Introduction

ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY New York State Colleges OF Agriculture and Home Economics AT Cornell University THE GIFT OF WILLARD A. KIGGINS, JR. in memory of his father Cornell University Library SH 439.B63 1898 Angling; or How to angle, and where to go 3 1924 003 433 921 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003433921 tANGwLm ING f\OVJ TO HNGLE 2BMD WHERE TD GO BY ROBERT BLTJKEY HNTD'RED SPINNER" o ANGLING , BOOKS FOR THE COUNTRY. In crown 8vo, doth, price 55. DOGS: Their Management. Being a new plan of treating the animal, based upon a consideration of his natural temperament. By the late Edward Mayhew, M.R.C.V.S., partly Re-written by A. J. Sewell, M.R.C.V.S. With numerous Woodcuts and 20 full-page Plates from Photographs of various Champion and Prize Dogs. In crown Bvo, doik, price 3J. td. each, BRITISH MOTHS. ByJ. W.Tutt.F.E.S. With 12 Plates in Colours and Woodcuts. BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. Figures and Descriptions of every Native Species. By W. S. Coleman. With Illustrations by the Author, A printed in Colours. New Edition, Enlarged and brought up to date. BRITISH BIRDS' EQQS AND NESTS. Revised and Re-edited by the Rev. Canon Atkinson, D.C.L. With Illustrations by W. S. Coleman, printed in Colours. GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Limited. THIi LASr RUSH OF THE SALMON. ANGLING HOW TO ANGLE, AND WHERE TO GO ROBERT BLAKEY "l^w %�*�- 5-1 A NEW EDITION REVISED, WITH NOTES AND MEMOIR BY ^RED SPINNER" (WILLIAM SENIOR) WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY AVER}' LEWIS LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited broadway house, ludgate hill i8q8 S60104 CONTENTS .... PEEFACE PAGE V SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR . vii PART I.--HOW TO ANGLE CHAP. I. IKTEODTJCTORY OBSERVATIONS II. ON TACKLE AND BAIT FOB ANGLINO 12 -- III. OF THE BIFFEKKNT KINDS OP FISH THE SALMON 45 IV. THE TllOUT . . . . 62 ........ V. THE PIKE VI. THE GBAYLINO VII. THE PBKCH VIII. THE CAKP 87 108 111 117 IX. THE TENCH AND BAKBEL 123 X. THE CHUB, BKBAM, AND KOACH 130 .... XI. THE GUDGEON, DACE, AND EEL XII. THE CHAE, BLEAK, LAMPREY, LOACH, MINNOW, KUFFE, ETC. 140 148 XIII. LAWS AND EEGULATIONS FOE TAKING FISH 151 PART II.--WHERE TO GO I. ILLUSTRATIONS THE LAST RUSH OF THE SALMON SALMON LEAPING A EIVEK SALMON, TBOUT, GEAYLING NETTING THE TKOUT PIKE, PBKCH, BAK13EL SPINNING FOR PIKE CARP, TENCH, ROACH LANDING THE ROACH Frmttispiece . Title Facing page 45 70 87 100 117 136 PREFACE This edition of Blakey's Angling will be to a number of men now no longer in their golden youth an old and welcome friend with a new face. It was an immensely popular work when some of us were boys, and, as frequent inquiries now make manifest, it is also known and appreciated by the younger generation of anglers. In these days, when books on iish and fishing have increased so greatly, and are yet issuing with steady evidence of popularity from the press, it says much for Blakey that his memory still lives. The appended Memoir will sufficiently indicate some of the reasons why a new edition is offered to the public. The difficulty of dealing with a book that in some respects must be out of date has been met, so to speak, by interfering with the text as little as possible. Where corrections or explanations are considered necessary, they are furnished in Notes at the ends of the chapters ; and with regard to Part II., where such treatment was not practicable, the reader is A offered friendly advice in what is termed " Necessary Foreword." The individuality of Blakey is thus preserved in the work, which must be now regarded as an interesting contribution to Angling literature rather than as a didactic modern exposition of how and where to fish. Four-and-forty years ago Blakey was accepted as guide in these matters; in 1898 we greet him chiefly as philosopher and friend. ROBERT BLAKEY ANGLER, AUTHOR, PROFESSOR So recently as the Diamond Jubilee Year of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, a query appeared in the Field, inviting some obliging correspondent to furnish a few leading facts respecting the career of Robert Blakey. If any reply was made, it was never published. This did not surprise me, for he is one of our angling authors whom you seldom hear mentioned as a per- sonality. Blakey's Angling has always been known and read, and will yet be read, for its strong common sense, practical knowledge of the sport, and distinct literary style. Yet singularly little is known of the my man. It is pleasure, therefore, to preface this new edition of