Fishing with Our Forefathers

By Clive Kenyon

Looking Back At Angling Literature Allows Us To Discover Equipment Fishing Styles Used At The Time

Everyone has heard of Izaak Waltonsome believe that he wrote the first book on angling. This theory has been debunked several times yet old Izaak’s legacy lives on especially in the United States where he is even more revered than in England. As is Dame Juliana Berners who is supposed to have written another book that was even earlier than Walton’s. We at least know that Walton existed, but the supposed Prioress of Sopwell Priory cannot be confirmed.

Because of the hard work of people like John McDonald, Prof. Willy Brakeman, and Dr. Richard Hoffman we now know that Dame Juliana Berners’ ‘Treatyse of Fysshing With an Angle’ was actually a compilation of older manuscripts put together by the printer of the second ‘Book of Saint-Albans’ Wynken de Worde. These manuscripts were added to the chapters on heraldry, hawking, and hunting ten years after the book was first published in 1486. The manuscripts probably were dated around thirty or forty years earlier and appear to be from several different writers. Between 1496 and Walton’s book over 150 years later there were at least four other books on angling published. Two were slavish copies of the ‘Treatyse’ and supposedly written by Gervais Markham and Leonard Mascall. A book by John Dennys ‘The Secrets of Angling’, first published in 1613, often gets overlooked yet that book offers the best insight into how our forefathers fished in the day. All that is missing from Dennys’ equipment is the fishing reel. Another book is even more obscure. In the 1960s a man engaged in house clearance in the Birmingham area came upon a small book about angling. It was written by William Samuel in 1577. The book was passed to a collector of antique books who had it verified by the British Library as being genuine. It was then sold to a philanthropist for a small fortune and now resides in an American University museum. ‘The Arte of Angling’, of which only one copy is known, was written by the Vicar of Godmanchester who had to flee to Switzerland to avoid persecution during the bloody period of Mary Stuart’s short reign. Samuel returned to Godmanchester and became a freeman of the town and was on the board of governors of the town’s school. Samuel’s book must have been quite rare even in the 16th century as it avoided both Mascall and Walton’s plagiarism. We now know that Walton copied Mascall who in turn had copied the ‘Treatyse’. Walton also copied John Dennys and Thomas Barker, an associate of Walton’s.

From the stem of angling literature we discover that anglers could purchase fishing tackle by the 16th century. Hooks were a side product of needle manufacturers in Spain, Italy, and of course Redditch in the English Midlands. Rods and ancillary pieces to make them could be purchased from iron mongers and items like line, floats, bait pouches, and landing nets could also be bought from local suppliers. The thing that was missing was the reel which allows for running rather than fixed line fishing. The first mention of a reel or winch came from Thomas Barker. He described a means of storing line and an iron hoop at the top of the rod allowing the line to be let out or taken in at will. The next reference to a reel came from Robert Nobbes, another vicar, who practised ‘trolling’ for pike.

In 1682 Nobbes spoke of ‘trolling’ as throwing a dead bait out and retrieving it by hand in the same way that trout anglers retrieve line. He had a spool with a ring on the end allowing it to fit on the fingers of his rod hand and he wound the line around the spool when he had finished fishing. Nobbes did not always use a rod. He preferred simple hand lining.

It took us until the next century before reels as we know them today began to be manufactured. Once they were, it took angling to a new level and the running line method of fishing took off in England if not on the Continent.

Reels allowed anglers to cast lines beyond the distances that could be fished with a fixed line. Initially the end tackle would be thrown out and retrieved by hand and the reel only used to recover line when a fish was hooked. Line could be coiled on a coat or piece of newspaper laid on the ground to prevent tangling. This method remained in use in the southern counties, particularly the Thames, way beyond the times that northern anglers developed new means of casting.

Then Nottingham style started with anglers pulling loops of line from between the guides and progressed to casting heavier baits using the weight to pull line off the reel. This was also used by sea anglers fishing with huge Scarborough reels. Around the 1850s two Nottingham anglers, William Bailey and a champion prize fighter who went by the name of Bendigo, developed a method of pulling line off the reel and setting it in motion in order to cast lighter rigs further. This was perfected by F.W.K Wallis into what he called ‘The

Modern Light Float Cast in the Nottingham Style’. Today we call it the Wallis Cast. Using the lighter and better made reels of the early 20th century anglers could cast float tackle up to 40 yards using this method.

Sheffield anglers fishing the Lincolnshire drains using small quill floats developed their own method of casting whereby the float was switched to and fro as in flycasting whilst line was pulled off the reel to allow the ultra-light tackle to reach the far bank ledge.

Behind the scenes the fixed spool was being developed by the textile magnate Alfred Holden Illingworth. Illingworth’s Threadline reels inspired many copies with serviceable reels being produced all over Europe by the mid 1930s. Lines too were being dragged into the modern era with synthetics replacing silk and other textiles that had superseded horse hair and cat gut.

Anglers fishing the Thames and Trent for barbel would use several thousand lob worms in a pre-baiting program lasting several days. Bulk containers of worms could be ordered in Nottingham and delivered by rail anywhere in the country. Maggots had become popular around the turn of the century, but many roach anglers still used stewed wheat.

By the 1950s anglers could enjoy the fruits of the Industrial Revolution with fishing tackle available to suit all budgets, maggots readily available over the counter without having to breed your own, and increasingly exotic ground baits. Many coarse anglers would typically have two or three rods depending on where they fished and what for; a light float rod, a heavier general purpose rod, and a heavy rod used for pike fishing. The most popular rod of the period, an Allcocks Wizard, produced from 1931 until the mid-60s, was deemed suitable for dace, roach, bream, tench, and carp. The designer used it to equal the barbel record with a 14lb fish, had salmon over 20lb, as well as several 2lb roach.

By the 1960s specimen hunters predominated the angling press and anglers increasingly became specialists as opposed to generalists. Tackle followed suit and rods through to the end tackle became more specific to particular types of angling. The carp boom accelerated this and shows no signs of slowing down. I am just grateful that there are still possibilities to get away from the arms race and enjoy fishing how it should be – simple.

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