BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



which cannot be too sharp, and betwixt the head and the fin 

 on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar, as you may 

 put the arming-wire of your hook into it, with as httle hurting 

 or bruising the fish as art and dihgence will enable you to do ; 

 and so carrying your arming-wire along his back, unto or near 

 the tail of your fish, betwixt the skin and the body of it, draw 

 out that wire or arming of your hook at another scar near to his 

 tail ; then tie him about it with thread, but no harder than of 

 necessity, to prevent hurting the fish ; and the better to avoid 

 hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way for 

 the more easy entrance and passage of your wire or arming ; 

 but as for these, time and a little experience will teach you 

 better than I can by words. Therefore I will for the present 

 say no more of this ; but come next to give you some directions 

 how to bait your hook with a frog, . . . Now of these water-frogs, 

 if you intend to fish with a frog for a Pike, you are to choose 

 the yellowest that you can get, for that the Pike ever likes best. 

 And thus use your frog, that he may continue long alive : — 



' Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do 

 from the middle of April to August ; and then the frog's 

 mouth grows up, and he continues so for at least six months 

 without eating, but is sustained, none but He whose name is 

 Wonderful knows how : I say, put your hook, I mean the 

 arming-wire, through his mouth, and out at his gills ; and then 

 with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, with 

 only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your hook ; or tie the 

 frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed-wire ; and, in 

 so doing, use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as 

 little as you may possibly, that he may live the longer. 



' And now, having given you this direction for the baiting 

 your ledger-hook with a live fish or frog, my next must be to tell 

 you, how your hook thus baited must or may be used ; and it is 

 thus ; having fastened your hook to a line, which if it be not 

 fourteen yards long should not be less than twelve, you are to 

 fasten that Une to any bough near to a hole where a Pike is, 

 or is likely to lie, or to have a haunt ; and then wind your line 



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