Chats on Angling

by H. V. Hart-Davis

DISAPPOINTING Days! How well we all know them, and how terribly frequent they are. Full of ardour and keen as mustard, we anticipate great things, only to find that another day of disappointment is to be added to the many already recorded in our angling diary. And it is sometimes so difficult to anticipate them; all the omens seem to be propitious, and yet the fates are inexorable.

There are days admittedly hopeless, when the river side is only sought for its companionship, and for the unknown possibilities of fortune; and others that are worse than hopeless, when to try to fish for salmon with a fly would be the height of absurdity, as, for instance, when the river is in high spate, or so full of snow brue or ice as to render your chances almost ridiculous. These, in a sense, are certainly disappointing; but it is not of them that I would write, but rather of those inexplicable days when all seems to be fairly propitious and yet we come home "blank."

Fortunately, fishermen are not easily browbeaten by unkind fortune, and these black letter days only serve to give a renewed zest to the future, in anticipation of the more fortunate days that we all confidently believe to be in store for us.

Everything seems on some occasions to go unaccountably wrong. The water may be in order, the fish up, and yet at the end of the day you have nothing but mishaps to record, your confident expectations have been rudely dissipated, and you have met with a series of misfortunes.

Perhaps on starting you find that you have left your flask or your tobacco pouch lying on your mantelpiece, and imprudently have turned back to secure them. That circumstance alone, in the eyes of your gillie, will prove amply sufficient to give you a "disappointing day." You have already discounted your luck, and must not grumble at the result. On reaching the water side you find that you have brought with you the wrong box of flies, and only have with you the one you had discarded overnight as containing those of a size too large. Well, you must make the best of it, mount the least objectionable of those at your disposal, and proceed to wade out into the stream with half your confidence gone. You soon realise that your waders, which had already given you warning indications of hard wear, are leaking somewhat unpleasantly. After working your way half down the pool you discover that your pipe is smoked out, and as you are in need of the consoling influence of tobacco, you propose to refill it, proceeding to knock out the ashes on the butt of your rod; in doing so the pipe slips through your fingers and disappears in the stream at your feet. It is impossible to recover it, so you are pipeless, and therefore inconsolable all day.

Some disappointments are sheer ill fortune; some we bring upon ourselves. You are, for example, casting mechanically, and therefore badly; moreover, you are not watching your fly, nevertheless you get a rise. You step back a yard or so, in order to be sure of getting the length right for the next cast, and in so doing forget the slimy green boulder that you had just negotiated on your way down. An awkward struggle, in which you have to use the butt of your rod as a stick to avoid an upset, does not serve to mend matters, but rather to unsteady you the more. At any rate, you have escaped a real ducking and are proportionately thankful.

Then, your mental balance being somewhat upset, you cast over your rising fish; he comes up well, a good boil, but you are too anxious and keen, and fairly pull the fly out of the fish's mouth. You have pricked him, and you will hardly get another rise out of him. Still there is a Will-o'-the-wisp kind of luck awaiting you, for near the tail of the pool you get a fair head-and-tail rise, and are fast in a good fish. He won't come up into your pool, but insists on making down, through the broken water, into the pool below. Having guided him to the best of your ability through the intricacies of the run, you hasten to get ashore to get on terms with him, keeping your rod point well up. More haste, less speed. The fact of your mental balance being upset reacts upon your bodily balance, and you catch the toe of your brogue on a submerged rock whilst working your way ashore, and this time you go a real "howler." Thoroughly wet, with a big chunk cut out of your wrist in your fall, you pick yourself up to find that you have broken your favourite rod point. Disconsolately you begin to reel up, the broken top meanwhile floating on your line in the water.

Still a gleam of luck: the fish is on, and, moreover, is complacently careering round the head of the new pool. Thoroughly aroused, you take the greatest care in getting on to terms with him again. Your rod has now a somewhat quaint appearance, like a dismasted yacht. Half the play of it is gone, and the top swirls about on the water in a most disconcerting manner. With set teeth, you grimly determine that, come what may, you will land that salmon. And you meet with some measure of reward, for after a somewhat prolonged duel, he begins to flop about on the surface, and to show unmistakable signs of having had enough of it.