From: russell@ukcsd.uk.sun.com (Russell Bentley - Sun UK - Support Engineer)
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing
Subject: Story
Date: 29 Sep 1992 10:42:52 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: Russell.Bentley@UK.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: skid.uk.sun.com


At the moment I am reading Sidney Vines' biography of Frank Sawyer.  In
it, Vines uses great chunks of Sawyer's own writings, astutely
believing Sawyer to be the best teller of his own story.

In the book, Sawyer tells of his early life beside the River Avon in
Wiltshire, having been born in a house literally a few steps from its
banks.  He tells one story of how he came to possess (and lose) his
first artificial flies, and I enjoyed the story so much that I typed it
in...

                           *****************

  Though numbers of fly-fishermen came to fish the Avon in the reaches of
my home, this kind of fishing had little appeal to me when I was a
boy.  These fishermen never seemed to catch anything, though they might
spend hours casting flies.

  To me then fly-fishing was a dull kind of sport.  I felt sure that if
they had used a worm or a piece of bread they could have caught fish in
the mill-pool, because many times I had done so without my parents
knowing anything about it.  When one evening a fisherman began casting
into this pool I stopped to watch, for at that time I had nothing
better to occupy my time.  I knew there were lots of big trout and
grayling there, and felt sure he ought to catch one.  As I watched I
became more interested than usual.

  It fascinated me to see the fly dropped without a splash at the far
side of the pool, far beyond where I could throw a lump of bread with
my withy stick.  He saw me watching and to my surprise, instead of
ordering me away as so many others had done in the past, he came to
talk to me.

  "Hello, young carrots"' he said to me.  "Were you hoping to see me
catch a fish?"

  "Yes, indeed, Sir", I replied.  "That's a lovely rod you are using.
What are you using for bait?"

  He laughed.  "Bait, bait indeed.  We don't call these baits.   We use
artificial flies.  Look, here are some of them.  Have a good look if
you like."

  Then he took a little metal box from his fishing-bag and opened it.
This, like those we use at the present time, was one with various
compartments in which were dozens of artificial flies of different
colours and sizes.  They were the first I had ever seen.

  "There you are", he went on.  "Now, which do you think the fish might
take?  You must have some ideas in that little red head of yours.  Let
me see.  Aren't you the young rascal who tickled the trout over by the
island?  Come on now, you pick one out for me to try".

  Quickly I looked through the compartments and in one of them were half
a dozen white-bodied flies with brown wings.  "Oh, these, Sir.  I think
you would get a fish with one of those."  I pulled one out to hand
him.

  He laughed as he took it.  "Why, that's a white moth.  It's a fly I
have used on the lakes in Ireland, just as it is getting dark.  I've
never given a thought to trying it here, especially one as big as
that.  So you think a fish will take it, do you?  Well, I'll try it
just to please you.  But don't be disappointed if I can't catch one."

  I had suggested this fly because to me it looked very much like a
 piece of bread with a crust on it.  I knew fish would take bread from
the surface, because I often fed them with it.  He tied it on to the
end of his cast, put something on it from a little bottle, which I
later found to to be oil to make it float well, and then, with a few
switches of his rod, he threw the fly to the centre of the pool.

  There for a moment it floated high on the water, and then down it went
as a fish rose.  One after another he took a dozen big fish from the
pool on the same fly, and at the end of the evening he gave me sixpence
and two big grayling to take in for my mother.  He also made me promise
not to tell any other fishermen that he had caught fish with this big
white fly.  Then, just as he was turning away to go, a thought must
have struck him.  "You like fishing, don't you?  Would you like two or
three of my flies?"  "Oh, please, Sir.  I would very much," I replied,
and my thoughts quickly flashed through my mind.

  Quickly he picked out three flies from his box and gave them to me.
Not a brown and white one, it is true, but for the first time in my
life I had become the owner of hooks which real fishermen used.  Plans
for these went speedily through my mind.

  Though prized possessions, I was not to have the flies for long.  I had
found a little tin box to keep them in, and carried them wherever I
went.  The following Saturday I cut a long and whippy withy stick,
about twice the length I normally used, and to this tied a length of
about ten feet of cotton I had taken without permission from my
mother's work basket.

  To the end of this, with some difficulty, I managed to thread on the
fly and tie it securely.  You might try some time to cast an artificial
dry fly with a withy stick as a rod and a length of cotton for a line.
Then perhaps you will realise why my initial efforts to become a
dry-fly fisherman met with so little success.  Somewhere in the garden,
either in the potatoes or in the pea-sticks, I lost the first two of my
flies without casting either out on to the water to the position of a
rising fish.  As I persevered in threading the cotton through the eye
of the last one I felt sad.  It's no good, I said to myself.  You must
have a real rod and line to cast flies and catch fish.  Anyhow, I felt
sure the flies were no good.

  Upstream from our house was an old cattle bridge - the Black Bridge, we
called it.  It was a wooden structure for cattle to cross from one
meadow to another on the opposite side of the river.  It had
guide-rails at either side, and the timbers of the footwalk were about
four feet above the water.  Beneath this bridge there were always some
big trout, and many times I had leaned on the rail to watch them taking
flies from the surface.  One was a very big fellow of quite two pounds,
which rose just near to the bank at the upstream edge of the bridge.
Why hadn't I thought of him before?

  Carefully hooking my last fly to the butt of my stick, I trotted up the
meadow to the bridge.  Cautiously I peered  over the upstream side and,
sure enough, there was the big trout poised in the water.  As I
watched, he came up with a gentle glide and took a struggling fly.
With hands all of a tremble, I got my fly free from the butt of the
stick and then gently dangled it out over the water, thinking to let it
drop and float to the fish.

  What happened caught me altogether by surprise.  The trout saw the fly
as it hung suspended a good foot from the water, and like a bullet he
came quite clear of the surface to grab it in his mouth.  As he
snatched, so did I.  I knew the hook caught in his mouth as for a
moment I felt the rod bend, and them my cotton, minus the fly, went
sailing up in the air.  That was my first experience of fishing with an
artificial fly.

  Sadly I made my way back home with the memory, a memory that has lasted
until now.  Even today as I write I can visualise that big fish as he
came hurtling up, a thrill which can never fade.

                     **********************
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing