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maintained an orthodox demeanour in the eyes of the world, and this attitude he preserved to the end. The last words he is recorded by Clerselier to have said, are very beautiful: 'My soul, thou hast long been held captive; the hour has now come for thee to quit thy prison, to leave the trammels of this body; suffer, then, this separation with joy and courage.' His first burial was at Stockholm, in a cemetery set aside for unbaptised infants, since a regular Catholic burial ground was not available. His body, however, was soon removed to Paris, and buried with great pomp in the church of Ste Geneviève, the modern Panthéon; later it was removed to St Germain-des-Prés (where the tomb is now to be seen), though it was temporarily deposited in the Court of the Louvre during the Revolutionary times. We have of late been entertained by a hot discussion as to the genuineness of a skull reputed to be his, which is now at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

It was a great career; the story of a life lived worthily and with the highest ends consistently in view. The very failings of the man make us feel he is no remote figure dim from the dust of ages. His teaching that we are to set aside mere conjecture and seek to know with certainty, making sure of each step as we go, is a system of knowledge that is also very modern. We may not build on that system just as he directs us, though the excellent rules he lays down might well be kept before us still, but the substance of his method is as true to-day as it was three hundred years ago. His dualistic view of mind and body, like his theory of the world, has been criticised; but what makes him the originator of the modern, as opposed to the medieval, outlook is the clear and distinct thinking that strives for truth alone. Others will write of Descartes and add to the great literature that has gathered round his name. But they will always turn to M. Adam's volume for an accurate and carefully verified statement of the facts, and to this great edition for an authoritative version of the philosopher's works.

ELIZABETH S. HALDANE.

Vol. 219.-No. 436.

F

(66)

Art. 4.-DRY-FLY FISHING FOR SEA TROUT.

So many books and articles have been written on the subject of fishing that some excuse may be necessary for adding to them. My excuse is, that I am to describe a kind of angling which is new to most people, and about which even those who have tried it have still a great deal to learn. Dry-fly fishing for sea trout is still in its infancy, but it probably has a future. Personally, I have only caught sea trout by this method on a river in Norway, but I see no reason why, in any moderately clear river or loch in that country or in this, they should not take a dry fly. The Norwegian river in question rises in high mountains, and is largely fed by melting snow. Some miles from the sea it runs through a very deep lake, which no doubt has a special attraction for the fish. They can, and do, ascend the river which enters the lake at its upper end. The best of the fishing, however, lies between the lake and the sea-a glorious stretch of water, fast and clear, with many pools of every shape and size, and rushing torrents between them; all of it in a wild valley, with the mountains falling almost sheer on either side to the narrow flat through which the river runs.

About four years ago a very expert fisherman, who was not having any great success with the usual methods of catching sea trout, was exasperated into trying the effect of a dry fly. He tied an 00 Wickham's Fancy on a Test cast and floated it over the noses of the sea trout which he could see in the water. Of course, with so small a hook and so light a cast, disasters were frequent; for all that, the result was astounding to himself, the local inhabitants, and the fish. They took the dry fly during the daylight a great deal better than they had taken the wet; and the great discovery was made that one could, on a dry fly and a small rod, kill sea trout of great size in a rapid flow of water. Next year he returned with larger floating flies and stronger gut and reaped the reward of his previous experiments.

Salmon are large but very scarce in the river, but this is more than compensated for by the size and quantity of the sea trout, which often reach a weight of about 15 lb., and occasionally even run to 20 lb. The extraordinary weight of the fish in proportion to the

size of the rod and fly; the amount of fresh knowledge, which really pays him, that the angler may gain every day; the pace of the water; and the fact that one can with practice see many of the fish over which the fly is floating all these things give an intense and peculiar charm to this form of sport. There are, at the right time of year, a great many big fish in the river, but it is not easy fishing, or coarse fishing; and to catch many of them, one must be at one's best all the time.

My great difficulty on the first occasion when I stood by this river was to know where the fish lay, and where they would take a dry fly. It was the first thing to be learnt, and, until it was discovered, much time and energy were wasted in fishing the wrong parts of the stream. I know now exactly what the water looks like, in which I expect my dry fly to be taken; and I will try (though it is not very easy) to describe it.

