Part 35

Pike and perch were almost unknown in the rivers of Belcarra and Minola, and the chain of lakes with which they communicate, and these waters were then second to none for trout-fishing. Within ten years, my cousin tells me that he often angled in them, and that he frequently killed from three to six dozen of beautiful middle-sized red trouts. Now fly-fishing is seldom practised there. The trout is nearly extinct, and quantities of pike and perch infest every pool and stream. The simplest methods of taking fish will be here found successful, and the lakes of Westmeath will soon be rivalled by the loughs of Mayo.

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It is a curious fact, that the loughs where the party angled, though situate in the same valley, and divided only by a strip of moorland not above fifty yards across, united by the same rivulet, and in depth and soil at bottom, to all appearance, precisely similar, should produce fish as different from each other as it is possible for those of the same species to be. In the centre lake, the trout are dull, ill-shaped, and dark-coloured; the head large, the body lank, and though of double size, compared to their neighbours, are killed with much less opposition. In the adjacent loughs, their hue is golden and pellucid, tinted with spots of a brilliant vermilion. The scales are bright, the head small, the shoulder thick, and from their compact shape, they prove themselves, when hooked, both active and vigorous. At table they are red and firm, and their flavour is particularly fine—while the dark trout are white and flaccid, and have the same insipidity of flavour which distinguishes a spent from a healthy salmon.

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It is remarkable that only three kinds of fish have been transported from foreign parts into Great Britain—the carp, the tench, and the gold-fish.

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_Maxims on fishing._—The following hints are quaint and useful.

“Do not imagine that, because a fish does not instantly dart off on first seeing you, he is the less aware of your presence; he almost always on such occasion ceases to feed, and pays you the compliment of devoting his attention to you, whilst he is preparing for a start whenever the apprehended danger becomes sufficiently imminent.”

“If you pass your fly neatly and well three times over a trout, and he refuses it, do not wait any longer for him; you may be sure he has seen the line of invitation which you have sent over the water to him, and does not intend to come.”

“Remember that, in whipping with the artificial fly, it must have time, when you have drawn it out of the water, to make the whole circuit, and to be at one time straight behind you, before it can be driven out straight before you. If you give it the forward impulse too soon, you will hear a crack: take this as a hint that your fly is gone to grass.”

“It appears to me that, in whipping with an artificial fly, there are only two cases in which a fish taking the fly will infallibly hook himself without your assistance, viz.:—1st, when your fly first touches the water at the end of a straight line: 2d, when you are drawing out your fly for a new throw. In all other cases, it is necessary that, in order to hook him when he has taken the fly, you should do something with your wrist which is not easy to describe.”

“If your line should fall loose and wavy into the water, it will either frighten away the fish, or he will take the fly into his mouth, without fastening himself; and when he finds that it does not answer his purpose, he will spit it out again before it has answered yours.”

“Never mind what they of the old school say about ‘playing him till he is tired.’ Much valuable time, and many a good fish, may be lost by this antiquated proceeding. Put him into your basket as soon as you can. Every thing depends on the manner in which you commence your acquaintance with him. If you can at first prevail upon him to walk a little way down the stream with you, you will have no difficulty afterwards in persuading him to let you have the pleasure of seeing him at dinner.”

“Do not leave off fishing early in the evening, because your friends are tired. After a bright day, the largest fish are to be caught by whipping between sunset and dark. Even, however, in these precious moments, you will not have good sport, if you continue throwing after you have whipped your fly off. Pay attention to this; and, if you have any doubt after dusk, you may easily ascertain the point, by drawing the end of the line quickly through your hand, particularly if you do not wear gloves.”

“When you have got hold of a good fish which is not very tractable, if you are married, gentle reader, think of your wife, who, like the fish, is united to you by very tender ties, which can only end with her death, or her going into weeds. If you are single, the loss of the fish, when you thought the prize your own, may remind you of some more serious disappointment.”

“Never angle in glaring-coloured clothes; perhaps green is that which the fish discern least, as varying less from those objects, such as trees, and herbage on the sides, to which they are familiarised. The angler should shelter himself (unless the water is muddy from rain) far from the bank, or behind a bush or tree, where he can just see the float, and so that his shadow does not, at any time, lie upon the water, especially where it is shallow, and the gravelly bottom can be discerned.”

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The angler should always have the wind at his back, the sun or moon before him, as much as possible; in cold, windy weather especially, he should be on the weather-shore, where the fish then resort for warmth, and the calmness of the water. The east wind, for angling, has been universally execrated, but probably this may not hold good in rivers running from east to west.

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At the conflux of rivers that ebb and flow, it is best angling at the ebb; sometimes, when the tide is not strong, they will bite at flood, but very rarely at high water.

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Deep waters are best to angle in, as the fish are not then disturbed by wind or weather.

