also seen very large dace in the test the while,
and one or two other famous trout streams. The small
size of the dace is no adequate criterion of its
fighting power. In my opinion, a dace of half a
pound will fight as well as a grayling of the
same size, And that is as much as to say,

(12:29):
as well as need be, someone will no doubt her
Cotton at me here a grayling who is one of
the deadest hearted fishes in the world, and the bigger
he is, the more easily taken. This looks as if
Cotton had only fished for the grailing in the trout season,
when it is in poor condition, though he certainly does

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say later that it is a winter fish. However this
may be, I mean that the dace fights uncommonly well,
and on fine tackle takes a good deal of landing.
There is one point in connection with this fish on
which most of the writers on angling seem to me
to speak without unduly weighing their words. They advise the

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young angler to practice fly fishing for dace as an
excellent initiation into the more difficult art of trout fishing.
Here I confess myself at variance with them, For it
is my experience that, whether with wet or dry, fly
days are far more difficult to catch than trout. This

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is due to the lightning rapidity with which they rise,
seize the fly, and let it go again, and also
to their too frequent habit of rising short. If a
man fishes much for short rising dace, he will find
that when he turns to trout, his tendency will be
to strike much too quickly. One can strike too quickly

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for trout, but for dace one can hardly strike quickly enough. Hence,
I do not consider dace fishing as very useful practice
for trout, except of course, in so far as any
sort of fly fishing teaches a man how to throw
a good line. One ought perhaps to say a few
words with regard to tackle. The rod, which I like

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as well as any for dace fishing, is a cheap
American split cane. It throws a good enough line, is
very light, and is pliant enough to obviate the natural
tendency to strike too hard, which accompanies one's frantic efforts
to strike instantaneously. But this is only private prejudice. As

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a matter of fact, any fly rod does well enough
for dace, so it be very light and not too stiff.
The real line should be tapered and not too heavy
for the rod. With the American cane, one can use
a very light line, even more or less across the wind.
But the essential thing in dace fishing is that the

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gut cast should be tapered as fine as possible. By possible,
I mean as fine as the lightness of the angler's
hand will permit. A man who cannot get out of
the habit of striking hard loses both time and trouble
in fishing too fine, as the chances are that he
will find himself continuously putting on new flies in place

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of those he has whipped or struck off. But those
who can use the finest tackle will catch most fish.
With regard to flies, they must be small. But it
does not very much matter what pattern one uses if
the fish are rising. It is a mistake to carry
too many varieties, as it leads to the difficulty of

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making up one's mind. If I were restricted to half
a dozen patterns, I should choose the Coachman, Black gnat Wickham,
Red Tag, Brunton's Fancy and Soldier Palmer. But this again
is only private prejudice, there are many other flies equally good.

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We next come to the question of where and how
to fish. Dace are usually on shallows in summer, and
it is there that most will be caught. But in
some rivers there are few shallows and the fish are
in deep water. In the latter case, it is no
use fishing for them unless they can be seen rising,

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and even then they will only take a dry fly.
As a rule, on the shallows, a wet fly is
often as good as a dry one, sometimes better. If
there is much wind, it is decidedly better taking dace fishing.
All in all, however, my experience is that the dry
fly proved killing to the largest fish, and is moreover

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easier to fish with, as a dace rises at it
more visibly and the angler stands a better chance of
striking in time. Sometimes dace may be caught with the fly,
even in midwinter. A warm sunny day seems to tempt
them to rise. But I have only tried with dry fly. Then.

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How to use the dry fly, and the various recipes
for anointing both fly and real line to make them float,
are amply set forth in many handbooks, which will give
the ignorant tan curious full instructions as to how to
succeed both with wet and dry fly. For the former method,

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let the novice take note of the advice that he
will there find about adding a fragment of kid glove
to the tip of his fly. He will find it invaluable.
There are such things as gentles, too, but they are
unpleasant to handle, and they whip off. Finally, in recommending

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the dace to the notice of flyfishers, I cannot praise
him more highly than by saying that I would as
leaf fish for him in rivers where he is large
and abundant, as for the trout of any mountain stream.
Before beginning to speak of the chub, I will own
to a further private prejudice strongly in his favor. Therefore,

