OBSERVATIONS ON FLOUNDER TACKLE^ &C. 153 



line into the water. Flounders and Eels seldom take 

 a bait, unless it lies on the ground : the best bait is 

 a red worm, or a live Shrimp. Fishing in this way, you 

 may use half a dozen lines at a time, by casting them 

 in a few yards from each other, and tying the line to a 

 weed, or a small stick stuck in the ground, or bank. 

 It is necessary to have a short rod with you, three or 

 four yards long, to the top of which is fixed a small iron 

 crutch, or fork, in shape like the letter Y ; with this rod 

 you take up the lines in the following manner : take 

 the line in your left hand, and with the right pass the 

 crutch, or fork, under the line, pushing it forward in the 

 water some distance, by which means you can easily 

 lift out your line over weeds, or any other impediment. 

 Without this rod, or crutch, you would be compelled 

 to drag the lines up the side or bank, where the 

 hooks would catch the weeds, &c., and spoil the baits, 

 and occasion you infinite trouble. A great number 

 of Flounders, Eels, Perch, Roach, Dace, and Gud- 

 geons, are caught by this method of fishing, in 

 those creeks I have named, especially from an hour 

 after high-water, until the time the tide is quite 

 run out : you may begin to use dead lines in the 

 latter end of January, and meet with success until 

 December, day and night. 



If you fish for Eels among the shipping in the river 

 Thames, act in the following manner: get some stoutish 

 lay-cord, say about twenty yards, and fasten on it from 

 three to six hooks, about half a yard apart from each 

 other, and about the same distance above the top hook ; 



