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commonly grows tougher, and will better endure baiting; though he is yet so tender, that it will be necessary to warp-in a piece of a stiff hair with your arming, leaving it standing out about a straw-breadth at the head of your hook, so as to keep the grub either from slipping totally off when baited, or at least down to the point of the hook, by which means your arming will be left wholly naked and bare, which is neither so sightly, nor so likely to be taken: though, to help that, which will, however, very oft fall out, I always arm the hook I design for this bait with the whitest horse-hair I can choose; which itself will resemble, and shine like that bait, and consequently will do more good, or less harm, than an arming of any other colour. These grubs are to be baited thus: the hook is to be put in under the head or chaps of the bait, and guided down the middle of the belly, without suffering it to peep out by the way (for then, the ash-grub especially, will issue out water and milk, till nothing but the skin shall remain, and the bend of the hook will appear black through it) till the point of your hook come so low, that the head of your bait may rest, and stick upon the hair that stands out to hold it; by which means it can neither slip of itself, neither will the force of the stream, nor quick pulling out, upon any mistake, strip it off.

Now the Cadis, or Cod-bait, which is a sure killing bait, and, for the most part, by much surer than either of the other, may be put upon the hook, two or three together; and is sometimes, to very great effect, joined to a worm, and

purpose, particularly the grub of the cockchafer. The brandling is also an excellent bait.-RENNIE.

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b

a, grub of the Cockchafer, called the earth bob; b, the brandling.

sometimes to an artificial fly to cover the point of the hook: but is always to be angled with at the bottom, when by itself especially, with the finest tackle; and is for all times of the year, the most holding bait of all other whatever, both for trout and grayling.

There are several other baits, besides these few I have named you, which also do very great execution at the bottom; and some that are peculiar to certain countries and rivers, of which every angler may in his own place make his own observation; and some others that I do not think fit to put you in mind of, because I would not corrupt you, and would have you,-as in all things else I observe you to be a very honest gentleman,-a fair angler. And so much for the second sort of angling for a trout at the bottom.

Viat. But, sir, I beseech you give me leave to ask you one question. Is there no art to be used to worms, to make them allure the fish, and in a manner compel them to bite at the bait ?

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Pisc. Not that I know of: or did I know any such secret, I would not use it myself, and therefore would not teach it you. Though I will not deny to you that, in my younger days, I have made trial of oil of osprey, oil of ivy, camphor, assafoetida, juice of nettles, and several other devices that I was taught by several anglers I met with ; but could never find any advantage by them; and can scarce believe there is any thing to be done that way: though I must tell you, I have seen some men, who I thought went to work no more artificially than I, and have yet with the same kind of worms I had, in my own sight, taken five, and

1 Col. Venables says, "the best way to angle with the cadis is on the top of the water, with a fly. It must stand on the shank of the hook, as the artificial fly (not come into the bend, or the fish will not value it, nor if you pull the blue gut out), and thus it is most excellent bait for a trout. Where the river is not violently swift, you may place a very slender lead on the shank, and draw the cad-bait over it raise it often from the bottom, and so let it sink again. You may imitate the cad-bait, making the head of black silk, and the body of yellow wax or of shammy. The trout will not take the cadis in muddy water, you must therefore only use it in clear ones." ""

2 See Part I., Anointed or Scented Baits, and notes, at pages 184, 185.

sometimes ten, for one. But we'll let that business alone, if you please. And, because we have time enough, and that I would deliver you from the trouble of any more lectures, I will, if you please, proceed to the last way of angling for a trout or grayling, which is in the middle; after which I shall have no more to trouble you with.

Viat. 'Tis no trouble, sir, but the greatest satisfaction that can be, and I attend you.

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THE THIRD DAY.

(Continued.)

CHAPTER XII.

OF ANGLING IN THE MIDDLE FOR TROUT OR GRAYLING.

Pisc. Angling in the middle, then, for trout or grayling, is of two sorts; with a penk or minnow for a trout; or with a worm, grub, or cadis, for a grayling.

For the first; it is with a minnow, half a foot, or a foot, within the superficies of the water. And as to the rest that concerns this sort of angling, I shall wholly refer you to Mr. Walton's direction, who is undoubtedly the best angler with a minnow in England: only in plain truth I do not approve of those baits he keeps in salt, unless where the living-ones are not possibly to be had (though I know he frequently kills with them, and, peradventure more than with any other, nay, I have seen him refuse a living one for one of them)-and much less of his artificial one; for though we do it with a counterfeit-fly, methinks it should hardly be expected that a man should deceive a fish with a counterfeit-fish. Which having said, I shall only add, and that out of my own experience, that I do believe a bullhead, with his gill-fins cut off (at some times of the year especially) to be a much better bait for a trout, than a minnow, and a loach much better than that: to prove which

1 See Part I. Chap. V. page 135.

2 Ib. page 136.

3 Ib. page 137.

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4 Artificial fish are now so well made, that in spinning they are by many preferred, especially in slightly discoloured water. They spin better, and will take a great many fish before they are injured, which is a great convenience.-ED.

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I shall only tell you, that I have much oftener taken trouts with a bull-head or a loach in their throats (for there a trout has questionless his first digestion) than a minnow; and that one day especially, having angled a good part of the day with a minnow, and that in as hopeful a day, and as fit a water, as could be wished for that purpose, without raising any one fish; I at last fell to it with the worm, and with that took fourteen in a very short space; amongst all which there was not, to my remembrance, so much as one, that had not a loach or two, and some of them three, four, five, and six loaches, in his throat and stomach; from whence I concluded, that had I angled with that bait, I had made a notable day's work of 't.

But after all, there is a better way of angling with a minnow, than perhaps is fit either to teach or to practise: to which I shall only add, that a grayling will certainly rise at, and sometimes take a minnow, though it will be hard to be believed by any one, who shall consider the littleness of that fish's mouth, very unfit to take so great a bait; but 'tis affirmed by many, that he will sometimes do it, and I myself know it to be true: for though I never took a grayling so, yet a man of mine once did, and within so few paces of me, that I am as certain of it as I can be of any thing I did not see; and, which made it appear the more strange, the grayling was not above eleven inches long..

I must here also beg leave of your master, and mine, not to controvert, but to tell him, that I cannot consent to his way of throwing in his rod to an overgrown trout,' and afterwards recovering his fish with his tackle. For though I am satisfied he has sometimes done it, because he says so, yet I have found it quite otherwise; and though I have taken with the angle, I may safely say, some thousands of trouts in my life, my top never snapped (though my line still continued fast to the remaining part of my rod, by some lengths of line curled round about my top, and there fastened with waxed silk, against such an accident) nor my hand never slacked, or slipped by any other chance, but I almost always infallibly lost my fish, whether great or little, though my hook came home again, And I have often

1 See Part I. Chap. V. page 166.

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