Transcribed from the 1895 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by DavidPrice, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Contents:
Preface
Note to New Edition
The Confessions of a Duffer
A Border Boyhood
Loch Awe
Loch-Fishing
Loch Leven
The Bloody Doctor
The Lady or the Salmon?
A Tweedside Sketch
The Double Alibi
The Complete Bungler
TO MRS HERBERT HILLS
‘NO FISHER
BUT A WELL-WISHER
TO THE GAME.’
IN MEMORY OF PLESANT DAYS AT CORBY
Several of the sketches in this volume have appeared in periodicals. “The Bloody Doctor” was in Macmillan’s Magazine,“The Confessions of a Duffer,” “Loch Awe,” and“The Lady or the Salmon?” were in the Fishing Gazette,but have been to some extent re-written. “The Double Alibi”was in Longman’s Magazine. The author has to thankthe Editors and Publishers for permission to reprint these papers.
The gem engraved on the cover is enlarged from a small intaglio inthe collection of Mr. M. H. N. STORY-MASKELYNE, M.P. Such gemswere recommended by Clemens of Alexandria to the early Christians. “The figure of a man fishing will put them in mind of the Apostle.” Perhaps the Greek is using the red hackle described by Ælian inthe only known Greek reference to fly-fishing.
The historical version of the Black Officer’s career, veryunlike the legend in “Loch Awe,” may be read in Mr. Macpherson’sSocial Life in the Highlands.
These papers do not boast of great sport. They are truthful,not like the tales some fishers tell. They should appeal to manysympathies. There is no false modesty in the confidence with whichI esteem myself a duffer, at fishing. Some men are born duffers;others, unlike persons of genius, become so by an infinite capacityfor not taking pains. Others, again, among whom I would rank myself,combine both these elements of incompetence. Nature, that mademe enthusiastically fond of fishing, gave me thumbs for fingers, short-sightedeyes, indolence, carelessness, and a temper which (usually sweet andangelic) is goaded to madness by the laws of matter and of gravitation. For example: when another man is caught up in a branch he disengageshis fly; I jerk at it till something breaks. As for carelessness,in boyhood I fished, by preference, with doubtful gut and knots ill-tied;it made the risk greater, and increased the excitement if one did hooka trout. I can’t keep a fly-book. I stuff the fliesinto my pockets at random, or stick them into the leaves of a novel,or bestow them in the lining of my hat or the case of my rods. Never, till 1890, in all my days did I possess a landing-net. If I can drag a fish up a bank, or over the gravel, well; if not, hegoes on his way rejoicing. On the Test I thought it seemly tocarry a landing-net. It had a hinge, and doubled up. I putthe handle through a button-hole of my coat: I saw a big fish rising,I put a dry fly over him; the idiot took it. Up stream he ran,then down stream, then he yielded to the rod and came near me. I tried to unship my landing-net from my button-hole. Vain labour! I twisted and turned the handle, it would not budge. Finally,I stooped, and attempted to ladle the trout out with the short net;but he broke the gut, and went off. A landing-net is a tediousthing to carry, so is a creel, and a creel is, to me, a superfluity. There is never anything to put in it. If I do catch a trout, Ilay him under a big stone, cover him with leaves, and never find himagain. I often break my top joint; so, as I never carry string,I splice it with a bit of the line, which I bite off, for I really cannotbe troubled with scissors and I always lo