We strongly advise the traveller to include in his list of stores a liberal supply of fish hooks of various sizes, for both sea and river fish, together with some strong brass swivels, a few hanks of stout gut, and fishing lines for river and sea fishing. The former should be of the kind known as prepared salmon line, and the latter hemp or cotton sea line. The sea lines should be all “barked” before use; any tanner will subject them to that process for a mere trifle. Lines so treated are infinitely more durable than those used in a raw state. It will sometimes happen that when separated from your stores, short of food, and with very few appliances with you, a catch of fish proves highly acceptable, and tackle of some kind has to be extemporised. We have had on many occasions to do this. Rods can be made very easily from tough sticks or bamboo canes. Fishing lines should never be put away wet, as they will soon decay, and become weak and unreliable.
The most portable and convenient form of hand reel we have ever used is made as follows: Two pieces of well-seasoned wood are cut flat, like stout round-ended paper knives. Two holes are burned or bored in each, as at 1 in the annexed illustration; then two round bars are cut with points and shoulders, as at 2. A cork bung is then fashioned and bored in the centre, as at 3; the hole in this admits one of the round bars, and serves to stick the points of the hooks in. No. 4 represents the frame or reel put together, and shows the position of the bung and the loop of the line. The ends or shoulder pieces of the round bars are secured by small pins driven through them. Reels of this description afford free ventilation to the lines coiled on them. They can be taken asunder in an instant, and will pack in a very small space.
Hints on tackle making.
We made an excellent outfit for fly-fishing in the Crimea as follows: We selected a set of straight tough dog-wood sticks from the fascines for the joints of our rod; these were feruled with tubes made from preserved-meat tins cut and soldered. The rings were made from wire buttons with the thread covering cut off; the line from hair pulled from the horses’ tails, twisted or laid up by the aid of a set of quill sticks, the use of which will be described as our work proceeds. The winch was made from a large-sized cotton reel mounted on a frame of forage hoop iron, and the handle from a piece of a broken Russian ramrod. We were often asked by envious fellow campaigners where we had picked up such an excellent fly-rod and fittings. Our having made it from the limited means at our disposal was never even suspected by them.
A dinner extemporised.
The following adventure will serve to illustrate the manner in which a little ingenuity will often procure a dinner. Our little party encamped one morning, after a very long fatiguing night march in Bengal, under the shelter of an immense banyan tree which grew on the banks of a deep reed-fringed lake. A small native village, situated at no great distance, had been pillaged and deserted some time before, and a miserable pariah dog or two wandering disconsolately about between the huts, and a few inquisitive-looking crows perched on the roofs, were the only living creatures to be discovered. No land of Canaan was this; commons of the very shortest kind stared us unpleasantly in the face. Still we had some bags of grain of the country, and a little “ghee” or native butter. An old corn mill, of the “quern” pattern before described, was foraged out from some forgotten nook or corner, and set to work preparing flour. A needle from the doctor’s instrument case, when heated in the fire and bent to a proper form, made a very tolerable hook; a skein of his suture silk, a line; a bamboo cane, pulled from the roof of a hut, a rod; a bit of bark with a stick through it made a float; a few shot, split with a knife, sinkers; and some beetle larvæ, which were routed out of a decayed log, formed a very toothsome bait. The lake was clearly our larder, and to it we betook ourselves with as little delay as possible, the long cane over one shoulder, a double-barrelled gun over the other, and a leather bucket swung over the arm in lieu of a fishing creel. No Waltonian enticements in the shape of ground bait were needed here; the bait was hardly out of sight before the float vanished, and then, on the “haul devil, pull baker” principle, out our floundering victims came amongst the sedges and reeds. A shrill blast on our railway whistle not only brought one of the sable camp followers to carry the welcome capture to the cook, but roused six or eight large grey wild ducks, which had lain like so many water rails amongst the tall reeds, and sent them with outstretched necks and whistling wing wheeling round the lake, when by dropping under a hollow bank and keeping well down we lulled suspicion, and the flock come cutting the air right overhead. Now is our time, and, pitching the heavy double well before them, we let drive in rapid succession the two charges of big shot. Three thumping ducks come like clods to the earth; a few feathers drift off on the wind far in the rear of the survivors, who do not linger on the wing; and little did we care where their flight might lead them—our hunter’s dinner had been earned, and in less than two hours from its obtainment was duly cooked, eaten, and its merits discussed.
Alligators, to catch.