a familiar work with a sketch of its (in a measure) unfamiliar author, so that the man himself may be known to the generation which has matured since he rested from his labours. And, in truth, the story is well worth the telling. The life of Robert Blakey is most interesting ; I know of no more sterling example of the self-educated man, of a laborious and industrious life, of an onward and upward career from a start most humble, and of triumph over difficulties. He was the son of a mechanic, born on 18th May 1795, at Morpeth, and his father died at the all too premature age of twenty-two, when the child was just nine months old. Some of his intelligence he must have inherited, for Robert Blakey phre invented a water clock, which was a public curiosity in his native viii ROBERT BLAKEY town ; and being earnestly religious, it is recorded that he left behind him a copy of the Presbyterian Chapel Hymn Book, written at full length by himself. Almost one of the last wishes of the young father was an injunction to bring up his son, the subject of this Memoir, "in the Presbyterian faith." Young Blakey, in truth, fell into the hands of relatives who were steeped in the traditions of Presbyterianism, and was nurtured, so to speak, on the Westminster Confession . of Faith. He learned to read and write somehow, and informs us, in his somewhat scrappy Autobiography, that he had to read, " or rather stammer," through two or three chapters of the Bible to his grandmother every night, summer and winter. The little chap, from his eighth year, worked in the spring and summer months in his uncle's garden for sixpence a day and his victuals. In this era of demand for an eight hours' day it is interesting to know that he used, as a matter of course, to labour from seven or eight in the morning till nine at night, and then per- form his Bible-reading before going to heA. He thus early enjoyed a thirst for knowledge which was never quenched ; and though very little schooling fell to his lot, two or three months a year being about the average allotment, he mastered the three E's, and acquired the habitual solace of general reading. At thirteen a change took place in his prospects; he then removed with his grandmother from Morpeth to Alnwick, where he made the acquaintance of persons from whom he derived a keen mental stimulus. The boy was intro- duced to the sombre Young's Night TJioughts and -- Milton's Paradise Lost ; the London Examiner and Cobbett's Register fell, moreover, in his way note- worthy incidents, when we perceive how in after life he devoted himself to politics and metaphysics. His fondness for books increased with his growth. A schoolmaster to whom he went in evening hours taught him Euclid and Trigonometry. At sixteen he began, as he put it, to scribble a little, and found his way into the columns of the Tyne ! ROBERT BLAKEY ix Mercury, discoursing on moral and mental philosopliy. The work of which he was always proudest in his riper years was his History of tlie Philosophy of the Mind, and here we have the soil in which the early seeds were sown. Returning to his native town in 1815, he established his connection with the press, and became a regular contributor to various periodical publications. He began to feel an interest in the Reform movement, and mentions that, though he took no personal part in the proceedings, he was upon the hustings erected on the Town Moor in Newcastle, at a famous meeting in 1820, where upwards of a hundred thousand people were present. At the age of twentytwo he_ was writing political articles for the Black Dwarf (which had a wide circulation on account of the suppression of Cobbett's Register) and for the DurJiam Chronicle; and in 1822 he married. Our special point of interest, however, begins in his own incidental statement that, during all these struggles, studies, and introductions to men of local note, he spent much of his spare time in angling and shooting, par- ticularly the former. It was the family of Newton, nurserymen, he says in grateful remembrance, who made him comparatively proficient in fly-fishing. These were halcyon days; and young Blakey, thanks to the generous permission of the Duke of Northumberland, had almost the entire water of the Alnwick River down to the tideway to himself. What a delight it must have been to him in one of his angling excursions to meet with Sir Walter Scott Blakey was fly-fishing in the river Yarrow, a little below Selkirk Bridge, when a gentleman accompanied by two dogs came up and asked him whether he had any sport. " Very little," was the answer. The gentle- man suggested that he