The best periods are from April to October; from three until nine in the morning, and from three in the afternoon, so long as there is light; the later, the better sport. In winter, the weather and times are much alike; the warmest is most preferable.

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During the summer, even when the water is quite low and clear, no wind stirring, and the sun shining in its utmost lustre, and in the hottest part of the day, it is insisted, trout may be taken (although very few anglers are disposed to credit it), with a small wren’s-tail, grouse, smoky dun, and black hackles, fishing straight down the water by the sides of streams and banks; keeping out of sight, and with as long a line as can conveniently be managed, with the foot-length very fine: they may be often seen with their fins above water, at which time they will eagerly snap at the abovementioned flies; and though upon hooking one the rest will fly off, they will soon be composed, and return for two or three times.

_Right of Fishing._—It has been held that where the lord of the manor hath the soil on both sides of the river, it is a good evidence that he hath right of fishing; and it puts the proof upon him who claims liberam piscariam; but, where a river ebbs and flows, and is an arm of the sea, there it is common to all, and he who claims a privilege to himself, must prove it; for if the trespass is brought for fishing there, the defendant may justify that the place is brachium maris, in quo unusquique subditus domini regis habet et habere debet liberam piscariam. In the Severn the soil belongs to the owners of the land on each side; and the soil of the river Thames is in the king, but the fishing is common to all. He who is owner of the soil of a private river, hath separata piscaria; and he that hath libera piscaria, hath a property in the fish, and may bring a possessory action for them; but communis piscaria is like the case of all other commons. One that has a close pond, in which there are fish, may call them pisces suas, in an indictment, &c.; but he cannot call them bona et catalla, if they be not in tanks. There needs no privilege to make a fish-pond, as there doth in case of a warren.—_Ency. Brit._—_Daniel_—_Jesse_—_Wild Sports, &c._

FISH-HOOK, _s._ A hook for catching fish.

FISH-POND, _s._ A small pool for fish. _Vide_ POND.

FISHER, _s._ One who is employed in catching fish.

FISHERMAN, _s._ One whose employment and livelihood is to catch fish.

FISHERY, _s._ The business of catching fish.

FISHING, _s._ Commodity of taking fish.

FISHING-ROD, _s._ An implement for angling. _Vide_ ROD.

FISHY, _a._ Consisting of fish; having the qualities of fish.

FISTULA, _s._ A sinuous ulcer callous within.

FISTULOUS, _a._ Having the nature of a fistula.

FIT, _s._ A paroxysm of any intermittent distemper; any short return after intermission.

_For a dog that has fits when hunting._—Strike him smartly with a whip or stick until he is roused; the stimulus from the blows will recover as well as letting blood, and prevent a too great effusion, which is often the case when bled in the field.

FITCHAT or FITCHEW, _s._ A stinking little beast, that robs the henroost and warren.

FIVES, _s._ A kind of play with a ball; a disease of horses.

FIXTURE, _s._ The place where hounds meet.

FIZGIG, _s._ A kind of dart or harpoon, with which seamen strike a fish.

FLAGWORM, _s._ A grub bred in watery places among flags or sedge.

FLAME, _s._ Light emitted from fire; a stream of fire.

FLANK, _s._ The part of the side of a quadruped near the hinder thigh; in men, the latter part of the lower belly.

FLAP, _s._ Any thing that hangs broad and loose.

FLASK, _s._ A bottle, a vessel, a powder-horn.

FLAW, _s._ A crack or breach in any thing; a fault, a defect; a sudden gust; a violent blast.

FLAX, _s._ The fibrous plant of which the finest thread is made; the fibres of flax cleansed and combed for the spinner.

FLAY, _v._ To strip off the skin; to take off the skin or surface of anything.

FLEA, _s._ A small insect. _Vide_ VERMIN.

Hares are very subject to _fleas_. Linnæus tells us, that cloth made of their fur will attract these insects, and preserve the wearer from their troublesome attacks.

FLEAM, _s._ An instrument to bleed cattle.

FLEDGE, _v._ To furnish with wings, to supply with feathers.

FLEDGED, _a._ Full feathered, able to fly.

FLEW, _s._ The large chaps of a deep-mouthed hound; a kind of net.

Flews may be described as of two kinds, the one for drawing, the other to be placed either as a stop to a drag-net, or to be set and left quietly standing in a pond or river, to intercept the fish. Those for drawing should be made of stouter materials, and the lint of all should be of silk. The expense is greater at the first; but the compiler has had silk flews of both sorts, where the lint has outlasted three sets of walling, and still remained perfectly good. It must, however, be understood, that great care was observed in the washing and drying his nets; for silk has no peculiar power, any more than hemp, to defend itself against the heat, which a few hours will generate when thrown together full of mud and weeds; and both, by such slovenly inattention, are as quickly spoiled: yet carefully managed, a silk net will endure to the utmost wishes of the proprietor; and such is the quality of the silk, when wet, that the fish which touches it is sure to be entangled; the texture is so pliant, that a fish is enveloped before being sensible of it, and the more he struggles the faster he is confined.

