96 pages

English

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Fishing Holidays , livre ebook

Read Books Ltd. - Stephen Gwynn

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96 pages

English

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Description

“Fishing Holidays” is an assorted collection of anecdotes and accounts of the author's various fishing holidays in Ireland. This informal yet informative volume offers the reader an insight into real-life fishing, providing accounts of actual excursions, mishaps, successes, and utter failures in the hope that the reader may learn from the author's mistakes and emulate his successes. An easy and entertaining read, “Fishing Holidays” will appeal to anglers new and old, and it would make for a worthy addition to collections of angling literature. Contents include: “Amabilis Insania”, “By Irish Waters”. “St. Bridgid's Flood”, “My Friend the Salmon Poacher”, “The Reedy Lake”, “The Raid to Cushinass”, “A Day with White Trout”, “The Young Fisher”, “Tide Fishing”, “The Low Country”, “The Kaabah of Anglers”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on the history of fishing.

Sujets

Sport

Autour du sport

Histoire du sport

Autres sports

Sports de plein air

Sports

Fishing

Recreation

Informations

Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	28 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781528768375
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

FISHING HOLIDAYS

STEPHEN GWYNN

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

A Short History of Fishing

Fishing, in its broadest sense – is the activity of catching fish. It is an ancient practice dating back at least 40,000 years. Since t he sixteenth century fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish a nd since the nineteenth century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Techniques for catching fish include varied methods such as hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.

Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyu an man, a 40,000 year old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he r egularly consumed freshwater fish. As well as this, archaeological features such as shell middens, discarded fish-bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were i mportant for early man’s survival and were consumed in significant quantities. The fi rst civilisation to practice organised fishing was the Egyptians however, as the River Nil e was so full of fish. The Egyptians invented various implements and methods for fishing and these are clearly illustrated in tomb scenes, drawings and papyrus documents. Simple reed boats served for fishing. Woven nets, weir baskets made from willow branches, harpoons and hook and line (the hooks having a length of between eight millimetres and eighteen centimetres) were all being used. By the twelfth dynasty, metal hooks with barbs were also utilised.

Despite the Egyptian’s strong history of fishing, l ater Greek cultures rarely depicted the trade, due to its perceived low social status. There is a wine cup however, dating from c.500 BC, that shows a boy crouched on a rock with a fishing-rod in his right hand and a basket in his left. In the water below there is a rounded object of the same material with an opening on the top. This has been identified as a fish-cage used for keeping live fish, or as a fish-trap. One of the ot her major Grecian sources on fishing is Oppian of Corycus, who wrote a major treatise on se a fishing, theHalieulica or Halieutika, composed between 177 and 180. This is the earlies t such work to have survived intact to the modern day. Oppian describes various means of fishing including the use of nets cast from boats, scoop nets held op en by a hoop, spears and tridents, and various traps ‘which work while their masters s leep.’ Oppian's description of fishing with a ‘motionless’ net is also very interesting:

The fishers set up very light nets of buoyant flax and wheel in a circle round about while they violently strike the surface of th e sea with their oars and make a din with sweeping blow of poles. At the flashing of the swift oars and the noise the fish bound in terror and rush into the bosom of the net which stands at rest, thinking it to be a shelter: foolish fishes which, frightened by a noise, enter the gates of doom. Then the fishers on either side hast en with the ropes to draw the net ashore. . .

The earliest English essay on recreational fishing was published in 1496, shortly after the invention of the printing press! Unusuall y for the time, its author was a woman; Dame Juliana Berners, the prioress of the Benedicti ne Sopwell Nunnery (Hertforshire). The essay was titledTreatyse of Fysshynge with an Anglewas published in a and larger book, forming part of a treatise on hawking, hunting and heraldry. These were major interests of the nobility, and the publisher, Wynkyn der Worde was concerned

that the book should be kept from those who were no t gentlemen, since their immoderation in angling might ‘utterly destroye it.’ The roots of recreational fishing itself go much further back however, and the earliest evid ence of the fishing reel comes from a fourth century AD work entitledLives of Famous Mortals.

Many credit the first recorded use of an artificial fly (fly fishing) to an even earlier source - to the Roman Claudius Aelianus near the en d of the second century. He described the practice of Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River, ‘. . . they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in colour ar e like wax.’ Recreational fishing for sport or leisure only really took off during the si xteenth and seventeenth centuries though, and coincides with the publication of Izaak Walton’sThe Compleat Angler in 1653. This is seen as the definitive work that cham pions the position of the angler who loves fishing for the sake of fishing itself. More than 300 editions have since been published, demonstrating its unstoppable popularity .

Big-game fishing only started as a sport after the invention of the motorised boat. In 1898, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, a marine biolog ist and early conservationist, virtually invented this sport and went on to publis h many articles and books on the subject. His works were especially noted for their combination of accurate scientific detail with exciting narratives. Big-game fishing i s also a recreational pastime, though requires a largely purpose built boat for the hunti ng of large fish such as the billfish (swordfish, marlin and sailfish), larger tunas (blu efin, yellowfin and bigeye), and sharks (mako, great white, tiger and hammerhead). Such dev elopments have only really gained prominence in the twentieth century. The mot orised boat has also meant that commercial fishing, as well as fish farming has eme rged on a massive scale. Large trawling ships are common and one of the strongest markets in the world is the cod trade which fishes roughly 23,000 tons from the Nor thwest Atlantic, 475,000 tons from the Northeast Atlantic and 260,000 tons from the Pa cific.

