In the particular district, however, at which we are pausing to indulge in these piscatorial reflections, the troller or live-baiter may find his most liberal opportunities. No steam-launch can push its way up the overshadowed and tranquil backwaters of Hennerton, or round about the islands at Bolney. The skilful pike-fisherman will not only seek such undisturbed retreats as these, but will obtain his best sport by deftly dropping his paternoster fitted with one gimp hook upon a gut trace, and baited with gudgeon or small dace, between banks of weeds, and in those odd and beautiful clearings in the aquatic forests which the practised eye may always find. The Thames, nevertheless, as a pike river, has for some years been a disappointment, and will so continue to be until trailing is prohibited by law.
After the month of October the pike angler has a fairer chance of sport. Simultaneously with the disappearance of the steam-launches and pleasure-boats, from which angling is conducted as a passing amusement, and in utter ignorance of the science, or even rudiments of the art, the decay of the weeds begins. This is the signal for a general exodus from summer quarters by the fish. They sheer off into deep water. The pike, no longer concealed in a thicket of subaqueous vegetation, from which he has, during the summer months, pounced like an insatiable ogre upon the silvery wanderers swimming heedlessly about in search of minute freshwater crustacea and larvæ, takes to the life of a roamer, free from much of the harassing which kept him close, out of the range of roistering Thames excursionists. But it is unfortunate for the pike that the keen sportsman also benefits by this change. The dying down of the weeds leaves him space for the exercise of his skill at the precise time when his game may be taken at disadvantage. Pike-fishing is, therefore, the winter recreation of the angler in the Thames, though, for the reasons indicated, large specimens are rarely killed now.
The perch, most cosmopolitan of fishes in the rural districts of England, the bold biter idolised by schoolboys, whose easy prey under favourable conditions he is certain to be, has almost disappeared from some portions of the Thames. Henley used to be a grand perch preserve, and the late Mr. Greville Fennell, whose angling contributions to literature were chiefly founded upon his observations and experiences in the reaches between Henley and Pangbourne, gave it at one time a first place on the list of good perch waters. But cosmopolitan as the perch may be in its character, habits, and haunts, it is more difficult to rear than many other of the summer spawners, and the peculiar manner in which it hangs its eggs in festoons around the roots and branches beneath water, renders it an easy victim to the rough usages of swiftly-passing traffic. Shiplake hole, and the “tails” (as the fishermen term them) of all the islands mentioned in this chapter, are still favourite places for perch during the winter time, when the steam-launches are in dry dock, though the quality and quantity of the well-beloved zebra of the fresh water have unfortunately declined in the Thames.
The carp family thrive, as ever they did, and in some years are caught in unusually large numbers, rejoicing the hearts of the professional fishermen who have languished for want of customers through a series of depressing fishing seasons. The head of the family is very rarely taken in the Thames proper. Some carp, however, are found in the Cherwell, and by accident, at very rare intervals, solitary specimens are caught in the Thames itself. But these are the accidental wanderers; exceptions proving the rule. Bream are more plentiful, but the most prolific of all are chub, roach, dace, and gudgeon. The popularity to which the Canadian canoe has risen on the Thames is not a little due to the adaptability of the light and elegant boat for chub-fishing. Regulating the drifting of the canoe with one hand, the operator, armed with a suitably short and supple fly-rod, drops down some fifteen yards distant from the overhanging willow-bushes, from under whose branches, close to the loamy or gravelly bank, a lightly-dropped fly of large dimensions will, in the calm of a July or August eventide, seduce the great bronze-coloured “chevin” to its fate, while, in the winter time, artful concoctions of cheese-paste, and other gross baits, directed down stream by a long Nottingham line and the familiar float tackle, will be equally efficacious in the formation of a bag. Roach and dace-fishing, the simplest of angling practices, as conducted from the comfortable floor and chair of a Thames punt, continues to be, as of yore, the most familiar form of the contemplative man’s recreation for the average citizen. In the mysteries of fly-fishing, and the ingenious devices invented for betraying the fishes that follow spinning-baits of all descriptions, improvements real and so-called are continually announced, but no change seems to have been suggested for many years in the ancient methods adopted on the Royal River for the capture of barbel by ledgering, and roach and dace by ground-baiting, plumbing, and Thames punt-tackle. Angling in the Thames is a source of untold delight and innocent enjoyment for tens of thousands of persons every year, and long may the day be postponed when the modest privileges of the London anglers, whose opportunities are limited, and whose ambition in the matter of sport is easily satisfied, are reduced or interfered with.
The deeper pool across the river, near the flour-mill at Marsh Lock, used to be a favourite resort of those anglers who pursued their sport from a boat; and the bank from the paper-mill towards Henley witnesses many an exercise of patience from the youthful Waltonian. The utilitarian spirit which has rendered necessary the hideous iron weir above the mill, and which is step by step destroying so many of the gems of Thames scenery, has, however, built a black barricade from the miller’s boat-house to the head of the eyot, completely cutting off the communication by water with the further bank. The stream below is narrowed by the two islands in the middle of the channel, and rendered busy by that constant traffic of pleasure-boats which is inevitable in proximity to such towns as Henley and Reading. During the last quarter of a mile the familiar buildings and substantial bridge of Henley have opened to view, and we conclude the voyage to this stage amidst the bustle of boats and boatmen, and a parting glance at the head of Isis as chiselled by the Hon. Mrs. Damer. Water-plants are entwined around the face, which aptly looks in the direction of the river’s source.
WILLIAM SENIOR.