Scott: Anglers weren't always hooked on fishing

The most treasured gift I received this past Christmas was a book by John Buckland titled “The Fisherman’s Companion.”

Its profuse illustrations of paintings by 18th and 19th century artists would earn it a place on the coffee tables of many a nonfisherman, but the book’s first chapter, “Fishing for Pleasure,” hooked me.

Buckland postulates that “a close-packed rank of humans encircling the fish and driving them into the bank” may have been the first deliberate fishing tactic. He also notes that this method is still being used in the islands of the Central and South Pacific, albeit more for subsistence than for recreation.

Specialized fishing spears are another form of fishing tackle that precedes recorded history by uncounted millennia. Barbed multi-pronged fishing spears are depicted in some of the oldest cave paintings yet discovered.

By the time of the earliest Mediterranean and Chinese civilizations, spear heads were being made of metal and closely resembled those in use today. Period artwork depicts royalty engaged in what was obviously recreational spear fishing.

Buckland devotes a couple of paragraphs to weirs, nets, traps and poison, all of which have been and continue to be in use for subsistence fishing in various parts of the world, including North America.

While Buckland admits, “There may well be an element of enjoyment and satisfaction about these methods of catching fish,” they fail to meet his definition of sport, because they’re not “undertaken primarily for the pleasure of it.”

Buckland comes to hooks, which he believes are the key to fishing becoming a recreational pursuit. He may be right, since curved hooks were once called “angles,” which explains why angler became a synonym for fisherman.
Curved hooks predate the term angle by at least 20,000 years, when bone began to supplant materials like thorns, stone and shells to make hooks.
A cross-section of a large bone offered a naturally rounded shape, a section of which could easily be shaped into a curved hook capable of both penetration and retention.

Bronze hooks, both with and without barbs, have been found dating back to about 6,000 BC. Eyed hooks have been found in Mesopotamia, but for reasons Buckland doesn’t explain, they fell so out of favor that ultra-conservative Victorian era writers like George Kelson railed “against ‘new-fangled and useless’ eyed hooks.”

Whether eyed or not, hooks would indeed be useless without line and, for recreational purposes, nearly so without rods.

I suspect that when Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese emperors cross paths in angler heaven, fierce arguments erupt over who should get credit for inventing lines, rods and lures intended for recreational fishing.

Egyptians could point out that scenes of rod-and-line fishing appear in tombs dating back to at least 730 BC. The Chinese could counter by noting that cane rods, silk lines and gold hooks adorned with feathers were in use during the Chou Dynasty (1027-221 BC.)

Fishing flourished, but technology slept until the Chinese began using reels during the Sung Dynasty (960-1280 AD.)  By way of comparison, the first reference to the use of reels in England occurred in 1651, two years before the publication of Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler.”

From those ever-so-humble beginnings sprang the sport of fishing as we know it today. I think Izaak Walton would be proud.

On the other hand, Ankhsheshnon, the ancient Egyptian who wrote, “If a gardener becomes a fisherman, his trees perish,” might well say, “I told you so.”
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On a completely different subject, I hope everyone got to see the “Community Snapshot” Carla Childers submitted for the Feb. 8 edition of the Democrat. The photo catches Cal Childers a split second before he pitches a fastball toward an off camera batter. Photoshopped into his right hand to replace the ball is a gigantic pill bug to which a tail has been attached. The first sentence of the caption reads, “Yes Gerald Scott, there are live armadillos in Missouri!” Nice try, Ms. Childers. Your creative efforts will no doubt fool a lot of people. But not me!