I should, by promise, speak next of the Salmon; but I will, by your favour, say a little of the Umber, or Grayling; which is so like a Trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise your patience with a short discourse of him; and then, the next shall be of the Sal mon. CHAP. VI. Observations on the UMBER or GRAYLING, and Directions how to fish for him. Piscator. THE Umber and Grayling are thought by some to differ as the Herring and Pilchard do. But though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ nothing but in their names. Aldrovandus says, they be of a Trout kind; and Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, he is accounted the choisest of all fish. And in Italy, he is, in the month of May, so highly valued, that he is sold at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French, which call the - Chub Un Villain, call the Umber, of the lake Leman, Un Umble Chevalier; and they value the Umber or Grayling so highly, that they say he feeds on gold; and say, When you have struck a fish that may endanger your tackle, let the line run, and wind him up as he tires. You will find great convenience in a spike, made of a piece of the greater end of a sword-blade, screwed into the hither end of the butt of your rod : when you have struck a fish, retire backwards from the river, and by means of the spike, stick the rod perpendicular in the ground; you may then lay hold on the line, and draw the fish to you, as you see proper. When you angle for a Trout, whether with a fly or at the ground, you need make but three or four trials in a place; which if unsuccessful, you may con clude there are none there. Walton, in speaking of the several rivers where Trout are found, has made no mention of the Kennet; which, undoubtedly, produces as good and as many Trouts as any river in England. In the reign of King Charles the Second, a Trout was taken in that river, near Newbury, with a casting-net, which measured forty-five inches in length. that many have been caught out of their famous river of Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that he feeds on water-thyme, and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our Smelts smell like violets at their first being caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the Salmon, the Grayling, and Trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not, it is not my purpose to dispute: but 'tis certain, all that write of the Umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an Umber or Grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or any thing that breeds in the eyes. Salvian1 takes him to be called Umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow or a ghost than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste: but I shall only tell you, that St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept fastingdays, calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes; and that he was so far in love with him, that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse; but I must; and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish. First note, that he grows not to the bigness of a Trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the Trout does; and is usually taken with the same baits as the (1) Hippolito Salviani, an Italian physician of the sixteenth century: he wrote a treatise De Piscious, cum eorum figuris, and died at Rome, 1572, aged 59. Trout is, and after the same manner; for he will bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly (though he bites not often at the minnow,) and is very gamesome at the fly; and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly, made of the red feathers of a parakita, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a small moth, or, indeed, at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all Winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and in the hot months. He is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river Dove, and in Trent, and some other smaller rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him: and now come to some observations of the Salmon, and how to catch him. (1) The haunts of the Grayling are so nearly the same with those of the Trout, that, in fishing for either, you may, in many rivers, catch both. They spawn about the beginning of April, when they lie, mostly, in sharp streams. Baits for the Grayling are chiefly the same as those for the Trout, except the minnow, which he will not take so freely. He will also take gentles very eagerly. When you fish for him with a fly, you can hardly use one too small. The Grayling is much more apt to rise than descend; therefore, when you angle for him alone, and not for the Trout, rather use a float, with the bait from six to nine inches from the bottom, than the running-line. The Grayling is found in great plenty in many rivers in the north, particularly the Humber. And in the Wye, which runs through Herefordshire and Monmouthshire into the Severn, I have taken, with an artificial fly, very large ones; as also great numbers of a small, but excellent fish, of the Trout kind, called a Last-spring; of which somewhat will be said in a subsequent note. They are not easily to be got at without a boat, or wading; for which reason, those of that country use a thing they call a thorrocle, or truckle: in some places it is called a coble, from the Latin corbula, a little basket: it is a basket shaped like the half of a walnut-shell, but shallower in proportion, and covered on the outside with a horse's-hide; it has a bench in the middle, and will just hold one person, and is so light, that the countrymen will hang it on their heads like a hood, and so travel with a small paddle which serves for a stick, till they come to a river; and then they launch it, and step in. There is great difficulty in getting into one of these truckles, for the instant you touch it with your foot it flies from you and when you are in, the least inclination of the body oversets it. It is very diverting to see how upright a man is forced to sit in these vessels and to mark with what state and solemnity he draws up the stone which serves for an anchor, when he would remove, and lets it down again; however, it is a sort of navigation that I would wish our piscatory disciple never to attempt. CHAP. VII. Observations on the SALMON; with Directions how to fish for him. Piscator. THE Salmon is accounted the king of freshwater fish; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high, or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt, or brackishness. He is said to breed or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month of August:1 some say, that then they dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or spawn, after the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones; and then leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life in the spawn, and to become Samlets early in the spring next following. The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before winter, both the melter and spawner: but if they be stopt by flood-gates or weirs, or lost in the fresh waters, then those so left behind by degrees grow sick and lean, and unseasonable, and kipper, that is to say, have boney gristles grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which hinders their feeding; and, in time, such fish so left behind pine away and die. 'Tis observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea; but he then grows insipid and tasteless, and loses both his blood and strength, and pines and dies the second year. And 'tis noted, that those little Salmons called Skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to the sea, are bred by such sick Salmons that might not go to the sea, and that though they abound, yet they never thrive to any considerable bigness. (1) Their usual time of spawning is about the latter end of August or the beginning of September, but it is said that those in the Severn spawn in May. But if the old Salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle which shews him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as the eagle is said to cast his bill, and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, to enjoy the former pleasures that there possest him; for, as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of honour and riches which have both their winter and summer-houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life in; which is not, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of Life and Death, above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though the Salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in fresh rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the sea, they be both the fatter and better. Next, I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shift to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea, yet they (1) The migration of the Salmon and divers other sorts of fishes is analogous to that of Birds: and Mr. Ray confirms Walton's assertion, by saying, that "Salmon will yearly ascend up a river four or five hundred iniles, only to cast their spawn, and secure it in banks of sand till the young be hatched and excluded; and then return to sea again." Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation, p. 130. It may not be improper here to take notice, that in this, and several other parts of the book, the facts related by the author do most remarkably coincide with later discoveries of the most diligent and sagacious naturalists. |