Above the bridge the river descends for about two hundred yards over very rocky bottom, where the stream swirls down without a pool or a yard of slack water. During the last two years a fringe of wych-elm has been rooted out on this ride, and a number of good casting-places opened up, for under cover of frothing waters good fish frequently lie, and there is great exhilaration in fighting a stout trout on whose side is the stream commanding a heavy drag on both line and prize. Immediately we reached this point T—— came up with a fresh fly, a gray drake. This fly is not very popular with local anglers, but my friend explained that, after several seasons of close observation, he had found no fly of equal merit during close, warm evenings on this reach of rushing water. I had been previously referred to another local enthusiast for corroboration. ‘Yes,’ said he, in a quaint, homely dialect impossible to transfer to paper, ‘one night we were coming down by the Low Barn, and Tom told me of the gray drake. I didn’t believe in it, so he put one on for me. The water was dashing down and splashing among the stones, but after a bit I found a fish. And, sure enough, at the drake it came with a rush. Well, I threw again and again at different places, getting in ten minutes three of the finest fish I ever did. Then my luck seemed to change, and though I got plenty of bites I could never land a fish. Tom at last got disgusted with my bad work, and prepared to take the rod over, but on examining the fly we found that the hook had broken off short at the shank. Of course, my failures were thus explained with honour.’ Our own experience at this point was much as above; I will not inflict details.
By this time the evening waxed old, the sky grew dusky, the fiery red in the west faded to rose colour, then died out to a faint blue, which as the hours passed intensified to azure, to indigo, and to ultramarine. In the north a pale sheen lit up the sky almost to the zenith—the night-glow—and here by the riverside, between the partly-light sky and the mirroring waters, there was no difficulty in making out any necessary detail. The black gnat had disappeared about sundown, but my friend was now using large sulphur-coloured moths. As in coming up we had used three different lures, I asked if any further variation would be necessary, but the bustard would hold till daybreak, when the hour for clear water worm arrived. Personally, in fishing this reach I should have held to black gnat and night-owl only.
On one side of the long pool selected for our evening’s angling the land rose in a sheer oak-clad bluff, while on the other the coppices, interspersed with flowery avenues, swelled upward in less abrupt line. The fishing was delightful; over the mellow rattle of the incoming stream now and again came the splash as a trout leapt up at the flies whirling above. Our station was in the shadow, else our movements would have been clear to the fish. My friend told me a true angler’s story concerning this dub. After an evening’s angling, he and another were sitting on a rock smoking and talking in subdued tones. Suddenly there was a scuffle almost beneath their feet, and Jack struck towards the scene of the disturbance with his rod-stock. There was a sudden squeal, and the surprised anglers found that the random blow had almost decapitated a young rabbit. Doubtless, frisking along as is common with its kind, it had not noticed the angler’s proximity. After an hour’s successful work we moved still further upstream, clear of the ravine. Here the river has worn a narrow channel into the upper edge of a rock-stream, forming a deep pool, in which iris and long aquatic grasses flourish. The light here was much better, and I rapidly reduced my experienced companion’s lead in captures. At about one a.m. there was a short pause in the fish’s feeding, during which we cast in vain. My comrade promptly noticed this, and for half an hour we left the waterside that he might show me the hole in the ground where some two hundred dead swallows were found after a late sudden frost, and also to take me to a circle of ancient dwarf crab-apple trees, planted, he averred, by Druids of old. In this expedition we also came across a heron, standing poised on one leg in shallow water. Scared at our approach, it winged away uttering a wild alarum; and we were surprised to notice three others of its gaunt kindred make away from near reaches. Of other waterside life, the otter since dusk had been frequently in sight—he lives without fear of a pack nowadays in our river; the dipper and the kingfisher had retired at sunset, but the whitethroat’s song had been constantly in our ears. Game, unseen, had rustled hither and thither in the coverts.
The sky to eastward was brightening when we returned to our rods. My companion told me to do my best, for time was passing; but never a bite came my way. He was more fortunate, for a long cast down the dub was taken. The fish on feeling the barb, however, went through a number of desperate manœuvres. I heard the struggle, then noticed my friend disgustedly drawing in his line. Probably by tangling the gut round some jagged corner of rock the fish had got away.
V. About the Fish-spear
Every hour of the short period the salmon spends in fresh water his life is threatened. The sportsman’s method is by rod and line, but the poacher kind incline to the net and the fish-spear. The use of the former has been frequently and fully described; but the spear, not being favoured by the wholesale plunderers of our streams, has been less to the fore. The fish-spear, gaff, or leister (practically, if not quite, identical weapons), is used by the occasional poacher mostly, by the labourer who cannot resist the temptation to take one or two of the great salmon occupying the rock-pools in his immediate vicinity.
There was at one time a practice, in the Derwent and other salmon streams of our Lake Country, of spearing the fish from horseback. The horse was driven into mid-stream at some shallow where the uprunning fish were bound to show themselves, and the rider, armed with a long lance, struck at such fish as he could reach. Apparently some of our forefathers were very keen on this sport, for over a hundred years ago a certain gentleman offered a public wager to kill more salmon from horseback in a stated stream than any comer. So far as records show, the challenge was never taken up. Clarke, the pioneer of Lake Country angling literature, states that in his day (circa 1760) many gentlemen came regularly to Patterdale in autumn to join in the sport of spearing the great lake trout which had run up the Goldrill from Ullswater.
Dalesmen carried torches at night to the great pools to show the sportsmen where the shoals of spawning fish lay. The result of this wholesale destruction was that the monster in question—its weight is variously estimated from sixteen to sixty pounds and over—gradually dwindled in numbers, and is now almost, if not quite, extinct in the great lakes.
My earliest recollection of the leister is also my earliest of anything pertaining to angling. Below our two-arch stone bridge is a pool, perhaps twenty yards long and fifteen wide. During great floods in autumn, salmon very occasionally pass the weirs as far as this, beyond which they are never seen. There was some little excitement, therefore, when the blacksmith showed a salmon resting in the bridge-dub, and at once attempts were made to capture it. But the fish frequented the rushing waters just behind the cut-water of the bridge, and no one could get at it. A neighbouring farmer brought his gun, and fired three shots without effect. I fancy, as I recall the creamy turmoil at that point, his mark would be a difficult one. Finally the blacksmith forged a fearful weapon—a hand garden-fork fixed on to a shaft. Armed thus, he clambered down the cut-water as near as possible to his quarry, and made several lunges. I remember well, for I was not far away, leaning over the ledge of the bridge, seeing the square tail of the fish show through the froth of the ‘rush’ as it turned downstream. But though this attempt was a failure, the smith and the cobbler and the villagers assembled noted that, when disturbed from its favourite haunt, the giant retired to the shade of a big tree just below. With this extra information, the smith climbed down next day to where the fish was lying, and, carefully poising his weapon, I watched him plunge it again and again at an invisible body in the water. Then up he scrambled at great pace, crossed the bridge out of my sight, and disappeared down the stile at the other end. I heard a crackling of boughs, and a few moments later Dove returned carrying the big fish—I remember that its tail was flapping convulsively—in his leathern apron. Of course, the whole affair was kept as quiet as possible, lest the water-bailiff, hearing, should bring the law down on the offenders. Being a very small child, my presence was unheeded; but, try as they would, the cobbler and the smith could not persuade me that the heavy burden in the leathern apron was simply a black river-cobble. I insisted it was the fish. Years later I was told that my recollection of the whole affair was quite correct.