Three Fly Fishermen
THE literature of fly-fishing has always been catholic, but the books written about it tend to gather themselves into two main groups. There are those mainly concerned with the biology and entomology of the salmon and trout and the flies with which they are tempted, or with the actual technique of the art. And there are those evoked by its poetry and philosophy, the books of reflection and reminiscence. It is to the first of these groups that Mr. Turing's belongs. He has already, in Trout Fishing, produced what is probably the most lucid and comprehensive modern text-book on the subject, a book that every student should read. In Trout Problems he is addressing what might be called post-graduates. Most of the problems which he poses have yet to be finally solved. But he brings to their con- sideration all the ripeness of experience acquired as a fishing editor, with a wide knowledge of the literature, as well as that of a first- hand observer ; and in each case he has a possible solution to suggest or at any rate a line of enquiry. What is it, for instance—pollution apart—that so often makes trout scarce in the lower and more sluggish part of a river in whose upper reaches they abound ? Is it the competition of coarse fish ? But the front is itself an active and predatory fish, largely existing on the same diet. If lack of current is the explanation, why should trout flourish in lakes where there is none ? What is the unknown determining factor ?
What again is the real origin of the sudden rise all over some particular area of a stream—a rise that may last for two or three hours or be all over in a few minutes ? A profuse hatch of flies, though the usual, cannot be the complete, answer, because this often occurs with no response on the part of the trout. It can scarcely, as has been suggested, be mimicry by a score of others of one already well-fed trout chasing an extra tasty morsel out of sheer joie de vivre. Is it due to the stimulation caused by a phase, in some particular spot, of oxygen saturation ? There would at least seem to be a case for supposing so. These are only two of various puzzles ably dealt with by Mr. Turing, who is, incidentally, in favour of nymph fishing, at appropriate moments, in dry-fly waters for many and well-argued reasons.
With this Dr. J. C. Mottram, in his Thoughts on Angling, entirely disagrees. He is eminently a dry-fly purist, and would apparently like to see this method extended, even more than it has been, to the rough-and-tumble waters of the moors and mountains. But Dr. Mottram, although his book of jottings is rather more anecdotal, belongs to Mr. Turing's school. His is the enquiring mind of the scientist by the river bank, brought to focus on a dozen•or more of the odd happenings that most of us have observed but taken for granted. Why is it, for instance, that beneath the semi-circle of scum in the stagnant water just above a hatch there so often
protrudes the nose of a big trout ? And why is he always so hard to catch ? With the aid of a series of diagrams Dr. Mottram convincingly tells us. How exactly does a heron capture a trout ? By actual experiment Dr. Mottram has demonstrated that the trout is impaled by the sharp-pointed lower half of the heron's bill and held in place by the blunter but serrated upper half. Dr. Mottram is also the inventor of an apparently successful salmon fly known as the " Black Murderer."
Mr. Applin, on the other hand, clearly belongs to the group of authors who love fly-fishing anyhow, anywhere, and to whom the dry-fly purist—to use his own words—is a piscatorial prig. He has probably never drawn a diagram in his life or been aware that there are five kinds of the fly known as olive in the British Isles. But he is obviously a most capable fisherman with the cheery conviction that he is also a lucky one ; and this is much more than half the battle in the taking of trout. Beginning to fish in the Dartmoor School at the age of eight, he evidently had the right sort of father for his particular temperament. " Don't let the trout see you " and " keep out of the way of the water-bailiff " were the two golden parental rules ; and once, when he had swallowed an artificial black quat—an uncomfortable object to contemplate in a small boy's stomach—his father merely remarked that he had been very careless as he had no more of that pattern left and it was the one which the trout were taking. After Devonshire we find him fishing in the far north of Scotland as one of a travelling theatrical company ; and there is a sort of combined aroma of green room and fly-fishing about most of his subsequent adventures. These range from a week on the Nipigon with an American millionaire to forbidden waters in provincial France, and Mr. Applin has never allowed himself to be deterred by such minor inconveniences as floods, thunder- storms, barbed wire or notices that this water is private. It is true that he was once compelled—he was' poaching at the time and knew it—by an inflexible madame to return a three-pound trout to the
water. But at least he had had the fun of catching it; generally, in the modern phrase, he managed to get away with it. In spite of an unfortunate title—though his is not the usual definition of philandering—he has written a most entertaining book ; and a word must be said about the wood-cuts with which it has been illustrated by Mr. Watkins-Pitchford. These are wholly delightful, and if any reader wants to discover the magic that turns a small boy into a fly-fisherman for life, he has only to look at page 29.
H. H. BASHFORD.
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