GOING FISHING with Kotare

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34089, 28 February 1976, Page 12

GOING FISHING with Kotare

Three hundred years ago this month a man was furiously scribbling a fishing book. He had just over 10 days to write what a respected authority of our time has described as the best work written on fly-fishing.

Charles Cotton, the scribbler, lived at Beresford Dale, by the river Dove, in the North of England. He was a Royalist, and like several of his aristocratic contempo-

raries he was also dissolute and a spendthrift. And he delighted in writing poetry that was so obscene that it outraged even the generously permissive society of the Restoration period.

And yet this man was the close friend and

adopted son of the completely charming author of what remains to this day the second bestknown book in the tnglish language — “The Compleat Angler.”

No two men. on the surface, differed so greatly as Walton and Cotton. True, Izaak was a Royalist too, out he was a gentle, pious soul, a retired tradesman, the friend and biographer of good men wnose biograohies are still acclaimed as much as Walton's timeless fishing book.

What other sport brings men so different so closely together? Cotton had diffidently suggested to Walton some time after the appearance of the first edition of “The Compleat Angler,” in 1653, that some detailed instructions on fly-fisning for trout and gravling could perhaps be

added to a future edition of the book.

Walton, knowing that his treatise lacked authority on the subject of flyfishing. readily agreed.

But three more editions of “The Compleat Angler” were to be published over the next 15 years before it was suddenly announced in February-. 1676, that a fifth edition being prepared by Izaak Walton would be issued within weeks.

Cotton immediately set to work. His qualifications for the task were excellent. He lived beside the Dove. He had fished those clear waters for trout and grayling for 30 years. He had had all the time m the world to indulge nis favourite sport.

He was familiar with what had already been written on the subject — and in spite of his prediliction for disgusting

poetry he could nevertheless write clearly and effectively on other matters too.

Did he write his book in that famous fishinghouse he had built on the Dove for Walton and himself? Surely some of it was written there.

What better place than a one-room bach frescoed with paintings of fishing and other sporting subjects and, over the door, the entwined initials of two men whose fishing pleasures, friendship, and

literary gifts, were already well established? Cotton completed his “Instructions how to angle for a TROUT or GRAYLING in a clear Stream” within the 10 days or so available' to him, and sent the manuscript to London to his “most worthy Father and Friend, Mr Izaak Walton, the Elder,”; with a letter dated March 10, 1676. Walton returned the printed manuscript with his letter to Cotton dated April 29. 1676:

“You now see 1 have returned you your very pleasant and useful discourse on the Art of Flyfishing, printed just as it was sent to me; for I have been so obedient to your desire as to endure al! the praises you have ventured to fix upon me in it.”

Cotton had asked Walton whether he would allow the cipher from their fishing house to be ‘explained’ in the book. No doubt he was very pleased to find that the

entwined initials had been reproduced on the titlepage of his contribution — something that is rarely absent from the scores of editions of “The Compleat Angler,” (almost all of which include Cotton’s addition) published since that time. But what of Cotton’s work itself? Why is it spoken of so highly by all the critics, still? Dr James Robb, for instance, says quite-definitely that Walton is not ‘compleat’ without Cotton.

Certainly, although the general fisherman of England will gain little from the main work, even the budding New Zealand trout fisherman will learn a great deal from the practical and experienced Cotton.

Naturally, the tackle of the 1600 s ’is laughable compared with today’s — until you realise that Cotton was as skilled a fisherman as anyone.

He and his contemporaries fished with a single-handed rod 15ft to

18't long. A horsehair line, graduated down from several braided hairs sometimes to only one, not much longer than the rod itself, was attached to the tip. A breeze was virtually essential to the angler’s success, for it carried the fly out, either upstream or downstream, and tripped it on the surface. Cotton’s list of flies, though long, was original, which can hardly be said of Walton’s, which he cribbed from Mascall in 1590, who had in turn cribbed it from Dame Juliana Berner’s “Treatise” in 1496, the first known fishing book in English.

Cotton's were North Country flies — ideally suited, incidentally, to New Zealand’s fast streams. We have inherited too many of the plump south-of-England patterns — one of which,

even in the 1600 s, Cotton hung in his parlourwindow’ to laugh at. His own patterns were tied slim, with little hackle and a short body. Because he was an advocate of exact imitation, many of his patterns survive, in slightly different guise, to this day. Reading Cotton, you will come across maxims and suggestions which are as fresh today as they ever were. And remember that the whole work was put together in a little over 10 days and printed without alteration.

The book was a huge success, but it hardly made Cotton's fortune. In later years, harassed by debts, it’s said that he used to hide in a limestone cave on the Beresford Dale property for weeks to escape his creditors.