THE PHILOSOPHY OF FISHING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 16

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FISHING

HAVE been fishing since early morning, and I am fishing still, and am likely to go on fishing until something has turned up. Evidence, I know, might belie the first of these assertions; for thy basket, if opened, would reveal an interior blandly innocent of fish. In excuse for this shortcoming I should add that no manner of fish, great or small, wild or tame, has appeared in these reaches all this quiet day. At least, I have not seen any. To be sure, I am not a good fisherman. In fact, between ourselves, I am a remarkably poor one. But, as my friends point out to me, I am still only a novice at the game; I have not yet got to the gum-boot stage. On the contrafy, I am one of those who, when they go to the country, delight to fish from the parapets of bridges. I am fishing from a bridge-top now. Behold me, then, in the throes of angling. With my pipe drawing well, and my tackle swelling bravely from the rod, I have settled down to wait. Time being of no great importance to meI am on holiday-I can give myself up to the day. And it is a day worth giving oneself to,

ARM, sunny, and cloudless, it is, I think, as I look around, an admirable day for fishing. The trees are fresh and green, and green, too, are the banks of the river, and greener still the young wheat springing in the fields close by. And in the air ‘itself there is a flavour as of ripening orchards (which is absurd, of course) and a tang of saltsea brine, and something which might

be gorse, or eucalypt blending with mint and sweet brier rose, Chuckle and splash, chuckle and splash, goes the river on its way... « Chuckle and splash, chuckle and splash, a monotone, hushed, unceasing... . "Good things," said Pope Gregory once, "are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for good things." Pondering this pleasant saying, as I drowsily listen to the murmur of sound from below me, I feel how right it is. . FOR the charm of a place lies, indeed, not so much in its setting, as in the "good things," the associations — shall we say?-that endear it to us. Without these associations, these "good things," a place remains only a place. And this may explain wify I am fishing here to-day. I come here every year, : It is my "way of escape" from the city. I come to this place to fish, and to renew, surreptitiously, my acquaintance with myself.,... TRANGE to what depths of forgetfulness the sound of a stream can: plunge one sometimes. Here have I been standing, how long I do not know, unaware of an insistent small tugging at (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) my line. Too late! The fish has gone, and with it my fine treble-brazec hook. Evening is drawing in. Although sadly bereft of fish I shall have to go. I feel, however, that the day has not been wasted. For the river still runs on its waychuckle and splash, chuckle and splash, a monotone, hushed, unceasing. .. . And the hills stand, as they have. stood throughout the ages, unchanged, unimpassioned, and free. Presented with facts like these a man --even one who has lost a fine treblebrazed hook-may return from his

holiday happy. A —

Basil

Clarke