THE COMPLETE ANGLER 147 



found many, and that there has been plenty of that weed 

 in those ponds, and [they think] that that weed both 

 breeds and feeds them : but whether those pikes so bred 

 will ever breed by generation as the others do, I shall 

 leave to the disquisitions of men of more curiosity and 

 leisure than I profess myself to have : and shall proceed 

 to tell you, that you may fish for a pike, either with a 

 ledger or a walking-bait ; and you are to note, that I call 

 that a ledger-bait, which is fixed or made to rest in one 

 certain place when you shall be absent from it ; and I 

 call that a walking-bait which you take with you, and have 

 ever in motion. Concerning which two, I shall give you 

 this direction, that your ledger-bait is best to be a living 

 bait (though a dead one may catch), whether it be a fish 

 or a frog : and that you may make them live the 

 longer, you may, or indeed you must, take this 

 course : 



First, for your live-bait. Of fish, a roach or dace is, 

 I think, best and most tempting (and a perch is the longest 

 lived on a hook) and having cut off his fin on his back, 

 which may be done without hurting him, you must take 

 your knife, which cannot be too sharp, and between 

 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 little bruising or hurting the fish as 

 art and diligence will enable you to do ; and so carrying 

 your arming-wire along his back, unto or near the tail of 

 your fish', between 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 



