THE FISHING GAZETTE 
479 
June 24, 1893] 
CONTENTS. 
N.B.—All rights reserved in articles published in this 
paper. 
Tercentenary of the Birth of Izaak Walton . 479 
Ely-Fishing in the Teme.479 
Tho Angling Section at the World’s Fair . 480 
d he Deveron--its Position, and Salmon and Trout 
Fishings.. .481 
Scotch Notes .482 
A Short Fishing Tour in Norway . 483 
On Things in General, and Ground-Baiting in Par- 
. • . .484 
Tho Norwegian Middleman .489 
Waltoniana.491 
Correspondence.491 
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— mt — 
,JisMn0 (SaM^ 
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED 
ANGLING AND CLUB GOSSIP. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 24.th, 1893. 
TERCENTENARY OF THE BIRTH 
OF JZAAK WALTON. 
To THE Editor OF THE “Times.” 
Sir. —There is a very general feeling among 
anglers and lovers of Walton that the 800 h 
anniversary of his birth at Stafford, on August 9 
nest, should be commemorated. 
The Mayor of Stafford has taken up the matter 
heartily, and it is hoped that he will preside at a 
bancjuet in or near London, at which repre¬ 
sentatives of the principal angling societies and 
O'. hers interested will he present. I think that 
we anglers of the nineteenth century should also 
mark the occasion by something more permanent 
than a banquet, and I wrote to the rector of St. 
Dunstan’s asking if he would be willing to have 
some memorial of Walton either in or outside his 
church. I am delighted to say that the rector, 
the Rev. William Martin, replies as follows : 
“ St. Dunstan’s Vestry, Fleet-street, E.C. 
“June 12, 1898. 
“ My Dear Mr. Marston,- —I cordially approve 
of your suggestion, and 1 am very grateful to you 
for writing to me about it. I should consider it 
a great honour to St. Dunstan’s Church to have 
some memorial in it of Izaak Walton. 
“ A"ery sincerely yours, 
“ Wm. iLARTlN.” 
St. Alary’s Church at Stafford, where he was 
born, has a marble bust of Walton, and, thanks 
to a suggestion first made in the Times, we have 
a statue of him in Winchester Cathedral, where 
he is buried. Surely London, where he lived and 
where his “ Compleat Angler,” and his admirable 
biographies of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, 
and Sanderson were published, should have some 
memorial of him; and since the rector of St. 
Dunstan’s Church, of which he was a vestryman 
(the records of which contain the entries of the 
births and deaths of seven of Walton’s children), 
so warmly welcomes the suggestion, I feel sure we 
shall see it carried out. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
R. B. AIarston, 
Editor of the Fishing Gazette. 
P.S.—T am glad to hear from Dr. James A. 
Henshall, who has charge of Ihe angliner depart¬ 
ment of the Chicago Exhibition, that American 
anglers are also preparing to celebrate the ter¬ 
centenary of Walton’s birth. 
[We hope shortly to give some further 
particulars in connection with this matter.—En.] 
FLY-FISHING IN THE TEME. 
{Gontinued from page 434) 
By Francis T. B. Hurly. 
The Alay-fiy comes on heavily’ on the Teme, but 
I have never done exceptionally well with it my¬ 
self, although I have made fair baskets with a 
small hackle sunk May-fly, and with a Wickham, 
dry, while it was on. 
it is chiefly from the end of June to the close 
of the summer that the dry fly is so useful for 
Trout. On the hot days, when the only moving 
fi-ih to be fountl are in shady nooks and corners, 
and deeper, stiller water, close into the opposite 
bank, it is po>sible to get fish with a dry fly 
which will not look at it wet. Again, in ti e 
evening, after a blazing day, when the fish begin 
to move, it is a veritable charm. 
When you fish the same water regularly all 
through the season, you naturally get to know 
several fish which you have seen lise, and 
perhaps tried, perhaps risen, but more often at 
first put down for the simple reason that they are 
generally in some out of the way haunt very 
difficult to get at, and it is not until you have 
found out by one or two unsuccessful essays how 
to approach them without putting them down, 
and then the best way to get your fly to them, 
that you have any chance at all. 
When I was able to fish the Teme regularly, I 
made a point of spotting such fish, and always 
had several “ old friends ” with whom to try a 
tassel of wits. The capture of one of these was 
the greatest possible 1 riumpb, involving a long 
study of his haunt, to say nothing of such trifles as 
getting over one’s waders on several previous occa¬ 
sions, and o'tcnof breaking off boughs, &c , which 
prevented you getting a fly to him. But the 
sweets of capture at last amply repay such pains; 
besides, these old friends come in very useful 
when there is nothing whatever moving; you can 
always have a try for them. 
