Angling; Or How to Angle, and Where to Go
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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 tANGLINGwm 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 con- sideration 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, printed in Colours. A New Edition, Enlarged and brought up to date. BRITISH BIRDS' EQQS AND NESTS. Revised and Re-edited by the Rev. Canon Atkin- son, 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 PAGE PEEFACE .... 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 87 VI. THE GBAYLINO 108 VII. THE PBKCH ..... 111 VIII. THE CAKP ... 117 IX. THE TENCH AND BAKBEL 123 X. THE CHUB, BKBAM, AND KOACH 130 XI. THE GUDGEON, DACE, AND EEL 140 XII. THE CHAE, BLEAK, LAMPREY, LOACH, MINNOW, KUFFE, ETC. .... 148 XIII. LAWS AND EEGULATIONS FOE TAKING FISH 151 PART II.—WHERE TO GO I. ILLUSTRATIONS THE LAST RUSH OF THE SALMON Frmttispiece SALMON LEAPING A EIVEK . Title SALMON, TBOUT, GEAYLING Facing page 45 NETTING THE TKOUT 70 PIKE, PBKCH, BAK13EL 87 SPINNING FOR PIKE 100 CARP, TENCH, ROACH 117 LANDING THE ROACH 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 fre- quent 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 offered friendly advice in what is termed " A Necessary Foreword." The individuality of Blakey is thus pre- served 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 man. It is my 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 it is recorded that town ; and being earnestly religious, 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 twenty- two 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.