40

STRAY LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN ANGLER IN BELGIUM, FRANCE, AND ITALY.

*****. BY B

CHAP. I.

PAS-DE-CALAIS.

As an enthusiastic angler, I have often been astonished, and sometimes ruffled in temper, to find the practice almost general among writers on this art to enter into long and elaborate vindications of the morale of angling. Every ingenious argument is answered, every sophism exploded, every joke rebutted, every mawkish sentimentality ridiculed, and every indignant tirade of inhumanity laughed at, in order to administer comfort to the brother of the rod, and to make his saunterings by the rippling brook as free as possible from the upbraidings of a guilty conscience. All this appears in my eyes an act of supererogation. Angling is just as fit and proper and Leneficial and praiseworthy and necessary as any other hunan art or movement which is founded on man's nature, and springs spontaneously out of the social institutions and habits of human life. For these reasons I shall not imitate the apologetical course which I dislike and condemn in others.

One fine morning in the month of April, in the year 1843, I resolved to have a ramble among the rivers and marais of the continent. I had visited almost every noted fishing river and stream of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and I could see no earthly reason why I should be debarred the pleasure of extending my range, and treasuring up a few observations on foreign nations, whose manners and customs differed so widely from those of my own countrymen. This resolve being duly made, and confirmed by a sufficient stock of determination, I was not long before I prepared myself, at the best London tackle shops, with a good stock of the material for the successful prosecution of the craft in all its branches.

I beg to premise that my angling has been chiefly confined through life to the salmon and trout, and my baits for these to the fly, the minnow, and the worm. Bottom fishing, in all its varieties, has ever occupied a very subordinate rank in my estimation. Essentially it is of the earth, earthly; but still it affords to many thousands of zealous and philosophic anglers a real source of innocent and healthful recreation. Far be from me, therefore, the language of condemnation or reproach. I have myself whiled away many pleasant hours in endeavouring to hook the greedy pike or the tiny bleak; but still I hold that every sincere angler should make it a sort of religious obligation to pay his respects to the salmon and trout-these noble and heart-stirring inhabitants of the streams. They place him on the vantage ground of his profession. They confer dignity and courage on his movements, and an inward consciousness of superiority. The salmon and the trout do, in fact, constitute the living and vital prin ciple of the angler's life.

With these predilections I entered upon my continental tour. I did not, however, confine my sporting to the salmon and trout, but on many occasions launched into the very heart of bottom fishing; and, in the company of both French and English anglers, derived a good deal of pleasure from it. I shall, at various intervals of my story, communicate the result of my experience on fishing for common fish in still or sluggish streams, both as to the tackle and baits employed. I find the English anglers on the continent practise bottom fishing much more frequently, and with a keener relish, than they do in their own country. This may partly be accounted for on the principle of necessity; for our national partiality for all kinds of manly sports makes us rush into everything productive of excitement, without scanning very fastidiously the exact bearings of the thing itself.

There is, I conceive, at this moment a peculiar fitness in entering into a friendly chat on continental angling, from the mere circumstance of the wonderful increase of Railway accommodation, which, even now, throws open to the sportsman a wide range of waters, with comparatively little cost of either time or money. We can now traverse France and Belgium through many of their most interesting angling localities, and in a few years there will scarcely be a river which is not accessible, and on which an English rod and flies will not display their magic and killing influence on its finny inhabitants. The conveyance along the coast of France by steam vessels also adds greatly to the facility of communication. All this is heartstirring to the real and zealous disciple of Walton. He is always a propagandist of the first order, always inculcating the principles and practices of his art, and always deriving the most exquisite enjoyment from an extended recognition of its useful and innocent application.

When I set out in my rambles, it was my settled determination to "begin at the beginning," to penetrate into every nook and corner of the countries which I might visit, and, in fact, to make myself completely master of all the practical knowledge connected with the angling capabilities of foreign waters and rivers. My wanderings were productive of great benefit to my health and spirits, and the gross amount of pleasure I derived from the rod, during three consecutive years, can neither be duly estimated by myself or others. I only wish that all English anglers had the same opportunity of exercising their art, and could be the recipients of the same advantages. I shall lay the result of my experience before them; and I sincerely hope that many of them may be induced to step a little from their own dear "fire-sides," and cast the line under the bright and gorgeous sky of a continental atmosphere.

