Walton honored

 

By Tony Eberts

Editor

WINCHESTER, ENGLAND -- After some 57 years of fishing, I have at last paid homage to the saint of all anglers: Izaak Walton, the father of sports fishing as we know it.

His bones lie in a side-chapel of one of the world's oldest and most beautiful cathedrals, and the light that falls on his tomb is filtered through stained glass depictions of him and his angling pal Charles Cotton.

Westminster Abbey is bigger and claims far more kings and queens, of course; St. Peter's in Rome is grander still, and Canterbury has a more dramatic history. But there is a mellowness, a bright and friendly atmosphere to Winchester Cathedral that seems eminently suited to the resting place of the nice old man who died in 1693 and today is revered by fishermen around the world.

In one panel of the window, donated by the grateful anglers of Britain and America in 1914, Walton is shown sitting beside the River Itchen, which yet flows free through the town and lovely meadows a short stroll from the cathedral. In another panel, Walton is with his young friend Cotton, who wrote a continuation of Izaak's famed Compleat Angler. They are beside another small river, quite likely the Dove.

The larger part of the window also has a fishy theme. There are St. Peter and St. Andrew, holding a salmon and a basket of mackeral. St. Anthony preaches to three fish (or is it two fish and an eel?).

Friendly guides told us remarkable stories about the cathedral. Because of the boggy ground, it was built on a great raft of elm trees, beginning in 1079, and 800 years later the vast building began to settle. One man, diver William Walker, saved the church by working in the watery blackness beneath the crypt over seven years, bringing out the rotted wood piece by piece so it could be replaced with concrete.

Still, the crypt floods each year when the Itchen is in spate--so that, even in death, Walton is not separated from his beloved fishing stream.

One day we lunched on the rooftop patio of a pub overlooking the river in the middle of the ancient town that was once capitol of England, and saw a young man catch a fine trout by casting from the sidewalk, over a railing. It might have been against some law or rule, yet Walton would have approved. He disliked "covetous, rigid persons" who controlled rivers and wouldn't let ordinary folk fish them.

He would have liked our Canadian system of public access to most waters. Let's hope a growing number of conservation measures, and growing respect for our fishing resource, will keep our lakes and streams open to the people for many years to come. 

 

Walton Honored by Tony Eberts previously appeared in The Province Newspaper, 1992.

 

Tony Eberts

 

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