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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18444, 30 March 1922, Page 6

FISHING ANCIENT SPORT. It is recorded that Noah was not only a good boatman, but a skilful angler as well. Long before the flood, and far away in the mists of time, there is a Babylonian legend that Belus, son of Nimrod, discovered fishing. The first authentic record of angling appears when the Lord asks Job: “Can’t thou take out a fish with a hook?” The great Homer immortalizes the art in the “Iliad” and "Odyssey," stating that godlike men, when pinched for dinner, fished with crooked hooks, and even dived for oysters. Plato, the Greek philosopher, said: “There is nothing in angling that is noble, or daring or requiring skill.” Charlemagne, who dominated Western Europe in the eighth century, advised his subjects to take up the art of angling in order to be content. “Because,” said he, “I have never yet known an angier who was melancholy.” But the greatest fisherman and philosopher of modern times is undoubtedly Isaac Walton. In his “Compleat Angler” he indicates the progress of fishing, particularly on luring trout. His books are a source of information after all, and it has been said that in them a child may wade and the tallest giant swim. “Angling,” said Isaac, “is like mathematics, in that it can never be fully learned, at least not so fully but that there will always be room for experiment by some succeeding angler.”