# An Angler at Large/Chapter 21

All this week I have been fishing for a large trout which lives—he still lives—hereabouts. He has just gone away, as he always does sooner or later.
The only thing that I can find to say in favour of this fish is that he has chosen for his dwelling a part of the river which I so greatly love.
In those far-off days when I was competent to catch trout, I have daped some woundy ones out of this narrow, shallow, jungly backwater. Here Chavender takes them freely. It is the overflow from many hatches up river. Where it begins who shall say? Its origin is lost in water-meadows, but it is fishable to the first drop. In a morning I have scared, not caught, a round dozen of two-pound trout in this inconsiderable runlet. On the hot still afternoons when the main river is hopeless as Avernus, here the fat yellow things swim slowly in the cool shade up and down, up and down, each on his own beat, sucking in the insects which fall from the roof of trees.
​I love to see my fish. The unseen may be a monster (there is always that glorious uncertainty). She is more likely one of these little graylings, and your time has been utterly lost. But the sight of a three-pounder coasting a still pool is in itself an inspiration, and he provides just as much of glorious uncertainty as the smallest ring ever made by invisible fish. Therefore, I particularly haunt this shadowed place which is the best on the river. Here Purfling never comes. Such angling as one does here is, in Purfling's eyes, poacher's work, devil's work.
Here, then, I can avoid Purfling, and exercise that patience which is supposed to be an essential part of the angler's equipment.
In the days when I used to dine out, I always found that the lady who had the misfortune to go in with me knew—though we might be total strangers to one another—that I fished. It was usually the salmon or the filleted sole or the turbot (no other fishes are served at dinner parties) which suggested the observation, "I think you fish." The stranger we were to one another, the sooner this uncanny knowledge was manifested. I often pondered the mystery. I examined myself to see if angling had left some mark which these sharp-sighted creatures recognised. I wondered if my hands gave me away, if the wielding ​of the rod had moulded my right hand into some characteristic shape, as typewriting is said to affect the finger-tips. I asked of my expression if it differed in some subtle manner from the expressions of men who did not fish—who shot, for instance, or collected butterflies. Was it more gentle, or, perhaps, more brutal than theirs? I could find nothing in my hands or my expression that shouted the angler, nor in anything else. There was certainly nothing more clearly piscatorial about my dress-suit than about the dress-suits of other men. Yet within ten minutes of my sitting down to dinner, my partner would say, "I think you fish." After several years, I had rejected all but one of the explanations which had occurred to me. This one follows. In each case before I was presented, my hostess must have addressed the destined woman in some such words as these: "My dear, you have a terrible trial coming to you. But he fishes. Forgive me this once; it shall never happen again. Remember, he fishes." Simultaneously with this discovery, I abandoned the dining-out habit.
There was, I remember, another thing they always said. They said it immediately after I had replied "Yes" to their observation. It was this: "I always think a fisherman must require so much patience." Then they would continue with: "I'm ​sure I should never have the patience to fish," or, "How can you find the patience to sit all day with never a bite?" It was then that I would open out and talk to them of angling during the rest of the dinner, which enabled them to listen without inconvenience to all the other conversations of all the other guests. Had they listened to me, they would have learned my reasons for believing that patience is not an essential part of the angler's equipment. But my words might have unsettled their convictions, and no doubt they did well to refuse me their attention, for thoroughly to enjoy one's food one's convictions must be founded on the rock.
This one—about the angler's patience—is so founded. Everyone holds it, except anglers, and anglers—more shame to them!—pretend to, for in their hearts they know that it is false. Yet so unwilling is man to forego an advantage, however acquired, that they do nothing to expose the fallacy of the belief. When the non-angler gives evidence of possessing it, the angler looks smug, even agrees to the monstrous lie, bolsters it up; he has not the common honesty to disclaim the virtue that is attributed to him. This is not as it should be. I propose to demonstrate the impatience of fishermen.
