Advice from an Expert

On sale in U.S. bookstores this week is a masterfully written treatise by an experienced fisherman that is likely to be read for a long time. The author believes in using both wet and dry flies--and worms, too.

"Is it not an art," he asks in a quaint prose, "to deceive a trout with an artificial fly--a trout that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled falcon is bold?" Deceiving trout with worms is also an art, the author believes, and a sport, too. He recommends "lively, quick, stirring" earthworms fattened on cream and eggs.

Other knowledgeable tips:

P: For salmon, "the king of fresh-water fish": a garden worm that has been annointed with the oil of ivy berries. The odor is "enough to force any fish within the smell of them to bite."

P: For the crafty carp: rabbit pate sweetened with sugar or honey.

P: For eels: powdered beef or "gut of a hen, or almost anything, for he is a greedy fish."

P: For fishermen: "forbear swearing, lest [you] be heard and catch no fish."

P: For supper: eat the day's catch while it is fresh.*

As many a well-read fisherman will recognize, the author is the learned Englishman, Izaak Walton, who grew tired of the life of an ironmonger, retired to the country and took up the contemplative pursuits of literature and fishing. His book, The Compleat Angler, originally published just 300 years ago, was republished this month, following at least 200 other editions, by the Stackpole Co. of Harrisburg, Pa., a city that had not been thought of when Author Walton (1593-1683) wrote his bestseller.

* Sample of the author's instructions, for preparing a 36-inch pike: Sew into the pike's belly a pound of sweet butter mixed with thyme, sweet marjoram, winter-savory, the pike's liver, pickled oysters and two or three whole anchovies, and roast over a spit, basting often with claret, anchovies and butter. When roasted to a turn, squeeze the juice of three or four oranges into the sauce in the belly and pan.

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