Fishing for Pike and Other Coarse Fish - Carp and Tench

By H. Cholmondeley-Pennell

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446549629

Book preview

CARP¹ AND TENCH.²

Each yellow carp in scales bedropp’d with gold.

POPE’S Windsor Forest.

I prithee come dance me a reel, carp,

I prithee come dance me a reel,—

I thank you, my lord, I’ve no taste for your board,

You’d much better play to the eel.

The Cunning Carp and the Contented Knight.

IN the ‘Whole Art of Fishing,’ we are informed that ‘a carp is a stately and very subtle fish called the Fresh-water Fox and Queen of Rivers,’ and Randal Holme in his remarkable work, the ‘Academie of Armory,’ tells us that in Heraldry, ‘the carp is the emblem of hospitality and denotes food and nourishment from the bearer to those in need.’ By this same Randal Holme we are told how every sort of fish are named after their age and growth, and we learn that a carp is first a ‘seizling,’ then a ‘sproll or sprale,’ before it arrives at the full majesty of carphood. When arrived at its maturity it must be confessed by all who have given much attention to carp catching, that its intellect matures at least in an equal ratio with its body, indeed, I used to call my carp fishing expeditions ‘carp bubbles,’ to convey my feeling of the entirely illusory nature of the quest as appreciated by many and singular failures.

The well known Horatian motto, ‘Carpe diem,’ might, it has been suggested, without doing great violence to the original, be rendered ‘Catch your carp to-day,’—that is if you can,—‘for the cunning customer may not be inclined to give you a chance on the morrow.’³ Its suspicious vigilance even in eluding the fatal sweep of the seine net has been described by Vaniere, in his ‘Predium Rusticum,’ thus translated:—

Of all the fish that swim the watery mead,

Not one in cunning can the carp exceed.

Sometimes, when nets enclose the stream, she flies

To hollow rocks, and there in secret lies;

Sometimes the surface of the water skims,

And springing o’er the net undaunted swims;

Now motionless she lies beneath the flood,

Holds by a weed, or deep into the mud

Plunges her head, for fear against her will

The nets should drag her and elude her skill;

Nay, not content with this, she oft will dive

Beneath the net, and not alone contrive

Means for her own escape; but pity take

On all her hapless brethren of the lake;

For rising, with her back she lifts the snares,

And frees the captive with officious cares;

The little fry in safety swim away,

And disappoint the nets of their expected prey.

The fact of the carp dodging the net has been so repeatedly borne testimony to, that, although not by any means inclined to be a gobe-mouche with regard to fish anecdotes and superstitions, I think it may be fairly accepted as substantially true. Indeed, the carp ought to be the cleverest as they possess the largest brain in proportion of any fresh-water fish, and the bones of the head are remarkable for their exquisite polish and symmetry. Fiction, if not fact, has, however, failed to credit the carp with the uncircumventible sagacity which is the theme of so many angling writers. In a curious old book, ‘Dialogus Creaturam Moralizatus,’ published in 1480, it