Chapter 23 of The Determined Angler deals with matters of tackle and, in it, Charles Bradford offers us a quotation from the fishing writer James Henshall:
Tackle Tells.—"The quality of gameness in a fish is best determined by the character of the tackle used. A brook trout on a striped bass rod, or a black bass on a tarpon rod, could not, in either case, exhibit its characteristic gameness, or afford any sport to the Angler. Excellent sport with small fishes, however, is now rendered possible owing to the advent of the very light trout rod. It should not be considered beneath the dignity of an Angler to cast the fly for a rock bass, a blue-gill, or a croppie, with a three-ounce rod. Certainly it is just as sportsmanlike as to fish for six-inch brook trout in a meadow brook or a mountain rill."The angler is seen here as owing something to the fish - the opportunity, once hooked, to demonstrate its 'gameness', the strength of its will and its determination to be free. To use tackle that restricts its chance of doing this is represented as essentially unsporting, a refusal to show respect to a worthy adversary. Does this sound old-fashioned? The term 'sporting' isn't heard so much anymore, perhaps, but you will find it still used in certain quarters. Here is an article making an argument comparable with Henshall's but on the subject not of fishing but of long-range shooting. It appeared in the Shooting Gazette in September 2011:
http://www.shootinggazette.co.uk/shootfeatures/529979/Longrange_shooting_is_not_sporting.html
'Looking back to the dawn of the human race once [sic] can only view with incredulous wonder the work that has been wrought and the fabric that has been fashioned by that restless animal man, with his two every-busy hands. But to my mind his craftsmanship has produced nothing more beautiful other the fishing rod. Even today in the fishing tackle industry a spirit not unlike that of the craft guilds of medieval Europe has been kept alive in the factories. The rod makers of today have a tradition reminiscent of that of the shoemakers of old Nuremberg. (The Technique of Freshwater Fishing W.E. Daviesp. 18)
ReplyDeleteI wish I had The Gamekeeper to hand for a quote. Hines central political theme in the book is that the gamekeeper George Purse rears and protects pheasants for the Landed Gentry to shoot. What is difficult for him is that he protects the birds from poachers who want to eat or sell the birds to get by so they can be shot for sport. Throughout the book Purse's care for rearing the birds, so that the largest number survive, is all for 'good sport'. The largest number of birds killed in one go is the best kind of sport.
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