Originally published 23 September 1996
LegPull Press has just published The New Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton XII.
A descendant of the famous 17th-century Izaak Walton has written an updated version of his ancestor’s classic book on the art and pleasures of fishing. I gave the author a call and asked for an interview.
“Better than an interview,” said Izaak Walton XII. “I’m goin’ fishin’ tamarra, whydonya come along?”
It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse. At dawn the next morning I was a Izaak’s house in New Hampshire.
He was raring to go. A Yamasaki 4x4 all-terrain vehicle was idling in his driveway, bristling with fishing rods in special racks. Izaak flung himself into the saddle.
“Hop on,” he cried, as he revved the powerful 450cc engine. I climbed on behind. The roar of the engine hurt my ears.
“Shouldn’t we be wearing helmets?” I shouted into his ear. I had seen pages and pages of ads for this sort of equipment in Field and Stream.
“Heck no,” he shouted back. “We’re jes goin’ fishin.”
With a twist of the throttle, we rocketed down a dirt road into the deep woods. I held on for dear life.
“Where we going?” I shouted.
“A little lake I know. Hang on to this jes in case I get lost.” He handed me an ExactMap Sport GPS satellite navigator. “That little baby will tell us exactly where we’re at. Even displays a map of the lake.”
Soon we left the road and were plowing through pristine forest. Ferns and saplings flew away from the churn of our wheels. A deer bolted from our course. “Yeehaa!” shouted Izaak as we bounced over fallen logs.
After a while we came to a secluded lake. Walton drove to the water’s edge and cut the engine. When the exhaust fumes cleared, I saw that we were in an idyllic setting — crystal water, leafy green, puffy white clouds.
“Wow!” I said, “your ancestor would have loved this place.” I remembered something the original Izaak Walton wrote: “If I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.”
“You bet,” said Izaak. He unlashed an inflatable boat from the forward rack of the Yamasaki and pulled a ripcord. Pffft! The boat automatically inflated and popped into the water. Izaak unstrapped an outboard motor from the back rack of the ATV. He fixed it to the boat, then loaded in the rods, equipment satchels, and beer. Soon we were churning noisily to the middle of the lake.
“Nuthin’ but the best technology,” said Izaak, as he cut the engine. The sudden silence was deafening. He showed me his rods.
“Made by a Japanese company. Combines microscopic whiskers of silicon carbide with graphite fibers in an epoxy resin, surrounded by a Kevlar mesh. Three times the tensile strength of graphite- based rods.” He assembled a rod and handed it to me. “Same as what’s used in police body armor.”
I whipped the rod back and forth. It had a fine feel and a spiffy high-tech look.
“Check the line,” said Izaak. “A new non-stretch polyethylene fiber called Spectra. This stuff is used in helicopters and cruise missiles. And to tether satellites to the space shuttle. You can feel the slightest vibration at the end of the line. If a fish comes within a foot of my hook, I’ll know it.”
“Now where’s them fish?” he cried, peering into the thin film of oil that was spreading from the outboard onto the waters of the lake.
Walton set up his Humdinger High Performance Fishfinder. Soon we saw a profile of the lake’s bottom on the large LCD screen, with icons indicating fish by size and distance.
“Wowee! Look at that big feller,” he said, pointing to a big one hiding in a bottom hole about a hundred feet away. With a whip of his arm a lure went flying to the exact spot.
“Gee,” I wondered aloud. “doesn’t this make it all a bit easy?”
“Wouldn’t be a complete angler without this stuff,” said Izaak. He popped a beer. I watched fish-shaped blips move about on the screen of his fishfinder. He touched a button and the bottom profile became a 3‑D rendering. Even the boat showed up on the screen, with fish hovering below.
“Too bad the fish don’t have some of this technology,” I mused.
Just then something in a satchel started talking. Izaak pulled out a Motorola Sport 2‑way radio and put it to his ear. “Yeah, hey, good buddy, it’s me, Walton,” he shouted into the mike.
As Izaak exchanged fishing info with his pal on the next lake, I watched icons drift about on the screen of his fishfinder. In my mind’s eye, I imagined the beautiful, glistening fish hovering unawares in the pellucid water below the boat. And I remembered something I had read in The Compleat Angler—the old one, the one we read excerpts from years ago in high school: “Angling begets habits of peace and patience in those who practice it.”
