I. Trolling on Lake Windermere
An idler on the landing-stage pushed the rowlock with his foot; the boat welted away a yard or two; the right oar fended us from a maze of moored skiffs; then, as arms and body swayed into rhythmic pendulations, we drew toward open water.
‘Now, Jem,’ said my companion to the walnut-bearded boatman, ‘what’s the likeliest bit for trolling?’
‘Millerground Bay for a start, then down the Belle Grange side awhile, and finish about t’ Ferry.‘
My intention in coming off this particular afternoon was to watch my companions’ work. The angler was a big man, robust in muscle and rosy in face. The lake possessed few secrets from him; with Jem at the oars, he had fished every shoal and round every islet and bay. Char and trout, pike and perch, on occasion provided him sport, and the worst of days was never wholly unfruitful. As an angler he might have faults: non-success was not now among them. Jem the boatman was a character in his way, and, chiefest interest to me, he was esteemed a first-class handler of a fishing-boat.
As the boat rattled through the wavelets I looked round. Maytime in Lakeland! Great boles and branches of thousands of forest trees almost hidden in a smother of green foliage, with here and there huge sprays of milk-white blossom where wild-cherry and crab-apple, whitethorn and blackthorn, grew. The fields between the woodlands were tenderly and vividly green, while shadows of verdure climbed up the swelling mountain-slopes away on the horizon. This scene to the right: on our left and in front the waters of the lake sparkled, dotted with two or three islets green-crowned over a profusion of wild-flowers, and further away stood the dark fir-woods of Claife. We were now rapidly leaving the crowded bay, heading for where one or two boats slowly drifted.
‘Those chaps are fishing with the fly,’ said the angler. ‘After all the rain yesterday, they’ll do fairly well if they’ve plenty of time. But it’s slow work with the fly with a bright sun like this; and yonder, in the shelter of the trees, there’s hardly a ruffle on t’ water.‘
The afternoon was drawing to a glorious close; the sun had receded far. Quoth Jem, ‘We’d better be starting,’ as the boat approached within fifty yards of a little headland. At this the angler turned out a couple of rods, one for either side our craft. In a minute the lines were fixed. After allowing about forty feet he placed a switch, to which by lengths of gut were attached two spinners baited with perchlets. The angler drew my attention to the fact that trout find these little creatures more inviting when the strong pine-fin has been cut away. ‘A perch in fighting trim is avoided by all sensible trout.’ By this time Jem had the boat’s head round, and we were facing a fair breeze from the south-west. The sun had plunged behind a heavy mass of cloud, and a shadow darkled across the water.
‘Good!’ chuckled the angler. ‘Now, Jem, with a bit of luck we should do well.’
A dull, warm day with a fair ripple, I was given to understand, is ideal for the troller.
Immediately his lines had floated overboard the angler riveted his attention to the nodding rod-points. The oarsman continued to pull. He never made a splash sufficient to startle the shoals of fish in the depths beneath us. His strokes were just more than sufficient to counteract the drag of the ripples. Slowly, therefore, the boat crept on, its course nearly parallel with the shore. My attention wandered as I looked over Calgarth’s cylindrical chimneys to the groves of Troutbeck and the eternal fells. Jem, with eyes apparently shut, was plying his blades with stealthy touch and slight depths. The angler was intent on the lines trailing astern.
Then the angler moved at his vigil post astern. His practised hand was at the fastenings of the rod. The line jerked a little; then a portion of its length stretched taut and clear of the water—a bite at last. W—— was on his feet in a second, the rod freed in his hand. Jem ceased to row, and as the boat slowly drifted the contest between man and fish began. As the line slackened, W—— wound in warily, for he had felt that this was a big trout. The rod-top bent suddenly; his hand clapped a strain on the line. The trout was fighting steadily, and the long line was at first in his favour. At last I saw the top of a ripple ten feet away break, and a dark curling body came into view. Three seconds later an exhausted trout was squirming in the landing-net I held for its reception. A fine dark-coloured fish it was, too—one and a half pounds by the scale.
After this the boat was floated close inshore for half an hour without success till Jem rebelled, pointing out that we were nearly back at Bowness Bay. The boat was accordingly turned to cross the lake. As we glided along, lines towing astern, W—— lit his pipe and began to talk.
