The fact is that a prodigious amount of ignorance prevails in connection with the sport of angling. People class all forms and modes of fishing together, and include them every one under the definition given at the commencement of this paper. The prevalent idea in the minds of most people is that fishing consists of sitting in an arm-chair in a punt watching a float bobbing up and down in the water, and partaking at intervals of very flat beer served out of a stone jar by the attendant boatman. Now this--the very lowest form of fishing that exists, and, unhappily, the form under which it is the oftenest and most conspicuously presented to view--so little really represents this particular sport, that I think I am hardly speaking too strongly in saying that no real fisherman would consent to hear such a proceeding classed under the head of fishing at all. When a sportsman speaks of fishing, he is thinking either of fly-fishing or spinning, and most generally of the former.
For fly-fishing, rightly engaged in, it is not too much to claim a very high position indeed among the sports of the field; many of the qualities on which it makes demands being the same which are required for the other forms of sport, while it also implies some which are not called for in those others, except, perhaps, in that of deer-stalking.
To be a perfectly good fisherman a man requires strength, agility, spirit, quickness and accuracy of eye, a neat hand, a nimble foot, considerable ability as a tactician, presence of mind, and coolness, coupled with the power of keeping his wits always about him. Nor is this all; a fisherman must have, besides, certain moral qualifications of an exalted nature. He must be possessed of patience, perseverance, and good temper; and, in addition to all this, he must thoroughly well understand his business in all its more intricate technicalities. Let us proceed to consider some of the points here insisted on a little in detail.
In fishing for trout with an artificial fly--a branch of sport to which, with the reader's permission, we will in this 'Apology' entirely confine ourselves--it is necessary, as it is in a great many other things, that a man should thoroughly understand what it is that he is doing--how, in short, the case stands. It stands thus. He sees before him a sheet of water, containing, as he has reason to suppose, a certain number of fish, some comparatively stationary, some darting hither and thither, all very much alive, very watchful, constantly on the look-out both for what may bring them advantage in the shape of food of divers kinds, or for what may give them cause for apprehension, in the shape of fish larger than themselves and of a predatory nature, herons, otters and, above all, men. To these creatures, vigilant, timorous, suspicious, it is the angler's business to present an object which they are to suppose is an insect which has dropped into the water and is floating down with the stream more or less near to the surface. If the fisherman succeeds in conveying this impression; if his counterfeit insect is a successful piece of imitation; if the fly which it imitates is one for which the fish has a liking, and if the fish itself happens at the particular moment to be "on the feed"--if all these conditions are fulfilled, then it will happen that the trout will rise swiftly through the water, will seize the bait, and the fisherman's object will be gained. This desirable consummation is, however, harder of attainment than might be supposed.