One old friend, in particular, I shall always 
remember. He was, without exception, the most 
obdurate and eccentric fish that ir, has been my 
lot to come across. I knew of him for two whole 
seasons, and have every reason to believe it was 
the same fish. Times out of mind I had seen him 
rising steadily, and had tried him with everything 
1 knew, and at all times ; but never, never got a 
rise out of him. Nor was I alone. Others had 
tried him, and with the same result. Besides 
this, he was quite easy to get at, for, although he 
rose in a deepish stream close into the bank, the 
casting behind was quite free and open. I think 
the secret of the difficulty lay in a large stone just 
above, and round which the water flowed fast, 
carrying the fly, if you did not know the place, a 
foot or two to the side of the fish. Again, just 
below, a bramble bush came down to the water, 
so that it was necessary to flick the fly’ off almost 
immediately, for fear of being hung up, and 
doubtless this frequently scared him and put him 
down. But this was not all, for T found out how 
to get at him, and had had a fly right over his 
nose many limes. Hi.s capture w’as on this wise. 
One hot day a friend and myself had fished up 
from Ashford, and had done very little, when we 
decided to have lunch a short distance below iny 
fish. After discussing our sandwiches and having 
arrived at the tobacco stage, I bethought me of 
him, and I told my companion that I could show 
him a good fish, but, I added, “I am sure you 
w’on’t catch him.” As it turned out this was a 
true prophecy. We waded up below the fish, 
and having my rod ready. I said I would just 
show him where he was. Casting off my line in 
the air until enough was out, I dropped a little 
Red Quill well up above the stone, slackening 
immediately to prevent it dragging. “Now,” I 
said, “ that ought to go right over him.” The 
words were hardly out of my mouth when 
there was a boil. “You’ve got him,” from 
my friend excitedly—and I had. A pound 
and three-quarters he weighed, and, from his 
length, should have been over two pounds. 
Curiously enough almost immediately afterwards 
there came on one of the most terrific thunder¬ 
storms that I have ever been out in. Possibly 
the fact that he took at such a time was part of 
his peculiarity’. His capture, I need hardly say, 
gave me the liveliest satisfaction, considering how 
often he had rejected my’ snares and foiled my 
efforts ; the only thing I regretted was that I had 
been so inhospitable as to catch him myself, after 
I had made my friend the generous offer to put 
him on a fish. 
1 think the moral of this incident is that it 
is impossible to say when fish will take, or to 
dogmatise on conditions of atmosphere or water, 
and no state of weather is so bad as to be hope¬ 
less. We may have learnt a good d.^1, and 
besides what we have culled for ourselves have 
the experiences and observation of past and 
present fishermen to guide us, but the combined 
wisdom of ancient and modern has not quite gob 
to the bottom of the genus trout. For my own 
part I think this is by no means to be deplored, 
for it leaves us scope to enjoy the first pleasures 
of the sport, by adding a little here and a little 
there to our stock of knowledge on the subject, 
and to our fish-catching powers. In this respi-ot I 
opine angling is a more intellectual form of sport 
than any other, and less mechanical; there are 
the fish, and there the fisher, who may be a first- 
rate one, but it by no means follows that he can 
always catch them. In other sport, given these 
conditions, and the result is, to a much greater 
extent, a certainty. “ Live and learn” is one of the 
angler’s best mottoes, and next to this, “ Never 
despair,” i.e., if we love fishing for the sake of 
fishing, which by no means necessarily implies 
making big bags, or even respectable ones, on all 
occasions. For is it nob the disappointments and 
bad days that cast such a delicious halo about 
the good ones; while we feed on the good 
ones ill memory, and they serve to keep up that 
indomitable keenness which no bad luck can 
dissipate for long? Half the fun of fishing, I 
think, we enjoy in anticipation; nob all the 
other half, but a great deal of it, long afterwards. 
Good days are very nice, and necessary occa¬ 
sionally, but it is not a bad thing that they 
should be such ‘ glorious uncertainties.” And 
so we peg away in hope, and, taking fish or 
not taking them, can at least learn something, 
and revel in the sweeti of nature; diaw in sweet 
country air, listen to the lowing kine, or the 
sharp bark of the collie in the distant meadows, 
as the stillness of the summer evening is made 
stiller in contrast to the gentle ripple of the 
stream, while the high banks rise on either hand, 
and the trees form a verdant canopy above. It 
is thus, shut in and alone with nature, that we 
can feel her influence, and see her in her love¬ 
liest guise. Let us tread softly round the corner. 
What is that in the water below ? It is another 
fisher—a fisher who is wading, bnt not in waders, 
and fishing with a rod made by nature. Let us 
keep still, and watch him, and admire his pearl 
grey plumage. Tbe stream is carrying your line 
down straight and taut, and if you gently raise 
the rod point there will be no danger of hooking in 
that moss-grown stone. ’Tis right, but there is 
a sudden splash and gleam of yellow, and a 
whirring of the reel. It was lucky for you the 
line was free to run, for yon never caught a fish 
hy a greater fluke in your life. The other fisher 
rises with startled flaps of those great grey wings ; 
he is doubtless jealous of your undeserved success, 
as well as alarmed by tho frisky half-pounder as 