At the head of any pool in a quick rocky river the main stream runs in, forming a series of waves, which diminish in size and gradually disappear as they reach the smooth tail of the pool. On either side of the main stream the water flows in wrinkling eddies, more or less towards either shore. These eddies meet a backwash from the shore, and between this backwash and the eddies may be seen a band of straight-flowing water of varying width, narrower at the top and widening towards the tail of the pool. This water runs smoothly and evenly, parallel with the shore, and has an oily appearance. It is in the tail, and still more in this oily band on either side of the waves, up to the very head of the pool, that fish may be expected to take a dry fly. If the main stream runs near one side of the pool, the fishable water on that side may be compressed into a very narrow streak, but in most cases it will still be there. In high water, the right place to fish is near the bank, and in low water recedes from it towards the main stream; but, wherever it is, it has the same general appearance, and the fly floats down it at about the same pace. It was of no use to fish in backwaters in this river, because sea trout did not lie in them, and it was impossible to avoid the drag in the eddies which run roughly at right angles to the waves. Provided the water runs straight, the small choppy waves often seen at the sides of the main

stream at the head of a pool are well worth fishing. Anyone new to this kind of fishing would do well to make a careful note of the appearance of the water in which he has his first success, and remember the pace at which his fly was floating when the fish took it. Having got these two things clearly into his head, he had better at first confine his fishing to water of a similar appearance and pace.

Sea trout might reasonably be expected to be uneducated and careless about the correct floating of the fly, but this is emphatically not the case. They do sometimes look at a fly which is dragging, but they do not take it. Occasionally-very occasionally-they have taken my fly when it was lying on its side; but I think it is no exaggeration to say that ninety-nine per cent. of those caught with a dry fly took it when both wings were cocked and the fly floated free of any suspicion of drag. Nothing but the youngest parr would look at a fly on its back with the hook in the air. I have had very convincing evidence of the dislike of sea trout to a dragging fly. On two occasions, when I could watch every movement of the fish while casting over them, they refused the fly when it was dragging, but took it at the next cast when floating correctly. I also saw others frightened away by the same fault. The avoidance of drag is of course difficult, but it is not quite so difficult as a fisherman coming straight from a gently-flowing chalk-stream to a violent rush of water would expect. The pace of the stream does not prevent a fly from floating correctly, provided the water runs straight, and the casting-line lies in water moving at the same pace as the fly.

The next thing to learn is to spot the fish. This is not easy at first, and the best way to learn it is, perhaps, to get somebody who is an expert at it to point out as many fish as possible. Sea trout always lie on, or practically on, the bottom; and this position, coupled with the quickly moving water and varying light, makes it a difficult matter to see them. For some time I failed altogether, but after having many pointed out to me I gradually learnt what to look for, and how to look for it; and that is half the battle in seeing anything. The body of the fish seems very transparent and of a light bluish-grey colour, but the tail appears in the water a darker slaty-blue and

more opaque than the body, and is apt to give him away. The waving of the front fins will settle the question whether a suspicious-looking object is a fish or not. Bands of light can be seen travelling from time to time down the pool, and by following these with the eye some of the bed of the river can be searched. A very favourite place for a sea trout to lie is just up-stream of a big stone which breaks or nearly breaks the surface. It looks most uncomfortable, but they seem to prefer these positions to lying below a stone, as a brown trout would do. Even the big fish often lie in quite shallow water. They seem to choose positions where the bottom is smooth and unbroken. Of course, much of the water is too rough to see into, but in most of the pools places can be found where with practice one can locate the fish. It is quite possible -in fact, it is much more usual-to catch fish which have not previously been seen; but it is worth while to learn the art of seeing them, not only because it leads to more success, but also because it adds enormously to the excitement and pleasure in the fishing. There was one pool in which we had no success at all with a dry fly, though we killed fish in it, especially during rain and late at night, with a wet fly. The top of it was a kind of whirlpool, and the rest was very deep and had a very smooth surface.

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Certain sea trout in the river might always be found in practically the same position. These fish, which soon received Christian names as well as other attentions at our hands, did not move up in a spate. They shifted towards or away from the bank as the river rose or fell, but they seemed to think they had swum far enough, and preferred to stay where they were rather than continue their journey to the lake. One of them, who was christened Black Joe,' owing to his remarkable colour, gave me a great deal of amusement. He lay so near the shore and was so dark in colour that my gaffer suggested, after I had fished for him without result for a week, that he was sick, and had better be removed from the river with the gaff. I thought the fish sulky and ugly rather than ill, and refused to attempt any such methods of catching him. After three weeks' fishing, the day came when Joe's appetite, which till then had entirely failed him, was quickened by the sight of a cinnamon sedge. He

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