“THE COMPLEAT ANGLER”

Otago Witness, Issue 3726, 11 August 1925, Page 46

“THE COMPLEAT ANGLER”

ISA AK WALTON’S'BIRTHDAY By T. A. Fleming. A wooden stile leading into a green, meadow, a swift, clear stream running between low banks, rushes growing along the water’s edge, and, best of all, a speckled trout lying in a basket. Such visions does the name of Isaak Walton conjure up. Born 332 years ago on August. 9, 1593, and brought up as a poor apprentice, he was fated to become the world 3 most loved and famous angler. To-day every disciple of the rod recognises Isaak Walton as his patron saint. Here is a typical paragraph from hia writings:

“No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well governed Angler; for when the Lawyer is swallowed up wufch business, and the Statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on the Cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silver silent streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed my Good Scholar, we may fay of Angling, as Dr Boteler said of Strawberries, doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did: And so‘(if I might be Judge) God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than Angling. The story of his life bears eloquent testimony to Walton’s love of fish and fishing. As a youth in Stafford he was continually abroad with hazel rod and horse-hair line, learning by experience the precepts that make “'Hie Compleat Angler” still such a standard w r ork. When an unkind fate took him to London and made him slave all day in a crowded Chancery Lane shop as a kind of linendraper, he escaped from the noise and turmoil whenever he could to seek recreation by the River Lea in company with honest Nat Roe. It was not till 1644 that Walton, now a retired business man, ever dreamt of putting his thoughts on paper. Success in a number of biographies, however, lured him on, and in 1653 was published ‘The Compleat Angler or Contemplative Man’s Recreation,” Walton’s true title to fame.

Here is page after page in a pleasant, modest style, full of a gentle humour. For instance, in his address to the reader, the author says: “Now for the Art of catching fish, that is to say, how to make a man that was none, to be an angler by a book? He that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task than Mr Halea (a most valiant and excellent Fencer) who in a printed book (called, A private School of Defenoe) undertook to teach the art or science and was laughed at for his labour. Not but that many useful things might be learnt by that book, but lie was laugh’d at, because that art was not to be taught by words, but practice; and so must Angling. . . . But I undertake to acquaint the Reader with many things that are usually known to every Angler; and I shall leave gleanings and observations enough to be made out of the experience of all that love and practice this recreation, to which I shall encourage them.” Or, if necessary, Walton can speak sharply. 111 the chapter headed “To fish fine and far off is the first and principal rule for trout-angling,” he remarks: Your line in this case should never be less, nor ever exceed two hairs next the hook, for one (though some I know will pretend to more Art than their fellows) is indeed too few, tho least accident, with the finest hand being sufficient to break it; but he that cannot kill a trout of twenty inches long with two, in a River efear of wood and weeds, as this and others of ours are, deserves not the name of Angler. Of course, there are in existence scores of other books on angling, but in spite of modern knowledge authorities in all parts of the globe nave no hesitation m recommending those who would learn what angling is to go to the pages of the “tenderest teacher and powerfullest preacher” the art has ever had. ;