probably was not using the right flies for the river, and asked to look at his patterns. Blakey showed him the flies, and the stranger said, "I think I can give you two that will very likely answer better than those you are using." So saying, he took out his fly-book, which seemed to contain a -- X ROBERT BLAKEY full stock, removed the flies on Blakey's cast, and with his own hands affixed a couple of his own. After sauntering with him two or three hundred yards, he wished him good day and better luck ; and it was only then that Blakey found from a passing countryman that his companion had been "the Laird of Abbotsford Wattie Scott." Later on Scott was made a baronet, and when, as Sir Walter, Blakey met him at the office of the Kelso Mail, he reminded him of that gift of flies. Amongst others personally known early iu his career to Blakey were Thomas Bewick the wood engraver, and Luke Clennell the artist. Through Dr. Jerdan, of the Literary Gazette, he was introduced to the American naturalist Audubon, the eminent ornithologist having come over to this country to obtain subscribers for his Birds of America. Blakey now seems to have made a living by writing for periodicals, many of his contributions being of a controversial character. He knew William Cobbett, was an admirer of William Godwin, was personally acquainted with Allan Cunningham, Thomas Doubleday, Dr. Whewell, and Chalmers. He published a Treatise on the Divine and Human Wills, and a History of Moral Science, before he was forty years of age. He went to London in 1840, to arrange the joining of his paper, the Champion, to the Northern Liberator, and had the honour of being prosecuted by the Government, at the end of the year, for an essay on the Natural Right of Resistance to Constituted Authorities. No great harm came of it, as the offender was merely bound over to keep the peace for three years, in his own recognisances, in the sum of five hundred pounds. His political journalism kept him in London a while, and in three years he and his family seem to have been in considerable straits on the Continent, whither he had repaired to study the literature of the Middle Ages. So we come to 1845, with the statement that his prospects at the commencement of that year were "rather gloomy." His work on The Christian Hermits probably brought him little money. His aff'airs, indeed, had never apparently been very flourish- ROBERT BLAKEY xi ing, and he wandered round the fortifications of St. Omer pondering over schemes for a livelihood. It was then that his scribbling habits, as he called them, were directed into what was to him the novel change which is of immediate interest to us. At St. Omer he met an English barrister and Episcopalian clergyman, and an acquaintance sprang up; for they were all passionately fond, "not to say mad," on angling. Neither of these acquaintances, however, knew even the rudiments of the art, and had never killed a trout with a fly in their lives. Finding that Blakey had been a keen disciple of the gentle craft for many years, it was proposed that all three should join in a fishing excursion in Belgium and France, and that he should write a book on the subject. This was all very promising and satisfactory, but who was to pay the expenses 1 The barrister promptly settled this point, coming to Blakey with a bag containing four hundred francs, throwing them on the table, and my shouting, " Here, good sir, take these for the present, for which I require no written acknowledgment, nor shall I ever demand of you what you do with them." This was an argument to the point, and Blakey drew up the outline of the contemplated work, and off he rushed to Paris to make arrangements about illustrations. The three men went into this expedition with delightful enthusiasm, and the barrister insisted upon having several gross of flies tied by Blakey. The learned gentleman used to visit the St. Omer market regularly, and buy up all the birds that had a gaudy and brilliant plumage, so that Blakey soon had " more feathers than would have served the manufacturers of Limerick and Carlisle for a twelvemonth." The projected volume made its appearance in London, after some squabbling about money matters and the share taken by the parson in the work. Blakey, however, while he allowed his clerical co-operator to print a thousand copies of the work, would not grant him a share of the copyright. This was how " Palmer Hackle, Esq.," came before the public. ;;: xii ROBERT BLAKEY -- The book was " Hints on Angling. With Suggestions for Angling Excursions in France and Belgium, to which are appended some brief notices