Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler - or the Contemplative Man's Recreation - could be said to be the Weather Eye of angling. Published in 1653, it combined practical information for the rod fisherman with snatches of mythology and folklore, and quotations from the classics.
But Walton's book went further than Weather Eye, drawing an idyllic picture of a rural life of well-kept inns and tuneful milk-maids, with pastoral interludes of song and verse and homely entertainment - typified by "an honest alehouse where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and 20 ballads stuck about the walls".
Walton dispensed many useful tips to would-be fishermen, among which is the following advice on the relevance of wind direction, still to be seen on the wall of many a country pub:
When the wind is in the north
The skillful fisher goes not forth;
When the wind is in the east
`Tis neither good for man nor beast;
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the flies in the fish's mouth;
But when the wind is in the west,
There it is the very best. But we in Ireland have our own Izaak Walton in the person of Col R St Leger Moore, a Wexford fisherman of the last century whose notes on Weather and the Art of Angling provide a pleasing cameo of his life and times.
Contrary to Walton's advice, a successful fisherman, according to Col Moore, "must not be given to too much observation of the weather. It is as true of fishing as it is of agriculture that `He who observeth the wind, he shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds, he shall not reap'. Not to go out fishing because a day is not a likely one, is always a very serious mistake."
"The best weather for catching fish in Irish rivers," he goes on, "is when the wind is south or west and rain has just begun to fall before a flood. One is almost certain then to take a catch, however bad the fishing may have been the day before. It is hopeless, however, when the flood is high and the water is discoloured. Light, too, is most important: the fish apparently do not see the fly - or do not care to see it - when the clouds are very low and the sky too much overcast; a bright sky, on the other hand, is also bad - because probably the fish can see the gut, and that the fly is an artificial product, not something good to eat or worthy of attack."