Just the other day
someone asked me: "When did people start sport
fishing?" It certainly beat some of the other questions I’ve
had aimed at me lately, like "Didn’t you see the sign
that says this wicket is closed?" and "do you know
your fly is open?" Or "Why didn’t you spot the fire
hydrant when you parked?"
Anyway, the sport
fishing question got me thinking--not an easy task, believe me.
The pursuit of finned things began, I knew, even before my
mother-in-law was born. I thought of our father of angling,
Izaak Walton, but then I figured that rods and lines must have
been in use long before the 17th century, so I did some
investigating.
It turns out that
fishhooks were found in the ruins of Pompeii, which got
thoroughly ruined in 79 A.D. Still further back, a painting of a
fish being landed by rod and line was found on an Egyptian tomb
built about 2000 BC. No sign of the catch itself was found
inside the tomb, however, indicating that mummified fish are no
treat.
Fast forward to 1496
A.D. and we have Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of Sopwell
Nunnery, St. Albans, England, with her "Treatise of
Pysshynge with an Angle." That, of course, was back when
women sometimes weren’t, and men wore tights.
It was old Izaak, doing
his thing in the first half of the seventeenth century, who
really made angling popular with his colorful descriptions of
rivers, countryside, the various species of English fish, milk
maids and friendly pubs. He told us about the tackle, too, which
had changed from "a sturdy ashen pole as thick as your
arm" in Dame Juliana’s time to multi-piece contraptions
of pine, hazel and willow--often 20 feet long.
I could sit quietly
looking at the water, "Walton wrote, "see some fishes
disport themselves in silver streams, other leaping at flies in
several shapes and colors. Looking at the hills, I could behold
them, spotted with woods and groves: looking down on the
meadows, I could see a boy gathered lilies . . . there a girl
cropping culverkeys and cowslips, all suitable to the month of
May."
During the first half
of Queen Victoria’s reign, exotic woods were showing up in
Europe and North America, and rods made of greenheart from
British Guyana were popular because they could be tapered to
fine tips. Then came bamboo poles, followed by the split cane
rods that led the field-especially for the well-heeling
angler--for a century and more.
Good brass reels (some
of them little different from today’s models) also came on the
market early in the nineteenth century, along with fly lines
made of such fine stuff as braided silk and linen, with
horsetail-hair leaders.
An 1839 catalogue by J.
Cheek of London, England, boasted three-joint rods of solid
bamboo that doubled as walking sticks, for three shillings.
In 1878 in
Philadelphia, John Krider offered a basic bamboo rod for $2.25,
but a top-of-the-line split cane model in four sections (with
two spare sections and two tips) cost a whopping $60--big money
in those days. A light gut trout leader, three yards long, sold
for a quarter, and a 50-yard oiled silk line was one buck.
The cheapest brass reel
for 100 yards of line was 65 cents, but a premium "click
reel" ranged from $5 to $10. A mid-sized creel or
"fish basket" set you back $1.50, while the Izaak
Walton Fishing Suit--coat, vest and pants--was priced at $9.25.
By the end of World War
1, Hardy Brothers Ltd. of England were among world leaders in
light tackle, with reels that are still treasured and used
today, and many of their split or spliced bamboo rods were
classics. They were slow to change, however, and still relied on
split cane well into the fiberglass and graphite years.
Twenty years ago, some
of us presented a Hardy split cane fly rod to an old pal on his
80th birthday. It was presented at a well-attended ceremony in a
Legion hall, and we made it as memorable as possible. We found
an old, cracked bamboo rod and put it in the Hardy case.
Old Jack’s eyes lit
up when he beheld the case, but then the presenter slipped out
what appeared to be the new rod, put it together and said,
"lets see how well it bends." It promptly snapped in
two, and Jack was pale and speechless until we brought the real
thing.
So what was the question? When did
sport fishing start? A reliable source tells me that the Bible
would have been finished many years sooner if the authors had
spent less time on the river.
