334 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



any other chance, but I almost always infallibly lost my 

 fish, whether great or little, though my hook came home 

 again. And I have often wondered how a trout should 

 so suddenly disengage himself from so great a hook as 

 that we bait with a minnow, and so deep bearded as those 

 hooks commonly are, when I have seen by the forenamed 

 accidents, or the slipping of a knot in the upper part of the 

 line, by sudden and hard striking, that though the line 

 has immediately been recovered, almost before it could be 

 drawn into the water, the fish cleared and gone in a 

 moment. And yet, to justify what he says, I have some- 

 times known a trout, having carried away a whole line, 

 found dead three or four days after, with the hook fast 

 sticking in him ; and then it is to be supposed he had 

 gorged it, which a trout will do, if you be not too quick 

 with him when he comes at a minnow, as sure and much 

 sooner than a pike : and I myself have also, once or twice 

 in my life, taken the same fish, with my own fly sticking 

 in his chaps, that he had taken from me the day before, 

 by the slipping of a hook in the arming. But I am very 

 confident a trout will not be troubled two hours with 

 any hook that has so much as one handful of line left 

 behind with it, or that is not struck through a bone, if it 

 be in any part of his mouth only : nay, I do certainly 

 know, that a trout, so soon as ever he feels himself pricked, 

 if he carries away the hook, goes immediately to the 

 bottom, and will there root, like a hog upon the gravel,, 

 till he either rub out or break the hook in the middle. 

 And so much for this sort of angling in the middle for a 

 trout. 



The second way of angling in the middle, is with a worm, 

 grub, cadis, or any other ground-bait for a grayling ; 

 and that is with a cork, and a foot from the bottom, a 

 grayling taking it much better there than at the bottom, 

 as has been said before ; and this always in a clear water, 

 and with the finest tackle. 



