60 The North Country Angler. 



turn it over several times to keep it sweet; 

 others, when it is a little dried, put it in a wool- 

 len bag, and hang it up where the gentle warmth 

 of the fire will preserve it : The last method is 

 the best. 



The time of fishing with it is, when the salmon 

 are spawning; and as that season will continue a 

 month or more, so long it is a killing bait, when 

 the water is a little flooded, and even when it is 

 white, and a high water. 



All scaled fish are to be taken with it, where 

 any of them are in trout-rivers, below the streams, 

 where the water runs gently, or in eddies ; but 

 trouts will come up to the spawning-beds, and 

 there watch its coming down the stream, and 

 feed greedily. Eels are very fond of it, and will 

 creep even into the spawn-heaps, and devour it. 



I must own it is a pity to use this bait, upon 

 many accounts ; as it cannot be procured with- 

 out destroying thousands of that valuable fish ; 

 and as most fish, especially trouts, are then also 

 kipper; and though there are several gelt trouts 

 that do riot spawn at that time, which, like the 

 barren doe, are then in their perfection, yet 

 their num v er being small, not above one in ten, 

 in comparison of those that are full of spawn, 

 by taking of which, the breed of trouts is likewise 

 destroyed ; I say, therefore, no generous angler 

 should, for the sake of half a dozen good trouts, 

 kill sixty bad ones, and in them as many 

 thousand young. 



I shall not, for these reasons, give any direc- 

 tions how to use this bait ; though I have often 

 killed fish with it in winter^ when they would 