These truly staggering amounts show just how much f ishing has changed; from its early hunter-gatherer beginnings, to a small and sp ecialised trade in Egyptian and Grecian societies, to a gentleman’s pastime in fift eenth century England right up to the present day. We hope that the reader enjoys this bo ok, and is inspired by fishing’s long and intriguing past to find out more about this tru ly fascinating subject. Enjoy.

Of the papers contained in this volume four have appeared in magazines: ‘St. Brigid’s Flood’ and ‘With the Pilchard Fleet’ inBlackwood’s, ‘The Young Fisher’ and part of the essay entitled ‘Amabilis Insania’ in theCornhill;earlier pages and the title of the essay come the from thePilot. The author’s best acknowledgments are due to the editors of these periodicals.

PREFACE

WHEN one of these papers appeared in a magazine a frien dly reviewer took occasion to complain that it contained nothing particularly instructive. He was perfectly right; and I am afraid that this whole book will lie open to t he same censure. It is as well, therefore, to state frankly at the outset that its object is not instruction, but amusement. If any one can derive profit from the record of stu pid mistakes which the author himself has made, he will find plenty of them conscientious ly set down. But of positive precepts there are mighty few which an occasional angler can give with advantage. Such as occur to me shall be put here, in the forefront of the volume. My experience extends not far beyond the small rive rs and lakes in Donegal, and it extends only to others of the same type in Kerry an d Connaught; it is concerned also mainly with the summer fishing. For this fishing my chosen equipment would be always two rods—one from ten to twelve feet, stout enough to manage a five-pound fish without apprehensions of a smash, and furnished wit h a reel containing not less than sixty yards of light line. The salmon-rod should be of fourteen feet, but the running line tolerably heavy, for the sake of extra power in cas ting on a windy day. These are the essentials. It is well also to have a big rod, sixt een or eighteen feet as one chooses, for the few stretches of water which call for long cast ing, and a very light trout-rod for the lakes where neither grilse nor white trout are like ly to be met. In Donegal spinning tackle is very little used, and when used is seldom successful. The less it is used, the better for the fishing, by consent of all experts known to me. About flies, a word of guidance can perhaps be usef ully given. For the very first of flood-fishing a No. 2 (Limerick) hook may be desira ble; but even in high water I should prefer a No. 4 or No. 5, and one day last summer I hooked two grilse on a No. 7 hook in a pool where other men were still using the worm; t hey had previously refused a larger fly. The fly in question was a claret, tied by Mr. T. Co urtney of Killarney, one of the three patterns which, speaking for myself, I think indisp ensable. The second is the hare’s-ear, and this fly, although so well known, is very hard to come by in shops. It should be tied on a No. 7 or No. 8 hook, being chiefly of use in low water, and should be bushy and striped with gold tinsel. In a very high flood a fly of the same type, but with a reddish tinge through the hare’s-ear, is deadly for white trout; for salmon I have done best with a sort of fiery brown or “crotal” colour. A good variant of the plain hare’s-ear is a very small lemon-grey, or hare’s-ear with a golde n-olive hackle. This fly can be got good from Mr. M. Kelly of O’Connell Street in Dubli n; and he also supplies an excellent type of the “bluebottle”—a common Irish trout-fly, with body ofdark blue silk, silver tinsel, black hackle, and dark wing. Any one going to fish in Donegal after June begins should have plenty of this pattern in the three siz es—lake trout, ordinary trout size, and small. It is no use in flood-water, but once the fl ood is clean gone I know nothing to touch it for white trout; and the lake-trout size h as often killed grilse for me when they would stir to nothing else. The big coarse flies for flood-water are nearly alw ays to be got better from some local artist than from the shops. The average man o n the spot, however, nearly always advises the stranger to fish with flies bigger than are to be desired. Opinion in Ireland is conservative, and does not recognise the spread of education among fish. My own view is that on free waters or hotel waters, except when a flood is on, you can hardly fish too small or too fine. The place-names in this book will, for the most par t, not be found in any map, or, if

found, not as applied to the places which I describ e. For a last word, I am permitted to assure anglers t hat Izaak Walton’s bag, concerning which the last of these essays is writte n, though it remains for the present in private ownership, will ultimately be reposited in some public treasury.

1. AMABILIS INSANIA

2. BY IRISH WATERS

3. ST. BRIGID’S FLOOD

4. WITH THE PILCHARD FLEET

CONTENTS

5. MY FRIEND THE SALMON POACHER

6. THE REEDY LAKE

7. A RAID TO CUSHINASS

8. A DAY WITH WHITE TROUT

9. THE YOUNG FISHER

10. TIDE FISHING

11. “THE LOW COUNTRY”