BRANTWOOD, CONISTON LAKE: CHAR-FISHING
Day is at hand, the dark hour of the morning watch is ending. One by one the stars fade away: a dark shadow passes up the sky from eastward, and the horizon there is being fringed with kindlier light. A cloud floating high above flushes from pearly grey to pink at its edges, to purple in its densest plume, and, as it floats nearer the day, to crimson, to red, and to glistening gold. And now we rest on the oars to watch the coming of the sun to the mountain tops. The fuller light has revealed a glorious scene: the horizon is a rugged sea of summits, lands of rocky steeps with torrents gushing down—Helvellyn and Seat Sandal, the Pikes and Fairfield, with, nearer at hand, Wetherlam, the Carrs, and Old Man himself. Shortly the coming sunshine touches one after another of these giants: Fairfield’s huge gashes where the foxes dwell secure are picked out in gloom and light before day bends to awake the Old Man from his rest. It is interesting to watch the band of sunshine gradually descend his stony, riven flanks. At first only the cairn has the glow; then shortly, a hundred feet below, shadow divides from light. So day breaks among the mountains. Purple shadows still remain in the hollows, the dark green of woodlands is softly dusked: on Coniston Water it is light, though the sun’s rays still linger aloft. “Come on,” grunts the angler at this juncture—the scene to him is beauteous, no doubt, but for his art most valuable minutes are wasting away. We heed him not, and shortly his oars rattle as he pulls for the bay in which the trout should be on the feed. Awhile we feast our eyes on sunlit mountains and shadowy glens, then our oars are plied to take us further down the lake. Quite close to the shore is the Old Hall, once the home of the great Le Fleming family, but now merely a picturesque farmhouse. To Sir Daniel of that family was due the peaceful succession in the three north-western counties of Charles II. after the Interregnum. In Oliver’s day his house at Rydal was almost demolished by soldiers seeking a hidden treasure. To me Sir Daniel is more interesting as the first man to attempt to solve the life-history of the char of our lakes. In few particulars only are we able to improve his observations to-day. The char is the most mysterious as it is the most beautiful of British fishes. Though for three hundred years “silver” and “gilt” char have been noted, no close observer will say there are two varieties of the fish. Sir Daniel suggested that the two divisions spawn at different periods—November and February respectively—but the information then and now hardly justified the idea. During the midsummer months char are bottom feeders; in April and early May, and again towards the close of the fishing season, they occasionally come near the surface, and odd captures are made with the fly. Char average about nine inches in length and three-quarters of a pound in weight. A two-pound char is a great event among the lakemen. Potted char is quite a Lakeland delicacy, and commands high prices. In former times each inn had its stew into which the fish netted or plumbed were placed till a demand for them came along. West, touring over a century ago, mentions particularly the stews at Waterhead Inn, Coniston, and the Ferry, Windermere, as holding great numbers of char. Char pie was once a favourite dish too; in the Le Fleming house-keeping accounts, dating back nearly three hundred years, mentions are made of the large number of fish so used up. Char pie of those days is said to have been so full of spices that the flavour of the fish was neutralised out of existence. In the papers preserved at Holker Hall, a noble duke orders fish for a char pie to be sent to London without loss of time—in December, when the char would be spawning and far from toothsome!
CONISTON VILLAGE: THE OLD BUTCHER’S SHOP
Now the light is falling in a wider riband; it has touched the top of Yewdale crags, the scarred Mines valley is brimming with radiance. How uneven that line where shadow meets sunshine! Still lower bends the light; it is now only minutes before the lake will be flooded in glory. The heights round Torver are in the realm of sunshine, but the larches of Brantwood side are green and unkindled. Not a breath of air disturbs the flat calm. Over the eastern hills the great round sun rolls into sight. Everything is transformed. The subdued grey light is expelled by shimmering gold, green hills and fields alike are suffused with a living blaze. A boat pulled out from the pier near the Old Hall is followed by a wake of pale gold, the oars drip diamonds, the curl of parting waters is like a crystal-crowned sapphire.
To see Coniston Water by broad daylight nothing is better than Felix Hammel’s handsome craft, though the commander will cheerfully admit that we, in our pulling boat, had the best of it at dawn. The Gondola’s landing-stage is in the shade of some mighty oaks, an old cottage astride a shallow waiting-room with a jetty running out a few yards into the lake. The craft is of strange shape; at the stern, where the engines are placed, the draught is a yard and a half, but at bow—“There are few places on Coniston Lake,” says Mr. Hammel, “where I could not put the prow into the green fields while the stern was in deep water,” which, incidentally, shows the paucity of shallows. Mr. Hammel is fond of the engines which drive his taper-keeled craft along. “Fourteen horse-power, yet they drive the boat through the wildest gales betwixt April and September. I have sailed here for twenty-five years, and we have lost time but once. That was the wildest gale that ever smote this water. It blew from sou’-west, and there was a pretty lively water going. Not big rollers, but nasty short things that broke and shook themselves out into a cross-sea that would have made a pulling boat a mighty risky thing to be in. But the Gondola ran within five minutes of normal—the five and a half miles from here to Lake Bank we reckon to do in thirty-five minutes. That wild day it took forty. Only two days in my experience has the steamer not run. During the wet summer of 1903 the lake was so full that for two days the landing-stage was under water, and never a passenger got within two hundred yards of us.”
“I suppose you did a bit of fishing out of your windows those two days,” I commented. Mr. Hammel is an angler—as keen as ever.
MOONLIGHT AND LAMPLIGHT, CONISTON
“Hardly out of the windows, though of course I did do a bit.”