Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

BUT PROBABLY USED FAR EARLIER 191Further requirements are " corks, and wood, and iron,and of things they need, are reeds well-grown, and nets, andsoaked rushes, a shaved wand, and a dog-wood Rod, and thehorns and hide of a she-goat." The equipment is as ampleas amazing. What use, in the name of every fishing Deity,unless the author is referring to Oppian's method, did theAngler make of the " horns and hide of a she-goat " ?^lian concludes with uXXog St aXXio tovtwv Ix^vq aipurai,which antedates the tale of the millionaire, who, reproachedwith having brought a thousand times too many flies, ejaculated," with some of these, if I can't get a salmon, maybe I'll strikea sucker " !In XV. 10, which deals with the capture of pelamyde oryoung tunny fish, one of the crew sitting at the stern letsdown on either side of the ship lines with hooks. On eachhook he ties a bait (perhaps not a bait in our modern technicalsense, but rather a lure) wrapped in wool of Laconian red,and to each hook attaches the feather of a seamew.iLet us set aside, because of ^Elian's haphazard method ofarrangement, any argument which might otherwise fairly beadduced from the following facts. (A) He expressly setsforth in XII. 43 (three books before he mentions the Macedoniandevice) red and other wools and feathers as part of the ordinarytackle of an Angler—most probably in river or lake,for here,unlike XV. 10, where the prey is a sea-fish, we have no mentionof a ship, oars, etc. (B) When he does mention the Macedoniandevice, he does not announce it in any way as a new inventionor a striking departure from the old methods of fishing, butquite simply, in the words :" I have heard of the Macedonianway of fishing, and it is this."Setting aside, I repeat, any arguments thus to be deduced,we are face to face with the hard and curious fact, that in allthree passages the materials, out of which the lures are constructed,are the same ; they are wools of various colours, andfeathers taken from birds, in XV. i, from a cock, in XV. 10,from a seamew.Any assertion or suggestion that these wools and feathers^Kcu KTephv Xapov tKaarif ay k'i err fiw -KpoaiipTriTai.