212 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



in blood ; especially good for bream, if they be baked 

 or hardened in their husks in an oven, after the bread 

 is taken out of it, or hardened on a fire shovel ; and 

 so also is the thick blood of sheep, being half dried on 

 a trencher, that so you may cut it into such pieces as 

 may best fit the size of your hook, and a little salt keeps it 

 from growing black, and makes it not the worse but better : 

 this is taken to be a choice bait if rightly ordered. 



There be several oils of a strong smell that I have 

 been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, 

 of which I could say much ; but I remember I once 

 carried a small bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir 

 Henry Wotton, they were both chymical men, as a great 

 present ; it was sent and received, and used with great 

 confidence ; and yet upon enquiry, I found it did not 

 answer the expectation of Sir Henry, which, with the 

 help of this and other circumstances, makes me have 

 little belief in such things as many men talk of : not 

 but that I think fishes both smell and hear, as I have 

 expressed in my former discourse ; but there is a 

 mysterious knack, which, though it be much easier than 

 the philosopher's stone, yet it is not attainable by common 

 capacities, or else lies locked up in the brain or breast 

 of some chymical man, that, like the Rosicrucians, will 

 not yet reveal it. But let me nevertheless tell you, 

 that camphor,* put with moss into your worm-bag 

 with your worms, makes them, if many anglers be not 

 very much mistaken, a tempting bait, and the angler 

 more fortunate. But I stepped by chance into this 

 discourse of oils and fishes smelling ; and though there 

 might be more said, both of it and of baits for roach 

 and dace and other float fish, yet I will forbear at this 

 time.f and tell you in the next place how you are to 



* All scented baits are now justly repudiated. Perfuming a 

 \vorm or any other bait will do harm and not good. E. 



t Roach delight in gravelly or sandy bottoms ; their haunts, 

 especially as winter approaches, are clear, deep, and still waters ; 