At once the pole-fisher will be adduced. "If ​patience is not here," it will be said, "where is it?" See him, immovable, tobacco consuming; he sits on his camp-stool, permitting his eyes to creep from side to side as he follows the float from above him to below him through the long hours. Here decidedly is patience. I would premise that I know nothing of pole-fishing; I speak here of fly-fishing. But in any case the pole-fisher is no example of patience. The word implies uncomplaining endurance of evil. The pole-fisher has no evils to endure. What has he to complain about? To what wrongs should he give utterance? He has no wrongs, no great disasters, no small worries cumulative of effect. If the fish feed, he has sport; if not, not. In either case he is ideally placed. He is thoroughly comfortable. He sits at his ease in his punt. The water never rushes into his waders. The trees, the hay, lend greenness to his landscape, not terror to his casting. The current gives his forearm exercise; does not ruin his cunningest throw. The wind passes over him, and it is gone; but it has fanned him, not taken his only serviceable pattern. The action of the stream removes, from time to time, the paste or what not from his hook, thereby giving him something to do. The word "drag" is not in his vocabulary. Who could not be 'patient' under such conditions? Yet I have ​heard a pole-fisher say appalling things just after losing what he declared to be a specimen bleak.
But, whatever the pole-fisher may be, I say that the fly-fisher is not patient. He is persevering, but he is not patient. The ass is patient under the raining blows of the callous club. Uncomplaining, the ass endures evil. The fly-fisherman is not thus. If evil comes upon him he is not found uncomplaining. Let his flies begin to crack off. The first time it happens he will repair the damage without exhibition of anger; listen to him when the sixth has passed from him down the wind. True, he will persevere in attaching flies until his box, hat, and coat have yielded up the last tattered wing, the last rusty hook; but though he endures, he complains bitterly. But if you would listen to him, you must be concealed. If he knows you are there he will say nothing. Putting a fearful restraint upon himself, he will say nothing, for he values his reputation for patience above his own comfort. Only hide, and you shall hear things.
One of the marked characteristics of the angler is his love of solitude. He is for ever impressing this upon other people. "Company," he will say, "is, in its way, very well; but not when one is fishing. To meet a comrade for lunch at some ​point on the bank, previously chosen, is delightful. To spend half an hour in idle, pleasant chat makes a welcome break in the business of the day. But when I am actually fishing," he says, "I like to be quite alone." I wonder if it has ever occurred to his non-angling hearers that he may have more reasons than one for his love of solitude? They probably think that he wishes to attune his soul to nature. Not a bit of it! He wants to be able to swear at his ease. Ordinary swearing thrives on companionship; but angling calls for extraordinary swearing, and for this one must be alone. Up to a point swearing is a pleasant and amusing exercise; beyond that point it becomes ridiculous. But to be ridiculous there must be someone to do the ridiculing. An angler in his greater moments of expansion ceases to have any sense of humour, and cannot himself provide the audience necessary to perceive his own ridiculousness. If, then, someone is standing by when one of these great moments comes to him, he is unable to expand, or, if he expands, he becomes ridiculous, and in either case he is uncomfortable. Therefore he declines companionship; therefore he prates about his communion with nature, his love of remote and solitary places, of the broad, empty meadows and the long, silent reaches. Therefore he demands the companionship of the innocent birds and the ​gentle water-voles. These creatures cannot understand what he is saying. They cannot put him to shame. He can invoke anything or anybody in their hearing without discomfort.
I discovered this great truth some years ago, on this very water, in the following circumstances: I was the sport of a cross wind, a strong current, and five fat fish feeding furiously. When for the sixth or seventh time the familiar crack sounded in my ears, and the gut, lashed with passionate vehemence across the gale, smote the water, and the heavy thud which should have announced the descent of the fly did not happen, then I deliberately and with great labour (I stood up to my middle in the Clere) withdrew my right foot from the soft mud and stamped it violently and without sound back again. This affording me no relief, I addressed flies, fish, wind, water, and myself in one comprehensive and incredibly ridiculous curse. In fancy's full career a movement on shore caused me to turn round, and I perceived our decent miller waddling rapidly away, and shame struck me dumb. Since then I have always insisted on the advantages of complete solitude.
It is easy to reply that I am not a good angler, and have no right to use myself in support of my own proposition. Nay, nay; nothing is said about the patience of good anglers. It is anglers in the ​mass who are supposed to practise this rare virtue. And, so far as good anglers are concerned, I can only say that, within my experience, the better the angler, the more surely does he value solitude. There may be nothing in this. On the other hand, there may. I think there is.