Chats on Angling

by H. V. Hart-Davis

A man who has once hooked and played a clean-run salmon, and has experienced the thrill of excitement that continues from the rise until the salmon is safely landed, is not at all likely to forget it, or to miss any chance of renewing his acquaintance with Salmo salar.

The contest is such a fair one, there are so many chances in favour of the fish, that no element of sport is wanting. He is so strong in the water, so perfectly built for speed, that unless you handle him both carefully and skilfully you may easily lose him, even if you have brought him exhausted to the gaff. In that perilous moment, when flopping and surging near the top of the water, how many a fish effects his escape! And who is there amongst us but has experienced the sickening feeling of the straightened rod, and the fly released from the worn hold in the fish's mouth? It is just the uncertainty of the sport, added to the strength and vigour of a hooked fish, that form the great allurement to salmon anglers.

Whilst in trout fishing—more especially with the dry fly—great accuracy and delicacy of cast are required, the actual fishing for salmon with the fly makes no such demands upon the angler. Provided that he can throw a tolerably straight line of reasonable length, so as to cover the places in the pools where the salmon are wont to rise, many faults that would entail failure with the dry fly will pass unnoticed, owing to the fly having been cast into swiftly running water, which brawling water straightens out in the kindest manner the kinks formed in the line by the incompetency of the wielder of the rod.

To this extent, therefore, a novice may have the good fortune to beat the more experienced hand. Once hooked, however, the novice is out of it, unless he has at hand an experienced mentor, and the odds are largely in favour of the fish. It is then that the accomplished angler asserts himself. I have heard of men who consider that the excitement of salmon fishing begins and ends with the hooking of the fish, who are willing to hand over to their attendant, or gillie, the duty which they consider to be monotonous and fatiguing—of playing the fish.

For my part, I look at the matter from an entirely different point of view. The combat between the fisherman and the fish is essentially a gallant one. In the water, a clean-run fish of, say, 18 lb. really plays the angler for some space of time, and you recognise that although your experience and intelligence may enable you, within a reasonable time, to be the victor, yet that you have attached to you a quarry well worthy of your skill, and one, moreover, who may yet call forth all your activity and resource, and who cannot be accounted as caught until he is absolutely on the grass beside you.

I, on the contrary, always consider that playing a salmon is the most exciting and interesting part of the sport. In playing a fish, whether it be a heavy trout on a light, single-handed rod, or a clean-run active salmon on a proportionately suitable rod, a sense of touch is needed that bears some resemblance to that necessary for the proper handling of the reins in riding a keen young thoroughbred horse. You require a keen appreciation of when to allow a certain latitude and when to exercise all the pressure that the occasion demands.

A heavy-handed man will soon render a sensitive-mouthed young horse half demented, whilst at the same time quiet, strong hands exert just that influence that is needed to control his vagaries. Some men are born with the requisite sensitiveness of touch, others will be clumsy and heavy-handed to the end of their days. Some will give undue licence to a fish, will allow him to play for an inordinate length of time, triplicating thereby the risk of losing him.

It is not possible to lay down on paper any regulations for playing fish beyond what may be termed the "A B C" of the game. You should never allow your rod point to be dragged down below an angle of 45° with the vertical, or a smash of your casting line will be risked. On the other hand, if the rod be kept too vertical an unfair tax is placed upon the strength of your middle joint. Another cardinal point, as every angler knows, is that you should never allow more line off your reel than you can avoid; that is to say, if your fish means running either up or down stream, and you feel instinctively that it would be neither prudent nor practicable to hold him too hard, then you must try to keep on terms with him by means of your own movements on the bank side; for it is to be presumed that, although you may have hooked your fish when wading in mid-stream, you have taken the earliest opportunity of wading ashore.

Keep nearly level with him, or down stream of him if you can, and get the weight of the water acting against him as well as the weight of the line. Never try to force a fish up a heavy stream unless such a course is absolutely necessary, for the weight of the water, added to that of the fish, may unduly strain your tackle. That you may be compelled to try to prevent his going down stream at times goes without saying, for it may be absolutely necessary to do so; but to endeavour to force a fresh and strong fish up stream against his will is to court disaster. Should you have decided that your fish, if it is to be killed at all, must be kept in the pool in which he then is at all hazards, by judiciously giving him his head, by means of taking off the strain, may frequently induce him to abandon his attempt to force his way down stream, and, under the impression that he has already gained his freedom, he may often, of his own free will, head up stream once again. It is a risky, but often the only, course to adopt, if you cannot or will not follow a fish down.

Mr. Sidney Buxton, in that most charming of books, "Fishing and Shooting" (John Murray, 1902), sums up the whole matter admirably when he describes catching and playing salmon as "living moments."