CHAPTER XXI.
Fishing in Le Morvan—The naturalists—The Gour of Akin—The English lady—The mountain streams—Château de Chatelux—Sermiselle—New mode of killing pike—Pierre Pertuis—The rocks and whirlpool there—The syrens of the grotto—Château des Panolas—The Cousin—The ponds of Marot and lakes of Lomervo—Mode of taking fish with live trimmers—The Scotch farmer.
Having disposed of the quadrupeds of Le Morvan, I must enlarge a little upon the finny tribe of my native province, who would, I feel sure, be not a little annoyed if after having mentioned nearly every other creature capable of affording amusement to the sportsman I were to pass them over in silence. Besides, the shade of Izaak Walton would haunt me, and his disciples no doubt wish me well hooked, if I omitted to give them a chapter on angling,—but it shall be short, and I will avoid all scientific discussion. Theories sufficient have been hazarded, and books written without number from the days of old Aristotle, who arranged them in three great divisions, the Cetaceous, the Cartilaginous, and the Spinous; down to Gmelin, who divided them into six orders, the Apodal, the Jugular, the Thoracic, the Abdominal, the Branchiostagous, and the Chondropterygious.
How men, learned and scientific men, can be so barbarous as to invent such grotesque names as these is surprizing, or why Apicius should be remembered for having been the first to teach mankind how to suffocate fish in Carthaginian pickle; or Quin, for having discovered a sauce for John Dories; or Mrs. Glasse, for an eel pie; or M. Soyer, celebrated for depriving barbel of their sight, in order to make them grow fatter, and be more acceptable to the epicure. Into this wilderness of discoveries, I have no intention of introducing you, gentle reader. The wisest plan is to cook and eat your fish in the ordinary mode—fry, broil, bake, boil, or grill; and call a perch, a perch, not a thoracic; a pike, a pike, &c., and pay little attention either to cooks or naturalists.
Le Morvan, intersected by numerous rivers, streams, and runs of water, in the liquid depths of which the various species of the fresh-water fishy-family are found from the powerful, swift, and travelled salmon, to the modest little gudgeon that stays quietly at home, is a country where the angler may live in a state of perpetual jubilee; the carp, the eel, and the pike attain an enormous size, particularly near the dams and flood-gates, where the depth of water is great, and in the Gours or water-courses which, diverging at several points on the stream, are constructed for supplying the flour and paper-mills with water.
The punters of Richmond, Hampton Court, and Chertsey, with their magnificent tackle, gentles, ground-bait, and comfortable chair, &c., would be astonished to see the quantities of fish that are taken in one of these Gours by a half-naked peasant, with a line as thick as packthread, during a sultry tempestuous evening in the month of June; from thirty to forty pounds' weight of carp and eels is by no means an unusual take,—Apodal and Abdominal, as the learned Gmelin would say.
These Gours are perfect jewels in the eyes of our fishermen; on very great occasions, for instance, when the miller marries, or an infant miller makes his appearance, if the occurrence should happen during the summer season, the flood-gates of the Gours are opened, when the waters being let off to within a few inches of the bottom, the quantity of fish taken with the casting-net is enormous. In the large Gour of Akin, the longest, the deepest, and containing more fish than any on the Cure or the Cousin, which I mention as representing the ten or twelve second-rate rivers of Le Morvan, I have seen as much as four horse-loads of fish taken, though every fish under two pounds was thrown back. The average depth of water in these rivers is from three to four feet, except near the dams and flood-gates, where it is from twelve to thirteen. With rivers so well supplied, sport is invariably obtained; so that patience, a virtue generally considered absolutely necessary in the angler, is scarcely required here, and fishing is actually a pastime of the beau sexe.
Well do I remember the astonishment, the pleasure, the delicious joy of a young English lady we had the good fortune to have with us at Vezelay, some few years since (where, by-the-bye, she made quite a sensation), when for the first time, and seated comfortably upon the soft turf by the river side, she gracefully threw her line into the great Gour of Akin; the bait had scarcely sunk, when the float was dancing about like a dervish, and finally disappeared; the lady pulled, the fish resisted; excited beyond measure, she redoubled her efforts, and tugging away with both hands, at length drew from his watery home a large carp, which flying through the air, described a splendid parabola, and landed in the adjoining field, to the great joy of the young lady, who showed her white teeth and laughed with might and main. But the poor devil of a servant to whom was confided the delicate task of impaling the bait, disentangling the line, and searching for the fish, when thus projected over the lady's head into the long grass behind her, had plenty to do I can aver, and did anything but laugh.