Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

52 INTRODUCTIONJapanese, perhaps the most alert and adaptive sea-fishers inthe world. As their history before 500 a.d. must apparently beclassed as legendary, this nation eludes my chronological Net.Data on ancient fishing, if existing, are either unknown ^ oras being derived from China find place postea.'^I set the time limit of my book at roughly 500 A.D., so asto include the last classical or quasi-classical piscatory poemsviz. those of Ausonius—notably ad Mosellam—in the fourthand of Sidonius in the fifth century.This date seems, indeed, a pre-ordained halting-place forthree reasons. First, the tackle of our day (though improvedalmost beyond recognition in rod, winch, artificial bait, etc.)is merely the lineal descendant of the Macedonian describedby /EHan in the third century a.d. Second, between iEHanand Dame Juliana's Boke no record, with two possible exceptions,of fishing with a fly exists. Third, and more important,we possess no real continuous link between the Angling literatureof Rome down to the fifth century and that which sprangup after the invention of printing some thousand years later.In the intervening centuries, it is true, books and manuscriptswere written (mainly by monks) which treated more orless of fishing, but of AngHng only incidentally. 3 Theyillustrate the customs of fishermen, the natural history of fish,the making and maintaining of vivaria or fish-ponds, ratherthan instruct or inform on practical Fishing.The most notable would, could we trace it,be " an old MS.treatise on fishing, found among the remains of the valuablelibrary belonging to the Abbey of St. Bertin, at St. Omer.A paper on this was read, a few years before 1855, at a societyof antiquaries at Arras. From its style, the MS. was supposed^Mr. Harold Parlett, our Consul at Dairen and an authority on Japan,writes, " I know of no books in Japanese dealing with the history of fishing,and I think it improbable that any exist, unless in MS. It is a subject, whichas far as I know, has not yet been studied. I should advise you to dismissancient Japanese methods in as few words as possible." I follow his advice.2 On consulting a great Sinologist, he rapped out, " The only thing Iknow or want to know of Japan is that every art, every craft, it possessescame from China."^ W. J. Turrell, Ancient Angling Authors (London, 1910), p. xi. Ancient,in this most researchful work, might, I venture to suggest, be qualified tvBritish, for six pages (in the Preface) suffice for all fishing before the tenthcentury.