The Press Saturday, September 28, 1929. Rod and Line.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19736, 28 September 1929, Page 14

The Press Saturday, September 28, 1929. Rod and Line.

Canterbury fishermen, with a near date marked in red on the calendar, and their hands busy setting tackle to rights, may not have a mind for anything more literary than a fly-book. "Sing; riding's a joy," the hero of Browning's The Last Ride flung to the poet: "For me, I ride." They may return as impatient an answer to Mr Arthur Ransome, who offers them in Rod and Line (Cape) a collection of his Manchester Guardian articles on fishing: " For us, we flsh." But the season will find them vacant hours, nights of summer storm, and if they are wise they will have laid by for such occasions Mr Ransome's pleasant book. They will slide easily into friendliness with it and with him if they turn to the article on " Fisher- " men's Patience," which becomes at once the classical defence of fishermen against a certain ignorant misunderstanding. Those who are for ever complimenting themselves and condescending to anglers by explaining that they " have not patience enough " for fishing, as if the fisherman's activity and skill consisted in sitting as heavy and dull as cold pudding, waiting for something to happen, are here finally answered. What other people mistake for patience in anglers is really nothing at the sort but a capacity for prolonged eagerness, an unquenchable gusto in relishing an infinite series of exciting and promising moments, any one of which may yield a sudden .crisis with its climax of triumph or disaster. . . . Fishing, properly so called, is conducted under continuous tension. The mere putting of fly or bait on or in the water is an action needing skill, an action that can be done well or ill and consequently a source of pleasure. A fisherman is no stolid lump, or, if he is, so much the worse fisherman he; and he is no loafer enjoying a perpetual excuse for letting his mind wander. William Basse, who wrote My hand alone my work can do, So I can fish and study too, was either a liar, says Mr Ransome bluntly, or a bad fisherman. On the contrary, it is discipline, intelligent discipline and vigilance, that the angler must include among his virtues. Two more of them were identified by Sir John Hawkins, the cardinal virtues faith and hope, without which, though he might have "proper baits, good '' tackle in his pannier, and . . . " science in his head . . . , the angler "may as well stay at home." Clearly he means the faith that is justified by good works and the hope that has imaginative eyes; and so we find the good fisherman blended of the nimble, active virtues, stabilised by self-control. When we look at him, completely furnished, we are tempted to explain man, skill, and success in a word, and to put it all down to temperament; and Izaak Walton did so. He was ready to teach his "good scholar" all be knew; but, said he, " The question is rather, " whether you will be capable of learn"ing itf For angling is somewhat " like poetry, men are to be born so." Perhaps it is because Mr Ransome feels that fishing has in it so much of art, emotion, and therefore mystery, that he avoids instruction. The beginner is to be saved from "utter dis•'eouragement"; bat he is not to be told too much. He is to find his way as be proves himself worthy, and to look back at the hard-won discoveries of his novitiate as the secret springs of ail pleasure in mastery. Here and there, however, Mr Ransome is deeply informative, bat never in a cold, practical way. For instance, in an article on " The Winged Ant" he sets out, fully, the history of the ffy-tyers' success in producing a Winged Ant, down to Dunne's Red, too good to be bettered—but too elaborate to make up easily; and therefore Mr Ransome's attempt at a substitute, and therefore his article, which expresses, not the bare facts, though they are there, but the exultation of success. With half-a-dosen ot his Winged Ants —"not so " much a Frith as a Whistler portrait, "impressionist rather than realist" — he went down to the bridge on a hot August day: On the «44y below the stone bridge was an ant. On the bridge there were more. On a flat pool ia the wood just above the trout were steadily rising at something I could not see. Was it aatsf It presently was. My impressionist aat had hardly floated six inches before a trout bad him. Twelve fat little trout (a whole jury) mistakenly declared themselves satisfied ot the innocence of my impressionist ant, besides one or two that I missed or lost. Of course practical wisdom is diffused throughout these articles, and they are studded with detachable runes, saws, and instances. Thus, when Mr Ransome is discoursing of fishing inns, he utters the final word of wisdom when he says, m If the fishing is good "nothing else much matters"; and he proves Hipm**lf fisherman, where many who carry rods are but trenchermen out fishing. Bat there are more various and charming signs of Mr Ransome's worth in such articles, say, as that called " A Day of "Small Things," where he records a poor catch but communicates the pleasure of a still, delightful day, or that on " Carp," which is as dramatic as the other ia tranquiL There is in

it the wild thrill of encounter with a giant; and there is in it, too, Mr Ransome's beat story, too good not to quote, and too good to be followed by anything else: On the fourth occasion jne of the monsters made a direct run of thirty yards and then broke me, the 2ns gut .-ast parting above the float. There rhen occurred an incident that lilusrrares the nature of these flsh [earpj. Mv float, lying out in the middle of the pond, turned and sailed slowly in again to my very feet, towed by the monster, who then in some manner freed himself, thus returning my tackle with a sardonic invitation to try again. No other flsh is capable of putting so due a point on irony.