Martin - Float fishing and spinning in the Nottingham

6 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE.
It seems to be difficult to determine when angling really
did not exist, for in the Book of Job we read, "Canst thou
draw out leviathan with a hook 1 or his tongue with a cord
which thou lettest down 1 Canst thou put an hook into his
nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?" (By this
last word we should presume that hooks were then made of
hard wood, or at least some of them.) In the prophet
Habakkuk also we find fish being taken " with the angle,"
and in Isaiah of "those that cast the hook into the
river."
The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Eomans certainly were
anglers, for passages from the writings of some of the
most ancient authors indicate the fact. Homer tells us,
" Of beetling rocks that overhang the flood,
Where silent anglers cast insidious food,
With fraudful care await the finny prize,
And sudden lift it quivering to the skies."
It would thus appear that the tackle used in those days was
or it would not have stood this sudden strain
very strong,
which the lines quoted above would give
occurred.
us to understand
(It is of course a familiar sight to see youths just beginning
their fishing career, when they have hooked a small fish,
heave it out as though their very lives depended on sending
it flying into the next meadow.)
Oppian says also,
" A bite ! hurrah ! the length'ning line extends,
Above the tugging fish the arch'd reed bends,
He struggles hard and noble sport will yield,
My liege, ere wearied out he quits the field."
And the ancients, too, were fly-fishers as well as bottom
fishers, as the following interesting passage from Julian
shows :
" The Macedonians who live on the banks of the River
Astreus are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that
river by means of a fly called hippurus. A very singular
insect it is ; bold and troublesome like all its kind, in size a
hornet, marked like a wasp, and buzzing like a bee. These