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it is pain and grief to me to read the
undeserved reproaches that are cast at him by all manner
of fishermen. Even that most charming writer, the amateur angler,
whose nature it is to speak well of all men,
fish and things, confesses that he has never caught a chub.
And if I read aright, I do not detect in

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him any desire to do so. But he regards him
from the point of view of the dinner table, and
that explains his attitude. Footnote. Since this was written, the
amateur angler has made the chub honorable and delightful amends
and a footnote. Yet I maintained that a fish is

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not to be proved basically like a mere pudding from
the eating, and even if it must be so, I
would not dismiss the chub without some attempt at vindication.
I remember once catching a most lovely trout, lovely as
in the point of conditioning color. It was cooked, it

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caut a seductive pink, but its savor was of foul mud,
and I had to breakfast on something else. Yet this
trout lived on a shallow of the fairest gravel, and
the water that rippled over it was pure crystal. On
the other hand, I can remember eating some chub caught

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in a deep muddy river, which, in comparison with this
sceptive trout would malicious. To be strictly honest, I will
admit that this happened on a camping out expedition when
provisions were running low, and thus it was practically a
case of chub or nothing. Even that, however, does not

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detract from the fact that those chub were eatable. The
matter must be left there. Many a case has been
ruined by over elaboration. It is surprising what a number
of angling writers appear to have one eye consistently fixed
on the larder, and how few of them see anything

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worthy of admiration in the chub with the other eye. Some, however,
have spoken well of him, Dame Juliana Berger's, for one.
The Chevin says that learned, if somewhat apocryphal, lady is
a stately fish, and his head is a dainty morsel.
There is no fish so strongly armored with scales on

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the body. A stately fish is the very name for him.
When he comes out of the water in August, with
his red fiends and great silver scales deepening into golden
brown on the back, he looks truly a broad, strong,
stately fish. His shape is not so graceful as that

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of a trout, but it is suggestive of enormous strength.
The difference between them is the difference between a cart
horse and a hunter. The hunter is much more active
and much quicker, but the cart horse has more pulling power.
The child may not be quite as strong as a
card horse, but he can pull hard enough when hooked

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to make his capture a matter of grievous uncertainty. He
grows to a considerable size. One may justly expect to
catch charb of three pounds in most rivers which contain them,
and one can see much bigger ones, and of several
rivers where on any sunny day in August chub of

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four and five pounds may be seen basking on top
of the water. The Great Ooze is full of big chub,
and in the neighborhood of Saint Ives, where much of
the river is free, many really large ones are caught
every summer. The Thames, too is a splendid river for them.
It seems to be much better than it was for

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Robert Blakey Palmer Hackle Esquire, who wrote in the middle
of the last century chronicle the capture of a four
pound chub in the Thames in eighteen forty four as
a remarkable occurrence. Even more remarkable, however, seems the conduct
of the fish. He was a very strong, active fish,

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shot across the river like an arrow on feeling himself hooked,
and fought well for a full hour before he could
be got out of the water. He was caught with
a common gut line, and therefore requiedy considerable indulgence before
he could be overcome considerable indulgence indeed an hour A

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chub may be larger nowadays, but they appear to have
sacrificed quality to size. But this is again digression, and
by an odious comparison, I run the risk of belittling
a favorite fish who is still really an excellent fighter,
especially if hooked near a bed of weeds or the
roots of a tree. To turn now to the tackle,

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which is required for chub fishing with a fly. By
far the best sport may be obtained with a very
light rod and very fine tackle, but it is only
possible to use them under certain conditions. I remember a
spot on the Seven near the small town of Tewksbury,
which I used to fish for many years. There is

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a stretch of about four hundred yards of shallow water
just below the junction of a branch of the Avon
with the Seven. It could not technically be described as
a shallow as it is from three to five feet deep,
but it is considerably shallower than the rest of the
river in that neighborhood. In this piece of water there

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always used to be, and no doubt still are, rate
numbers of chub, which were generally on the rise. It
could be fished either from the bank or from a boat,
and it was possible to use very light tackle, as
there were neither trees nor weeds, and playing a fish
was perfectly straightforward. The chub did not run very large,

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but averaging from three quarters of a pound to two
pounds and a half, they gave magnificent sport on finest
drawn gut and a five ounce rod. This would apply
to any similar piece of water, but unfortunately such spots
are rare, except on the seven most rivers abound in

