Entirely New Angles
COARSE FISHING. By Colin Willock. (Faber, 25s.) THE GENTLE ART OF ANGLING. By Bernard Venables. (Rein- , hardt, 15s.) THREE goodbooks out of four is a remarkable average, par- ticularly when they are as good as these. The fourth book has been left out. It was an absolute stinker, a pretentious piece of flaPdoodle which would have been out of place in this trio, and almost anywhere else. I make no bones about the fact that I look for enthusiasm in books about angling. Middle-aged writers like Myself who have fished a great deal are by no means rare. And We are a critical lot. We hope there will be something left for us both in the rivers and in the patronage of the publishing houses When we are old, grey, full of nostalgia and a little short of money.
We read about poisoned rivers and we nod our heads sagely. We were right to quit when we did. The young chaps? Not much good; too full of their nylon and plastic contraptions. We admit there is very little left to be said about mine hosts and their honest ale-houses. The Arcadian stuff, we know, went out with the last lengths of free water and horsehair lines. But surely to God, we say, there must be somebody left who can impart some- thing of the pleasures we knew.
Colin Willock is much of that man, and for the most unlikely reasons. Every coarse fisherman should buy his book. It's a remarkable piece of work. I don't believe for one moment that he as coarse and unsophisticated as he makes himself out to be, but by lucky chance I opened his book where he said, 'There's no call for fancy stuff when deliberately setting Out to catch big eels,' and I was hooked from that point on. He talks about attacking eels with meat axes and Commando knives; he has delicious theories about stalking worms in plimsolls, and he can write about the different layers of water temperatures in lakes
with such simplicity that one tends to forget that the subject is basic hydrology or whatever it's called. Nine points out of ten for this coarse, factful fellow.
Fox-Strangways is a bird of a different feather, more exotic, more urbane, quite deceptive and wholly delightful. A glance at the title page and I winced at the prospect of odd fish in the gorges of the Ganges and other places. This seemed to be the modern counterpart of 'With Rod and Gun in Farthest Nepal. But not a bit of it! Reels scream and lines cut the water in the old, old way, but this man's unpretentious manner and his enthusiasms are disturbingly effective.
It is the log of a well-travelled fisherman; the names of the fish are at times quite unpronounceable, or at least they are to those unacquainted with whatever they speak by Jordan river or the Bight of Benin. But the old charm is here and we are left with the feeling that the sport will survive nylon casts, electric bite indicators and the jolly-rolly detergent scum on the rivers-o.
Venables is commended highly for his ideas and for the lay- out of this book which he illustrated himself. His knowledge of the art of angling is enormous, but the pernickety may wonder whether he has cast short of those elusive fish which are found only in the clear streams of the essayists. It is a fine thing to write bravely about wives and sweethearts on the river bank, and about glass rods and plug baits, too. But as metaphor-mongers know to their cost, the luminous phrase is extinguished by nothing more quickly than technical facts. The two mix badly, and this book is much of a mixture. So much is good in it, nevertheless, that it would be churlish not to invite fishermen to thumb through a few pages and judge for themselves. For Venables, to his credit, has written a book about fishing as it is and not as some a us wish it was.
JOHN HILLADY
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