POSEIDON, HERACLES, AND HERMES FISHING.
Figured from a lethykos (c. 550 b.c.) in the Hope Collection (Sale Cat. No. 22).
These were either fastened to the Rod whip-fashion, or possibly looped to it. The distinction is only important in so far as a horse-hair loop at the end of the Rod may have developed into a top ring of wire, which must not be confused with rings fixed along the Rod, which R. Howlett, in The Angler’s Sure Guide, 1706, seems the first to note.
Why the Greeks or Romans should not have emancipated themselves from the tight line of Egypt and evolved the running line by the mere force of their inventive genius causes much astonishment. This grows acute when we remember that they knew a fish whose properties and predatory endowments furnished an ideal example of the advantages of the running line.
Of the angler fish and its methods of securing food Aristotle, Plutarch, and Ælian are eloquent.[10] From Plutarch we learn that “the cuttle fish useth likewise the same craft as the fishing-frog doth. His manner is to hang down, as if it were an angle line, a certain small string or gut from about his neck, which is of that nature that he can let out in length a great way, when it is loose, and draw it in close together very quickly when he listeth. Now when he perceiveth some small fish near unto him,” he forthwith plies his nature-given tackle.
With the tight line play can only be given to a fish by craft of hand and rod. Anglers know to their sorrow that although much may be thus accomplished, occasions too frequently arise when the most expert handling can avail naught.
In Walton’s time the custom, as indeed it was the only present help, in the event of a big fish being hooked was to throw the Rod into the water and await its retrieval, if the deities of fishing so willed, till such time as the fish by pulling it all over the water had played himself out.
But the existence of some method of releasing line rather earlier than Barker and Walton may perhaps be inferred from the following passage in William Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals (Fifth Song), published 1613-16:—
“He, knowing it a fish of stubborn sway, Puls up his rod, but soft: (as having skill) Wherewith the hooke fast holds the fishe’s gill. Then all his line he freely yeeldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and downe doth swimme Th’ insnared fish.... By this the pike, cleane wearied, underneath A willow lyes and pants (if fishes breathe): Wherewith the fisher gently puls him to him, And, least his haste might happen to undo him, Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand, And by degrees getting the fish to land, Walkes to another poole.”