THE COMPLETE ANGLER 161 



the fire ; then make these into balls, and they will keep 

 all the year. 



And if you fish for a carp with gentles, then put upon 

 your hook a little piece of scarlet, about this bigness n it 

 being soaked in or anointed with oil of peter, called 

 by some oil of the rock ; and if your gentles be put 

 two or three days before into a box or horn anointed with 

 honey, and so put upon your hook as to preserve them 

 to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this way 

 as any other : but still, as you are fishing, chew a little 

 white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into 

 the pond about the place where your float swims. Other 

 baits there be ; but these, with diligence and patient 

 watchfulness, will do it better than any that I have ever 

 practised or heard of : and yet I shall tell you, that 

 the crumbs of white bread and honey, made into a paste, 

 is a good bait for a carp ; and you know it is more easily 

 made. And having said thus much of the carp,* my 

 next discourse shall be of the bream ; which shall not 

 prove so tedious, and therefore I desire the continuance 

 of your attention. 



* The haunts of river carp are, in the winter months, the broadest 

 and most quiet parts of the river ; but in summer they lie in 

 deep holes, nooks, and reaches, near some scour, and under roots 

 of trees, hollow banks, and, till they are near rotting, amongst or near 

 great beds of weeds, flags, etc. Pond carp cannot, with propriety, 

 be said to have any haunts ; only it is to be noted, that they love a 

 fat, rich soil, and never thrive in a cold, hungry water. They breed 

 three or four times a year ; but their first spawning-time is the 

 beginning of May. Baits for the carp are all sorts of earth and dung- 

 hill worms, flag worms, grasshoppers (though not at top), ox brains, 

 the pith of an ox's backbone, green peas, and red or black cherries 

 with the stones taken out. Fish with strong tackle, very near the 

 bottom, and with a fine grass or gut next the hook, and use a goose- 

 quill float. Never attempt to angle for the carp in a boat, for they 

 will not come near it. It is said there are many carp in the Thames, 

 westward of London, and that about February they retire to the 

 creeks in that river ; in some of which, many above two feet long 

 have been taken with an angle. Carp live the longest out of the 

 water of any fish. It is a common practice in Holland to keep them 

 alive for three weeks or a month, by hanging them in a cool place, 

 with wet moss, in a net, and feeding them with bread and milk. H. 

 100 F 