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natural obstacles, and it is necessary to use strong tackle
for that reason. For general use against the chub, I
should recommend the dry fly fisher's outfit a powerful split
cane rod of from ten to eleven feet with a
heavy tapered real line forty yards in length. With this

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combination it is possible to cast a long line with
wonderful accuracy, and also to hold a heavy fish which
is trying to make for weeds or roots. The gut
cast should also be tapered, but not too much, as
the fly which is to be attached to it is
heavy and liable to whip off. Chup did not seem

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to mind how thick the tackle is, if the gut
and fly are all that they see. With regard to flies,
different rivers have their own patterns. But I know of
one fly which will kill on any river, and that
is Charles Kingsley's favorite, the Older. It should be dressed
lake trout size and should have a kid tail. It

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may be classed as another of my prejudices if I
say that a man really needs to use no other pattern,
But of course there are other excellent flies be black,
red and Soldier Palmers, blue bottle, Zulu France's coachmen all
kill and kill very well. It is also worth noting

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that on a very rough and stormy day, charp will
sometimes take a large white moth when they will not
look at anything else, and this is also the case
in the rough water below a weir. All chubb flies
are improved by the addition of a kid tail the
tack already, the next point is to consider where and

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how to fish for chub on a strange river. The
experienced fishermen will first look from millpool or weir pool,
next for the mouths of tributary streams, ditches and backwaters,
and lastly for rows of trees along the bank. These
places are the natural homes of chubb because they ensure

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an abundant supply of food. I myself always make for
the nearest backwater in the daytime, if it is possible
and permissible to fish it, and for the weir pool
or mill pool in the evening. In the ordinary river,
it is presumed that the biggest fish of all will
be in the mill pool because of the grain and

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flour which come from the mill. Some mills stop working
about six in the evening, and then is the time
to see what a rise of chub really means. It
is almost as exciting as a rise of trout at
the mayfly. But as Sir Edward Gray says in his
delightful book, the look of the evening rises alas the

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best part of it. I do not know why it is,
but the millpool chub has always been to me harder
to catch than the other. Perhaps he is too well fed. However,
one is sure to get a few fish in any
mill pool when the rise is on evening. Fishing can

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be quite straightforward. One puts on one or two flies
and simply casts out the spot where one imagines the
fish to be. If one is casting on the shallows
below weir, the flies may be worked salmon fashion, and
that is to say, cast straight across the river and
allowed to work down and across stream. If one is

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fishing in the open river, they should be cast under
the opposite bank and drawn slowly away from it. Very
often a river must be fished from a boat, but
the principle is the same. The fly has to move
slowly across the spot where the fish are. The principal
difficulty in this sort of fishing is striking at the

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right moment. It is a great mistake to strike in
a hurry. I know some first rate trout fisherman who,
when they first fish for chub, failed sadly because they
strike much too quickly. The stately fish requires to be
treated in a stately manner, and one must strike with

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pomp and circumstance. Sometimes a sort of wave may be
seen following the fly. This means that the chub has
spied it from a distance and is coming after it.
It does not mean that the fish has already risen.
The trout fisher, whose experience has taught him to strike

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at any movement of the water, does so when he
sees this wave. But the chubfisher draws his fly steadily
on in front of the wave until he feels or
sees his line tightened. Then he knows that the chub
has really taken the fly and that he may strike.

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Of course, it sometimes happens that the fly falls just
above the chub's nose, and then he will rise as
quickly as a trout and may be struck at once,
But more often he will follow it at some distance
before he takes it. In rough water, one often sees
neither wave nor rise, but a little practice makes it

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possible to tail with certainty from the tightening of the
line when a fish has taken the fly. A chub
will often hold an artificial fly in his mouth for
a long time before he discovers his mistake. So much
for the straightforward method of chub fishing in the evening,
we now come to fishing for them in the daytime,

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which is to my mind far more fascinating as well
as more difficult. The hotter and finer the day, the
more I am pleased, and herein lies much of the fascination.
A real summer's day is the most perfect thing conceivable.
But I know of no other branch of the sport
of fishing to which it is suitable. On a day