For a dragging-flew, the lint two inches and a quarter mesh, seventy meshes deep, and fifty-two yards in length (to be hung twenty yards long and eight feet deep), it will take four pounds and a half of silk.

For a setting flew, of a similar mesh, and ninety deep, with the same length of lint and depth of hanging, five pounds and a quarter of silk; from these may be calculated any larger or smaller size. Never tan or colour flews, it renders them easier to be discerned by the fish.

The walls or trammels of flews should be at least eighteen inches square (but two feet is preferable), those of nine or twelve inches, hung diamond fashion, are only calculated to receive a fish that strikes point blank; it is impossible for a good sized fish to get in sideways, (whereby they are more entangled than by touching the flew in any other direction), besides, these small wallings render a net more cumbersome, and are, for the most part, useless. Flews should be very lightly leaded, the floats or corks nicely adjusted, and where the fish run very large, the mesh of the lint may be extended; always recollecting that in thread nets, the materials for the lint must be three twisted, and cannot be too strong or too fine.

In carp-fishing, drawing with flews is the most killing mode yet devised, they slide so lightly over the mud, and hamper the fish in their progress through the water, which the drag-net does not.

FLEWED, _a._ Chapped, mouthed.

FLEXOR, _s._ The general name of the muscles which act in contracting the joints.

FLIGHT, _s._ The act of using wings; removal from place to place by means of wings; a flock of birds flying together; the birds produced in the same season, as the harvest flight of pigeons; the space passed by flying.

FLINT, _s._ A kind of stone used in firelocks; any thing eminently or proverbially hard.

None are better than the most transparent of the common black flints. Great quantities (considered as good as any) come to London from Lord Cadogan’s estate at Brandon. They should be put in with the flat side upwards, and stand well clear of the hammer, and yet be long enough to throw it. Screw them in with leather, as lead strains the cock, and cloth is dangerous from being liable to catch fire. If very particular about the neat appearance of your gun, get a punch for stamping the leathers, and change them as often as you put new flints.

To make a flint strike lower you have only to reverse the usual way of putting it in; but, if you want to strike higher, you must either put a very thick leather, or screw the flint in with a bit of something under it. This temporary way of regulating a lock, so as to make the hammer fall, is worth knowing, as it often saves vexation and loss of time.—_Hawker._

FLIX, _s._ Down, fur, soft hair.

FLOAT, _v._ To swim on the surface of the water; to pass with a light irregular course.

FLOAT, _s._ The act of flowing; any body so contrived or formed as to swim on the water; the cork or quill by which the angler discovers the bite.

Floats are of many kinds; of swan, goose, muscovy duck, and porcupine quills. The first is preferable, when light baits are used in rivers or deep waters, and the others for slow streams and ponds, where the water is not very deep, and where the baits are pastes, &c. The quills of the bustard some anglers use, believing that the small black spots with which they are (erroneously) said to be mottled, appear to the fish as so many little flies, and attract them by this deception. For heavy fishing with worm or minnow, and in rapid eddies, the cork float is best, and is made by taking a cork free from flaws, and with a small red hot iron bore a hole lengthways through the centre; it is then to be cut across the grain with a sharp knife, about two-thirds of the length, and the remaining third (which is the top of the float) rounded with it, and then neatly finished with pumice stone, the whole resembling in shape a child’s peg top. For pike, barbel, and large chub, the cork should be the size of a small bergamot pear; for trout, perch, eels, not bigger than a walnut when the green rind is removed. A quill is fitted to the hole, and used formerly to be cut off close to the cork at each end of it. Some direct cork floats to be proportioned to the number of hairs the line is made of, and no larger than a horsebean for a single hair; but so diminutive a cork is of no use, and the quill floats will answer better.

Some recommend the shape of a cork like a pear, and not to exceed the size of a nutmeg, and the quill that passes through it not to be more than half an inch above and below the cork; they are now made with a cap at the top, and wire for the line to pass through at the bottom. The advantage the cork float has over the bare quill is that it allows the line to be loaded so heavily, that the hook sinks almost as soon as put into the water; whereas, when lightly loaded, it does not reach the bottom until near the end of the swim.

