THE COMPLETE ANGLER 333 



than a minnow ; and that one day especially, having 

 angled a good part of the day with a minnow, and that 

 in as hopeful a day, and as fit a water, as could be wished 

 for that purpose, without raising any one fish ; I at last 

 fell to it with the worm, and with that took fourteen 

 in a very short space ; amongst all which, there was not, 

 to my remembrance, so much as one, that had not a loach 

 or two, and some of them three, four, five, and six loaches, 

 in his throat and stomach ; from whence I concluded, 

 that had I angled with that bait, I had made a notable 

 day's work of it. 



But after all, there is a better way of angling with a 

 minnow, than perhaps is fit either to teach or to practise ; 

 to which I shall only add, that a grayling will certainly 

 rise at, and sometimes take a minnow, though it will be 

 hard to be believed by any one, who shall consider the 

 littleness of that fish's mouth, very unfit to take so great 

 a bait : but it is affirmed by many, that he will sometimes 

 do it ; and I myself know it to be true ; for though I never 

 took a grayling so, yet a man of mine once did, and within 

 so few paces of me, that I am as certain of it, as I can be 

 of anything I did not see, and, which made it appear the 

 more strange, the grayling was not above eleven inches 

 long. 



I must here also beg leave of your master, and mine, 

 not to controvert, but to tell him, that I cannot consent 

 to his way of throwing in his rod to an over-grown trout, 

 and afterwards recovering his fish with his tackle. For 

 though I am satisfied he has sometimes done it, because 

 he says so, yet I have found it quite otherwise ; and 

 though I have taken with the angle, I may safely say, 

 some thousands of trouts in my life, my top never snapt, 

 (though my line still continued fast to the remaining part 

 of my rod by some lengths of line curled round about 

 my top, and there fastened, with waxed silk, against such 

 an accident), nor my hand never slacked, or slipped by 