Calais.I think I hear some sportsmen ask, what angling is there at Calais, a place encircled for many miles with arid sand-banks and boggy marshes? Not angling of a lofty character, I acknowledge; but a good deal of bottom fishing there unquestionably is. In July, 1845, in coming down by the tract-boat from St. Omer, I counted one afternoon, within eight miles of Calais, not less than twenty-three anglers by the side of the canal. In fact the piscatory art is pretty generally followed by the English residents in this town; and the best waters for the pike are those of the St. Omer and

Dunkerque canals. There are often good fish taken, averaging from twelve to eighteen pounds. On New Year's Day, 1843, a friend of mine caught nine pike, and none were less than eight pounds each. This I call a capital day's sport. Besides the waters of the canal, there are other small estuaries leading from the canal which are full of fish, but which are in certain districts preserved. Should a polite application be made, however, it is seldom that the proprietors give the applicant a refusal.

All the long-resident anglers in Calais affirm that the pike fishing has greatly deteriorated within the last fifteen years. Prior to this time, the canal, for a considerable distance, was rented by an English and French gentlemen, who allowed all parties to fish fairly with the rod in every section of the waters, but punished netting severely. Since this protection has been withdrawn, netting has increased to a great and destructive extent, and hence it is that those who remember so well the fulness of the waters in former days complain so loudly and bitterly of their present comparative barrenness.

There are often large roach, dace, and bream taken in the waters about the town of Calais. Bleak and eels are also numerous. There is a fishing-tackle shop in the Rue du Havre, where tolerable flies and other articles can be reasonably obtained.

The ordinary history of Calais is well known; but its real history, so far as our countrymen are concerned, will never be known. Every stone, every locality in and around this old town, has a peculiar interest in my eyes. Imagination carries me back to the two centuries and a quarter in which Englishmen peopled its streets, guarded its towers, and exercised all the rights and duties of citizenship. How many British spirits must have resigned themselves to their hard fate at every corner of its streets! What exultations and sufferings, what hopes and fears, what fierce contentions and heroic exploits might not be recorded within this small space, had we the materials! But, alas! all is hushed in everlasting silence and forgetfulness. Imagination has alone the power of realizing the past.

There are two small trout streams within ten or twelve miles of Calais, to which fly-fishers from this town occasionally resort during the months of May, June, and July. The one runs through Laracosse, and the other flows by Marquise. Both have a few trout. After spending ten days in angling the Calais waters, with but indifferent success, I set out in the diligence for Laracosse, and, after a light meal at the inn, I hastened up the river about four miles. There are good streams in this direction, but the season was still too early for the fly. I only obtained two small trout with the black fly; so I tried the minnow, and at the foot of a mill stream hooked a trout nearly three pounds, and laid him safely on the bank. I had him cooked at the village in the evening, and he proved rich and savoury, though his colour did not by any means indicate any high degree of perfection. I met higher up the river a fellow craftsman, a foreman to one of the English manufacturing establishments in Calais, who told me that, the year before, he killed two dozen trout in this stream one afternoon, soon after a fresh in the river, by the use of dark coloured hackle flies, of rather a small size.

Having heard, from anglers in Calais, good accounts of the river

Aa, which Bows by the town of St. Omer, I set out from Laracosse, and travelled through the country for the higher branches of this stream. After many windings, and a good deal of labour, I reached the town of Fauquembergues; a place of little interest, but which is pleasantly situated close to the banks of the Aa. I penetrated next day to the very sources of the river, which are two springs, about ten miles above Fauquembergues. The season still proved early for the fly, with which I only caught four trout; but I was more successful with the minnow. With the red worm I obtained but one solitary fish, near a mill-stream. All the streams of this river above Fauquembergues are well adapted for fly fishing, and I am confident there is a good quantity of fish in them. They flow through some very beautiful and interesting villages, and the general aspect of the scenery is, on the whole, picturesque and interesting. Many of the inhabitants of the villages are anglers, but they never venture on the banks of the river until the May-fly makes its appearance.