‘It was just in mid-lake here three years ago that I caught a very big trout—over five pounds, and strong and lively in proportion. It was on an evening such as this. The char were hereabouts that year, too. You know, the char in this lake keep in shoals, and move about altogether. Just now they are in the upper basin. They are gradually coming back to us. But char-fishing with the plumb-line is slow sport at best. How is it done? Well, like this: Imagine a heavy sinker on a line from which hang by gut-lengths as many as fifty hooks and baits. That’s your tackle. You row out to where the char are lying, and drop your sinker overboard, taking care that your baits don’t foul one another in going down. Then you await results. If your sinker is too deep or not deep enough, you have your time for nothing. Hour after hour you sit trying different depths and places, perhaps to find a couple of small char caught at the end of a long and trying day.‘
At this moment a jerk at the nearer line brought up this yarn abruptly. There was a lively bit of play as the trout doubled and dodged, being backed and rushed in desperation, but finally was played to the boatside completely drowned. The other line was also taken at the same time, but this was only a nibble.
‘I like perch-fishing best,’ said Jem, as he leant on his oars. The last down-steamer was passing, churning the waters into foam and creating a strong water. ‘Do you remember, Mr. W——, that droppy June day under the trees at Millerground? We were out but four hours for over two hundred fish. But, then, bass aren’t worth much, so we were hardly into pocket.‘
This phenomenal catch, I need hardly mention, was due to my friends coming across a large school of perch suddenly taken with ‘biting mania.’ At such time anything is risen at, and the sport only concludes when the last member of the school is captured. I have watched in clear water a perch taken struggling wildly from between companions, each of which, undeterred, took the same bait within a minute.
‘Do you have much trouble with pike?’ I asked, anxious to get their opinions on each of the important denizens of the lake.
‘Well, no; pike are fairly kept down by using trimmers, and the Angling Association nets whenever it is possible. There’s not half so many pike as there used to be.’
‘There’s a story that when Professor Wilson was once rowing near the Ferry he picked up a couple of exhausted pike. They were of almost equal size, and one had tried to swallow the other head first, with the result that the head had fixed in its throat, choking it.’
‘Oh yes,’ responded Jem, ‘I have talked with one of the men who picked up the two fish. But it’s nothing fresh for two pike to try that game on. I have seen them myself chewing halfway up one another’s bodies. Pike cannot loose their jaws after they have once gripped a thing. I got a pike at Wray once with its teeth still fixed in the body of a two-pound trout.’
By this time we were progressing in the shade of the fir-woods. It was grand to hear the breeze whisper just above, and here and there came the rattle of a rivulet down the rocky bluffs. For an hour Jem rowed and paused alternately. A goodly haul of fish was present in the well of the boat at the finish.
With my face over the side of the boat, I looked down into deep, still water, and, though it was evening, the bottom, scarred with rocks and tiny cliffs, was in full view. In my idlings I conjured up from this flat boulder the image of a boat; from that muddied pile of fragments the semblance of a ruined cottage; here a patch of stoneless lake-bed stood for a field, with rugged heaps of rock for boundaries. But as daylight faded away the subaqueous panorama failed me. The sky above the fir-trees glowed with crimson and orange; the zenith was bright blue flecked with white cloud-wrack. Then, to the sound of cracking whips and hoarse voices, to the regular hoofings of horses and the discordant groanings and shriekings of braked wheels, the wood-waggon made its difficult, dangerous way down a dell to the narrow by-road. And further away up the slope the sound of the woodman’s axe died away as semi-darkness told him that the long day’s task was over.
We had now been afloat over four hours, so that a meal was due to us. Jem turned over his coat which had laid in the stern, and produced a large packet from his pocket. W—— had provided a basket of food, fortunately, so we fell to. I might have said that the meal was washed down by draughts of clear water from the lake, but the element upbearing our craft tasted—how shall I say it?—insipid, tasteless, or, perhaps more accurately, rather flat. After a short interval my companions produced tobacco and pipes, and a thick fragrance hung in the air. W—— took up his strain of tutor again.
‘In trolling, the chief things to bear in mind are soundless rowing, baits on a long line, face the wind if possible. A breeze, take it for granted, will never blow you exactly along the line you wish to follow. As to where to fish, round islets and near shoals are the best places, while about thirty yards from shore, where the lake-bed suddenly falls away to a great depth, is a very safe place for fish.’
The pipes were puffed pensively awhile after this; then Jem the lustful spoke out:
‘What a night this would be for lathing! In my father’s time this boat, instead of hauling four baits through the water, would have had a hundred or more. Laths, each with six hooks, would have been dotting the water thirty yards either side of us, and a boat-load of fish would have been landed.’
Without laths, however, our sport had been deadly enough, and at last, while the night was still young, the lines were finally hauled in, and through steely darkness we glided up the narrow sleeve of water between Curwen’s Isle and the mainland to Bowness and to bed.