Foul Weather Reading
Winter is very close, and Molly and I have been enjoying our wood stove’s
heat for the last few weeks. Foul weather days are ideal for reflecting on the past fishing season, preparing for the next,
and reading. Reading is one of my favorite winter activities, and a fishing book, a wood stove, and a comfortable chair are
my requirements for a good read. Last winter I read Hardy’s Book of Fishing, a compilation of fishing stories by Patrick
Annesley, E. P. Dutton: New York, 1971, where I found the following delightful story from a much earlier time.
Timing the Strike
In low clear water you must be somewhat dilatory in striking: you often see the heave of the water and a break
before the fish has actually seized your fly. Give him time to turn his head in his way back to his seat, to which a salmon
always returns after rising at the fly. Tom Purdie gave me an account of a fish that had perplexed him greatly by his non-observance
of this rule, as nearly as possible in the following words. He might have used fewer certainly, but Tom was not laconic.
"I had," said he, "risen a sawmon 3 successive
days at the throat of Caddon-water fut, and on the 4th day I was determined to bring him to book; and when he rose as usual,
I went up to Caddon Wa's namely, the pool opposite the ruins of Caddon Lee, where there had been a terrace garden facing
the south; and on returning I tried my old friend, when he rose again, without touching the heuck: but I got a glimpse o'
him, and saw he was a sawmon o' the biggest sort. I then went down the river to a lower pool, and in half an hour came
up again and changed my heuck. I began to suspect that having raised the fish so often, I had become too anxious, and given him too little law—or jerked
the heuck away before he had closed his mouth upon it. And as I had a heavy rod and good line, and the castin' line, which I had gotten thrae the Shena, had three fadom o'pleit gut at the end
of it, and the flee was buskit on a three plies o' sawmon gut, sae I was na feard for my tackle. I had putten
a cockle-stane at the side o' the water fornent the place where he raise; forbye I kend fu' weel where he was lyin':
it was at the side o' a muckle blue clint that made a clour i' the rough throat, e'en when the Queed was in a brown flood, as she had been for twa days afore. Aweel, I thought I wad try a plan
o' auld Juniperbank''s when he had raised a sawmon mair nor ance. I keepit my eyne hard closed when the
heuck was commin owre the place. Peace be here! I fand as gif I had catched the branch o' an aik tree swingin'
and sabbin' in a storm o' wind. Ye needna doobt I opened my eyne! An' what think ye was the sawmon aboot? —
turnin' and rowin' doon the tap o' the water owre him and owre him (as ye hae seen a hempie o' a callant row
down a green brae side) at great speed, makin' a fdarfu' jumblin' and splashin', and shakin' the tap o'
the wand at sic a rate, that deil hae me but I thocht he wad hae shaken my arms aff at the shouther joints, tho' I said
to mysel' they were guy firm putten on. I never saw a fish do the like but ane i'
the Auld Brig pool in the Darnwick-water. I jalouse they want to unspin the line; for a fish has far mair cunnin'
and wiles aboot him that mony ane wad think. At ony rate it was a fashious plan this I fell on; for or he war to the fut o'
the pool I was tired o' him and his wark, and sae was he, Ise warrant ye. For when he fand the water turnin' shallow,
he wheeled aboot, and I ran up the pool as fast as I could follow him, gien him a' the line I could at the same time;
and when it was just about a' off the pirn, and he was commin into the throat, he wheeled again in a jiffy, and cam straight
for my feet as if he had been shot out o' a cannon! I thocht it was a' owre atween us, for I fand naething at the
wand as the line was soommin' i' the pool a' the way doon. I was deed sure I had lost him after a' my quirks;
for whan they cast a cantrip o' that kind, it's done to slacken the line to let them draw the heuck out o' their
mouths wi' their teethy toung — an' they are amaist sure to do sae. But he was owre weel heuckit, this ane,
to work his purpose in that gyse, as ye sal hear; for when by dint o' runnin' back thrae the water as fast as I could,
and windin' up the line I had brought a bow on the tap o' the rod, I fand the fish had riestit in the deepest part
o' the pool, trying a' that teeth an' toung could do to get haud o' the heuck; and there did he lie for nearly
an hour, for I had plenty o' time to look at my watch, and now and then to tak' mony a snuff too. But I was certain
by this time that he was fast heuckit, and I raised him again by cloddin stanes afore him as near as I durst for hittin'
the line. But when I got him up at last there was mickle mair to do that I thocht of; for he ran up the pool and doon the
pool I dar' say fifty times, till my feet wur dour sair wi' gangin sae lang on the channel: then he gaed owre the
stream a'thegither. I was glad to let him change his gait ony way; and he gaed down
to Glenbenna, that was in Whitebank's water, and I wrocht him lang there. To mak' a lang tale short,
before I could get at him wi' the gaff, I was baith hungry an' tyrt; an' after a' he was firm heuckit, in
the teughest part o' the body, at the outside o' the edge o' the wick bane. He was a clean sawmon an' 23 meal
pounds."
William
Scrope,
Days
and Nights of Salmon-Fishing, 1843.
Please stay on the line …