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when cows are standing in the stream, middle deep, when
the air is heavy with the scent of river time,
and vibrating with heat and the hum of bees, Let
the angler clothe himself in gray flannel and a cricket shirt,
and cover his head with the broadest brimmed saddest hwed
hat he possesses, and then make his way down to

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the river about ten of the clerk. Let him take
no boat. A boat on such a day is worse
than useless. But let him go afoot along the river bank.
Now he must display what powers of scouting he possess,
for he must take advantage of every inch of cover

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that is to be found, and must be ready to
kneel and crawl and even go like the serpent of Scripture.
In small rivers there is usually plenty of cover in
the shape of bushes, and in large ones there are
often fringes of rushes and reeds behind which a man
may stand seeing. And yet unseen. Let us suppose that

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the angler has found his bit of cover and is
standing behind a clump of reeds which come about up
to his chin. His first action is to peer very
carefully over them. He sees that there is a sort
of still pool just at his feet, formed by a
surrounding belt of weeds. If the charp in the river

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are at all right minded, there will be a fish
of size and importance masking on the surface of that
little just as surely as I am writing these words,
having seen his chub. It becomes somewhat a matter of chance.
If the chub has not seen his head, if he
can flick his fly just in front of its nose,

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if it does not see his rod as he does so,
if he hooks it when it rises, as granting the
other contingencies, it certainly will. And if when he has
hooked it he can keep it out of the weeds
and land it through the reeds, that chub is his.
But it sounds easier than it is. As a rule,

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the charb will see his head or his rod, and
will disappear at once. Very often the angler will strike
too quickly and jerk the fly out of its mouth,
for it is a thing to test the strongest nerves
to watch a big fish taking a fly, and to
make sure of not missing it through excitement. Then again,

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beds of reeds or rushes are excellent cover, but they
are bad landing stages. I have often had to put
my whole trust in providence, grasp the line and pull.
It is worth remembering that a line will, in an
emergency stand an immense strain. If it will not, it

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is a bad line and not to be fished with.
Of course, the chub will not always be lying under
the angler's own bank. Very often he will see a
dark shape lying in the middle of the river or
under the opposite bank. The farther away the fish is,
the easier it is to approach it. Sometimes it is

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lying very far off, indeed, in fact out of reach
of the ordinary cast. It can then be sometimes reached
by what is called shooting the line, that is to say,
by getting out as much as one can in the
ordinary way, then keeping an extra yard or two of
slack line in the left hand, which is released when

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the line is nearly extended, it is possible to cast
several yards more. In this manner. The angler will thus
work his way along the bank, stalking every fish he sees,
and catching one here and there by, being subtle as
the serpent and working very hard, there is no reason
why he should not get several brace of big fish,

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and that on a hot August stale to satisfy anyone.
I remember once filling a big creel as full as
it would hold on such a day, and a little
backwater about a mile long in size. It was no
more than a brook, but every hole displayed two or
three chub lying on the surface. The backwater possessed an

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invaluable series of bushes along its banks, and by creeping
from bush to bush, I could catch a in every
few yards. The fish fought as well as trout, and
I got broken up several times by the getting around
stumps and under roots. I've never enjoyed a day more.

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Oddly enough, though I have fished that backwater several times since,
I have hardly caught anything there, which is probably due
to the fact that I have never been fortunate enough
to go there on a really hot day. This, among
other reasons, has brought me to the conclusion that the
hot of the weather, the better it is for stalking chub.

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This mode of fishing naturally recalls the methods of dry
fly fishing for trout. It is not necessary to fish
so fine, and it does not much matter whether the
fly be dry or wet. Sometimes the dry fly works
wonders with chub, but as a rule they will take
the wet fly equally well. But it is even more

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difficult to stalk a chuban than a trout, and the
fish court are on the whole larger. Add to this
that chub may be taken readily on a day when
trout will not look at anything, And here is a
branch of sport ready to one's hand, which it is
impossible to despise. The ordinary evening fishing for chub from

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a boat, when all one has to do is to
hook and play the fish, is easy enough. But to
catch them in the way described in clear water under
a broiling sun requires quite as much skill as any
form of fishing, and the man who catches his five
brace may justifiably take pride in his achievement. I commend

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the sport to any brother anglers who have not yet
tried it, and if their success be proportionate to my
good wishes, they will not complain. End of chapter five six,