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Quill floats are thus made: the barrel part is cut off from that where the feathers grow, the inside cleared from the film, and a small piece of pitch fixed close to the end; a piece of cotton is then introduced, and upon that another piece of pitch, which not only confines the cotton, but assists in making the float discernible in water. A piece of soft wood, the size of the quill, about two inches long, of which nearly one inch is to be introduced into the quill, after being dipped into a melted cement of bees-wax, resin, and chalk, in equal quantities; the lower end of this plug is to be tapered, with a fine awl, a piece of brass twisted wire, with a round eye at the end, is to be passed as a screw into the plug, with a pair of pliers, turning round in the float; the line passes through this eye of the wire, and the upper part of the quill is fastened to the line by a hoop made of a larger sized quill, so as to admit the thickness of the line, and which ought to fasten nearly an inch from the top of the quill. (These caps should be secured by fine waxed silk, varnished over, which prevents their splitting; as also should the end of the quill round the plug, which will greatly preserve the float.) These hoops upon the top of the float may be dyed red (which will render them more conspicuous), by putting as much powdered Brazil wood into stale chamber-ley as will make it a deep red, which may be seen by applying it upon a piece of white paper; then take some spring-water, and put a handful of salt and a small quantity of argal into it; stir them until they are dissolved, and boil them well in a saucepan; when the water is cold, scrape the quills, and steep them a little time in the mixture; afterwards let them remain in the chamber-ley for a fortnight, and, after drying, rub them with a woollen cloth, and they will be transparent.

If two quills are wanted to be joined together, it may be done by a plug a little thicker in the middle than at the ends, which is to go into the mouth of the quills; dip the two ends into the above cement warmed, and fix the quills upon it, or by dipping the two ends of both quills, without the plug, into the cement, and inserting one into the other while thoroughly warm, the cement, when cold, will strongly fix them; rub the float all over with wet coal-dust and a woollen cloth, dry it with one of linen, and, after that, dry coal-dust will polish it effectually. Quill floats should be so leaded as to just suffer their tops to appear above the surface, that the slightest nibble may be perceived; if either a cork or a quill float fall on one side, the lead is either on the ground, or insufficient to keep them in a proper position.

In fishing with a float, the line should be a foot shorter than the rod; if longer, it is inconvenient when a fish is wanted to be disengaged; and the rod should be fourteen or fifteen feet long, light, stiff, and so smart in the spring as to strike at the extremity of the whalebone.—_Daniel_—_Fisher’s Guide, &c._

FLOCK, _s._ A company of birds or beasts; a company of sheep, distinguished from herds, which are of oxen; a lock of wool.

FLOCK, _v._ To gather in crowds or large numbers.

FLOG, _v._ To lash, to whip.

FLOOD, _s._ A body of water; a deluge, an inundation; flow, flux, not ebb.

FLOP, _v._ To clap the wings with noise.

FLOUNDER, _s._ The name of a small flat fish.

The flounder inhabits every part of the British sea, and is found, although at a great distance, in all the rivers that communicate with it; numbers of them that are not taken, lose themselves, continuing and breeding with vast fecundity in the rivers, and those grow to be the largest and best flavoured. They will likewise live in ponds, and are a profitable fish to stock them with, as they soon get fat, will live many hours out of their element, and consequently may be carried to a great distance; but they will not breed when confined. The colour of the upper part of the body is a pale brown, sometimes marked with a few spots of dirty yellow; the belly is white. It may easily be distinguished from the plaice, or any other fish of this genus, by a row of sharp small spines that surround its upper sides, and are placed just at the juncture of the fins with the body; another row marks the side line, and runs half way down the back. Mr. Pennant mentions hearing of one that weighed six pounds; but a flounder of half that weight is not common. Flounders spawn in May and June, and are in season the rest of the year. They swim in shoals, and bite freely at all hours of the day, but particularly on the rise of the water by flood or tide, and in warm weather, with a little wind, and are to be fished for with a strong line and good gut at the bottom, as some of them are large, and struggle much. The best places to angle for them, are by the sides and at the tails of deep streams, where the bottom consists of fine gravel, sand, or loam, or in still places of the same quality near the banks; two or three rods may be used, with a bullet on the lines, to lie on the ground in streams; and when in still water, a shot or two on the line, and the hook small. Brandlings that are taken from rotten tan, well scoured, are the best baits. They will take the lobworm, and even the minnow; a flounder weighing twenty-three ounces being caught in 1799 with the latter.

FLOUNDER, _v._ To struggle with violent and irregular motions.

FLOUR, _s._ The edible part of the corn, or any grain reducible to powder.

FLUE, _s._ A small pipe or chimney to convey air; soft down or fur.

FLUID, _s._ In physic, an animal juice; any thing that flows.

FLUSH, _v._ To colour, to redden; to elate; to spring birds.

FLUSH, _s._ Afflux, sudden impulse, violent flow; cards all of a sort.

FLUTTER, _v._ To take short flights with great agitation of the wings; to move irregularly.

FLY, _v._ To move through the air with wings; to pass through the air; to pass swiftly; to fly at; to burst asunder with a sudden explosion; to shiver; to run away; to attempt to escape.

FLY, _s._ A small winged insect; that part of a machine which, being put into a quick motion, regulates the rest.