of the English, Scottish, and Irish waters. By Palmer Hackle, Esq. London Robinson, 1846. XVI. 339 pp. 8vo." It was dedicated "To the Young Anglers of England (a noble and adventurous race)." This is, without room for question, the best of Blakey's angling books, as it was the longest. Portions were afterwards introduced in the book now republished, but it never ran into a second edition, while Angling or. How to Angle, and Where to Go, originally published by Eoutledge in 1854, has run into five subsequent editions, and is, as this edition fully testifies, still running. Palmer Hackle's Hints are in constant request and in the matter relating to the waters of Prance and Belgium, these have never been so thoroughly described, either before or since, by any English writer. It was, and is, an excellent treatise on angling in all its branches. As a writer on angling, Blakey came in some measure as a link between two schools. Amongst the older authorities were Salter, Jesse Stoddart, and Hofland Blakey and Ephemera (Fitzgibbon of Bell's Ldfe) were contemporaries ; and then came the schools of which Francis Francis, whose first work appeared in 1858, was leader and master. But Blakey's pen was dipping all the while in his favourite philosophies. He wrote a History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times, the History of the Philosophy of the Mind, a Historical Sketch of Logic, and a number of kindred books. Two years after the publication of Hints on Angling, Palmer Hackle, Esq., after prodigious eff'orts, succeeded in securing the appointment of Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast. Working hard at all points, he was generally, nevertheless, able to say that he was " put about for money " and later on we find him at Glasgow, doing his best for his family, the sons having grown up sufiiciently to require a start in life. In 1850 he took up his abode -- ROBERT BLAKEY xiii it Greenock, so as to enjoy rambling excursions for tingling in Dumbartonshire yet the autobiographical ; paragraph which speaks of the entrancing delights of the country, the wild and barren heath, the mountains, the pure and rippling streams, is significantly succeeded by another beginning " About the middle of the month I began my Historical Sketch of Logic." This was finished at the end of the next year. It was the night before Christmas Day, and he felt "an inexpressible sense of relief," as if a great load had been taken off his shoulders. The Memoirs, however, are irregular and incomplete, but it may be gathered from them that Blakey conversed with, or had correspondence (in addition to those already mentioned), during his distinguished career, with Dugald Stewart, Edmund Kean, Kobert Montgomery, Mrs. Siddons, Joanna Baillie, Thomas Campbell, Samuel Kogers, Louis Blanc, Colley Grattan, Joseph Conder, Sir William Hamilton, Southey, Pusey, and Newman. He had come in contact with the two latter while foraging in the Oxford libraries, and saw Newman when he was residing at Littlemore, in that memorable transition stage between the two Churches. Blakey probably did not think highly of his works on angUng, for on January 11, 1853, he indites this single entry -- "Jan. 11. Caught a severe cold; bought some woodcuts (blocks) for a small work I purpose getting out soon, to be called The Angler's Complete Guide to the Rivers im, Ungland and Wales. I obtained ten blocks in excellent order for twenty-three shillings. They would have cost nearly twelve pounds from the engraver's hand." By and by (March 20) we find him receiving proofs of this Guide, which he says " looks well, and will be a useful and agreeable pocket volume to the disciples We of the gentle art." can therefore estimate the time which Blakey devoted to this work. Then he -- sends a " Sketch of Angling Literature " to the editor of the Eclectic Review a study, probably, of the fuller work published three years later. The Guide to the Rivers and LaJces of England and Wales was published in 1853, and there were two subsequent editions, revised xiv ROBERT BLAKEY and enlarged. In the following year a similar Guide for the rivers and lochs of Scotland was published, and that appeared as a second edition in 1859. In the May of 1855, Blakey called on Dr. Hume in Liverpool, to look over a large stock of ballads which he had been collecting for several years, the object being to find if there were any on angling. Blakey's store of angling songs and poetical pieces generally was by this time already voluminous, and that year " The Angler's Song Book, compiled and edited by Eobert Blakey" (pp. 276 8vo), was