The streams of the Aa, for about five or six miles below Fauquembergues, in the direction of St. Omer, are better for the fly than those above the former town. They are more rippling and channelly in their bed, and abound with larger and finer flavoured fish. From the village of Lombres to St. Omer the streams are less numerous, and not so well adapted for the fly. This town prides itself on many good anglers who frequent this river during the whole of the spring and summer. The prevailing mode of fishing here is with the minnow. A short and strong line must be used; and, from the weedy and bad state of the bed of the river, no quarter must be given when a fish is hooked. If allowed to play about, he will infallibly soon break himself free, and the angler will lose all his tackle, and, perchance, no small portion of his patience and good temper.

The preference of the St. Omer anglers seems to be given to light coloured flies for the Aa; the season, however, for fly-fishing generally commences here in the month of May or June. What fish are generally taken in the spring months of March and April are caught with the minnow and red worm, the latter being, in the opinion of many, a very killing bait in these waters. Trout have been taken in the Aa six and eight pounds weight. To those anglers who are fond of still-water fishing, the marais around St. Omer present an interesting and boundless field for their enjoyment and recreation. These are really curious places in themselves. They extend for many miles along the north and north-casterly side of the town, from Waaten to Cassel, and are, in fact, a series of islands, formed by the artificial arrangement of the waters of the river Aa, and which are conducted by thousands of narrow channels, which form a collective labyrinth, out of which a stranger might in vain try to extricate himself during a whole lifetime. These small canals are traversed by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, in small flat-bottomed boats; and it is astonishing to witness with what adroitness these are propelled along the narrow gullies, frequently heavily laden with manure, vegetables, &c. Nearly the whole of this irrigated tract of country is cultivated by spade husbandry, and appropriated to garden purposes; and it is really an unique and interesting sight to witness, on a Saturday morning in summer, the immense fleet of boats which con

gregate at the Haut-Pont, richly laden with every horticultural necessary and luxury for the market of St. Omer.

The canal waters of the marais are filled with immense quantities of fish of every kind, save the salmon and trout. Here we find carp, tench, pike, cels, &c., in great profusion. The right of fishing is let out, and yields a considerable sum of money annually. It is no uncommon thing for English residents to rent portions of these waters, which they visit with boats, and enjoy all the varieties of bottom fishing in undisturbed retirement. There are a number of men appointed, under the title of Gardes de Pêche, to repress poaching and illegal fishing during close time. Almost all the anglers in St. Omer affirm, however, that these guardians of the waters are themselves the most merciless and extensive depredators on the finny tribes; and, from what I have myself seen and heard, I think the accusations not by any means illfounded.

The still waters around the fortifications of St. Omer are full of fish, and, except for pike, may be fished without hindrance. Indeed there are numerous French anglers plying their art every hour in the day. And here I witnessed, for the first time, how cleverly the French succeeded in snaring pike. In those parts of the waters of the fortifications which have a southern aspect the fish lie near the edges, among reeds and weeds, and seem to derive exquisite pleasure from basking in the sunshine. They fall into a dosing state-appear torpid and stupid-and the angler, taking advantage of this listlessness, cautiously slips a wire noose, placed on a stoutish stick five or six feet long, over the head of the pike, and chucks him out of the water by sheer strength of arm. This is admirably done on some occasions; and we seem surprised at the dexterity of the operator, as well as at the stupidity of the fish.

Having made St. Omer my head quarters for a short time, for angling purposes, I set out on my rambles to the neighbouring waters of some repute, both for bottom and trout fishing. The first place I visited was the river Lys, at Therouanne. It is situated near the stream, and it is certainly one of the most interesting spots in France, in an antiquarian and historical sense. It was originally the capital of the Belgic tribe of people called the Morini, and fell under the Roman yoke in the days of Julius Cæsar. What vicissitudes and changes it has witnessed, and what a mass of human suffering has here been inflicted and endured! It is now only about the dimensions of a good-sized village, and its massy walls and numerous public buildings lie buried under the green turf of many centuries' growth. Considerable quantities of Roman and French coins are found every season by persons engaged in the cultivation of the ground in the neighbourhood of Tucrouanne. Some of these may be seen in the museum at St. Omer. In fact, everything about the place is interesting; and it is impossible for an intelligent angler to cast his eyes around him without his mind being deeply impressed with the changes which centuries make in the condition of human affairs.

There are some beautiful streams for fly fishing in the immediate vicinity of the town. The bed of the river is pretty free from weeds, and is of a stony and gravelly nature. The most successful bait, until the middle of May, is the minnow, and most of the large trout