IV. Evening Fishing
One of our best beats lies between the mill-sluice and the top of Beckmickleden. The long shallow dam is succeeded by pools to the old ford, above which is a rocky stretch, and then more pools, some floored with mud and shingle, others with naked rock. Coppices fringe one side of the stream the whole way, and the lavish falls from their overhanging branches go some way towards attracting large fish to these haunts. At flood-time few anglers are disappointed of heavy panniers, but the chief repute of the water is for evening fishing. Many a time alone or with a companion have we wandered along this portion of the river.
The day had been hot and bright; but at evening a faint breeze stirred the leaves, and around the declining orb the clouds formed into a solid bank. I now saw my friend approaching along the riverside, rod in hand. This lean, alert man was one of the best fly-makers and selectors for miles around, and the river held no secret from him. Where everyone else failed he succeeded. He knew where the best fish lay, and the surest methods to get them. Our greetings were short, for I required little urging to join in an expedition to the upper waters.
In ten minutes we approached a water-hewn ravine, and shortly reached the upper mill-dam. Across the narrow stretch of wimpling dark waters, buried almost by towering elms, was a tiny hamlet, but on our side a cornfield was fronted with a row of bloom-spangled briar-roses. The station selected was near the foot of the pool, a place from which we could throw to the vicinity of the sluice. My companion chose me a couple of winged flies, and told me to cast lightly, as the water was bringing down a good many dead insects from the grasses and trailing bushes in its course. Rod in hand, I stood a moment. The fish were rising a long way out, and it took time to get the flies so far without a splash. I had been conceded the best situation, and my friend had gone some way upstream, where he had located fair sport. It would, perhaps, be five minutes before I got my line into the right place, but when I did success came fairly promptly. I was ruefully considering how long my spine and shoulders would stand the labour, when my fly was sucked down. I struck, but without success. Sir Trout had selected a floating body not six inches from where my counterfeit floated. In the second I had looked round for my companion, my eye had been off the lure, and it speaks well for the flymaker’s skill that I could not distinguish my own among the others floating down. I was raising my rod to try another cast, when the fly was taken in reality—not leapt at with a sudden splash, but quietly sucked down without its taker raising a ripple. I could scarce believe it had gone, till a faint tremor passed up the distended line, and then I struck home. Instantly I knew that a big trout was on tow, for my rod swayed and bent as I put on strain. The fish did its little best to get off, but wrist and eye worked for once in unison, and I speedily was reeling it along the surface. This proved to be a dark-coloured trout, but the next was a beautifully scaled one—my friend pronounced it a Salmo iridens, the American rainbow trout, a number of which had some time since been turned into the river.
The head of this dam has deteriorated from an angler’s point of view since a family of swans were quartered on it. In my school-days old Jimmy, our veteran angler, would frequently stand by the mouth of the marsh drain there, and take his six or eight fish regularly every evening for a week. A few minutes on, casting at every rise in the purling dubs, and following down every whirlpool, we come to the old ford, and then the bridge. To-night the occupants of the deep pool are not inclined to feed.
Above the bridge the river descends for about two hundred yards over very rocky bottom, where the stream swirls down without a pool or a yard of slack water. During the last two years a fringe of wych-elm has been rooted out on this ride, and a number of good casting-places opened up, for under cover of frothing waters good fish frequently lie, and there is great exhilaration in fighting a stout trout on whose side is the stream commanding a heavy drag on both line and prize. Immediately we reached this point T—— came up with a fresh fly, a gray drake. This fly is not very popular with local anglers, but my friend explained that, after several seasons of close observation, he had found no fly of equal merit during close, warm evenings on this reach of rushing water. I had been previously referred to another local enthusiast for corroboration. ‘Yes,’ said he, in a quaint, homely dialect impossible to transfer to paper, ‘one night we were coming down by the Low Barn, and Tom told me of the gray drake. I didn’t believe in it, so he put one on for me. The water was dashing down and splashing among the stones, but after a bit I found a fish. And, sure enough, at the drake it came with a rush. Well, I threw again and again at different places, getting in ten minutes three of the finest fish I ever did. Then my luck seemed to change, and though I got plenty of bites I could never land a fish. Tom at last got disgusted with my bad work, and prepared to take the rod over, but on examining the fly we found that the hook had broken off short at the shank. Of course, my failures were thus explained with honour.’ Our own experience at this point was much as above; I will not inflict details.
By this time the evening waxed old, the sky grew dusky, the fiery red in the west faded to rose colour, then died out to a faint blue, which as the hours passed intensified to azure, to indigo, and to ultramarine. In the north a pale sheen lit up the sky almost to the zenith—the night-glow—and here by the riverside, between the partly-light sky and the mirroring waters, there was no difficulty in making out any necessary detail. The black gnat had disappeared about sundown, but my friend was now using large sulphur-coloured moths. As in coming up we had used three different lures, I asked if any further variation would be necessary, but the bustard would hold till daybreak, when the hour for clear water worm arrived. Personally, in fishing this reach I should have held to black gnat and night-owl only.
On one side of the long pool selected for our evening’s angling the land rose in a sheer oak-clad bluff, while on the other the coppices, interspersed with flowery avenues, swelled upward in less abrupt line. The fishing was delightful; over the mellow rattle of the incoming stream now and again came the splash as a trout leapt up at the flies whirling above. Our station was in the shadow, else our movements would have been clear to the fish. My friend told me a true angler’s story concerning this dub. After an evening’s angling, he and another were sitting on a rock smoking and talking in subdued tones. Suddenly there was a scuffle almost beneath their feet, and Jack struck towards the scene of the disturbance with his rod-stock. There was a sudden squeal, and the surprised anglers found that the random blow had almost decapitated a young rabbit. Doubtless, frisking along as is common with its kind, it had not noticed the angler’s proximity. After an hour’s successful work we moved still further upstream, clear of the ravine. Here the river has worn a narrow channel into the upper edge of a rock-stream, forming a deep pool, in which iris and long aquatic grasses flourish. The light here was much better, and I rapidly reduced my experienced companion’s lead in captures. At about one a.m. there was a short pause in the fish’s feeding, during which we cast in vain. My comrade promptly noticed this, and for half an hour we left the waterside that he might show me the hole in the ground where some two hundred dead swallows were found after a late sudden frost, and also to take me to a circle of ancient dwarf crab-apple trees, planted, he averred, by Druids of old. In this expedition we also came across a heron, standing poised on one leg in shallow water. Scared at our approach, it winged away uttering a wild alarum; and we were surprised to notice three others of its gaunt kindred make away from near reaches. Of other waterside life, the otter since dusk had been frequently in sight—he lives without fear of a pack nowadays in our river; the dipper and the kingfisher had retired at sunset, but the whitethroat’s song had been constantly in our ears. Game, unseen, had rustled hither and thither in the coverts.
The sky to eastward was brightening when we returned to our rods. My companion told me to do my best, for time was passing; but never a bite came my way. He was more fortunate, for a long cast down the dub was taken. The fish on feeling the barb, however, went through a number of desperate manœuvres. I heard the struggle, then noticed my friend disgustedly drawing in his line. Probably by tangling the gut round some jagged corner of rock the fish had got away.