published in London and Edinburgh. He quotes from Dennys, Moses Browne, Gay, Pope, Peter Pindar, and others, and it is not too much to say that it is the best collection of the kind ever made, for he draws freely upon the rich stores of Scotland and the Border, and was evidently familiar with much excellent material which seems to be quite unknown to modern compilers. Some of the contributions are Palmer Hackle's own compositions reproduced from Hints, and they show that if Blakey was not exactly a poet he had a very versatile and tuneful pen. The late Mr. Thomas Satchell, a most precise bibliographer, is severe in his monumental Bihliotheca Piscatoria, upon Blakey's next book, Historical Sketches of Angling Literature, which was published in 1856. He describes it as "a slipshod and negligent work, devoid of all utility." "With all respect for Mr. Satchell's judgment, this I think is hard measure. The work is at anyrate interesting, if it is "irrelevant"; and if there are "indiscriminate sweepings from miscellaneous sources," it supplied a want : there was nothing better for angling readers of the day. Blakey, however, was often loose in verbal quotations, names, and dates, and that would be enough for the always exact Satchell. It must be remembered that Blakey's work was avowedly " historical sketches of the angling literature of all nations," and his deliberate intention was to glean sayings and doings on the general subject of fishing during all the centuries. The chapters on ; ROBERT BLAKEY xv angling literature and practices of the ancients ; on the periods from the Christian era to the revival of letters in Europe, and the institution of the art of printing on the connection of angling with heraldry, architecture, ancient coins, and superstitions, astrology, necromancy, and the drama, are an exhaustive epitome written in easy style ; and the last chapter, on the angling literature of Great Britain from 1800 to 1855, was of considerable value, even if it was largely flavoured by the Nodes Ambrosiance of Blackwood. One of the curiosities of this chapter is an extract from a Cape Town newspaper of 1852, in which a correspondent describes a marvellous day's fly-fishing for " trout." There were no trout (as we know them) to our knowledge in South Africa at that time, but the statement is made without note or comment by the author. The publisher of this book, John Russell Smith, added as an appendix a Bibliographical Catalogue of Writers on Angling and Ichthyology to date, and this was a decided boon to our brother anglers at the time of its publication. The Autobiography ends rather abruptly, and the information in the Memoirs is never complete. Blakey's editor supposes that the entries are mere reminders upon which he himself intended to enlarge in some future leisure, which never arrived. Amongst the brief facts is an entry that in 1854 he wrote two books for Messrs. Koutledge, Angling (the present work), and the kindred volume Shooting, in the " Books for the Country" series. These would seem to be his final books on sport, and indeed hereafter his only finished work was Old Faces under New Masks. He enlarged some of his more solid treatises; and in 1860 received a pension of �100 from the Civil List. The later years of his arduous life were spent in the seclusion of his London home, and he died on 26th October 1878. He enjoyed occasional angling, " till his infirmities made it no longer possible for him to follow it." The Eev. H. Miller of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church of England, Hammersmith, edited the Memoirs -- xvi ROBERT BLAKEY of Dr. Robert Blalcey, Professor of Logic and Metaphysies, Queen's College, Belfast; and writing in 1879, the year after his death, says that his friend had spent the closing years of his life enjoying his wellearned pension from the Civil List. Although too feeble to be able to attend divine service, except at rare intervals, he became a member of the church, so that he might die in the faith of his fathers, and although his bodily infirmities were great, his conversational powers and clear intellect remained. The editor of his Memoirs says : "Dr. Blakey was intensely human. His appreciation of field sports, and especially his love of angling, together with his universal good humour, made his fellowship a boon to all who had its privilege. He was a many-sided man. Like many such, he may not have been ' a star that dwelt apart,' or reached a lofty pinnacle of fame ; but, taking his life as a whole, it presents to the last generation of this century a remarkable instance of indomitable perseverance