78 The North Country Angler. 



may guide the bait to any nich or hole where 

 an eel may be: you may often know where there 

 is one, by the mouth of the hole being smooth 

 and clean, with the eel's putting out her head at 

 it to seek a bait. When an eel takes the worm, 

 she will easily pull it off the point of the small 

 stick^ and not be long in swallowing it. The 

 other end may be looped about your wrist: and 

 if you keep the line at stretch, she will soon yield, 

 and come out. You may put the shank end of 

 your hook when baited, into a little nick or hole 

 at the small end of your small stick, if you think 

 it a better way. 



Another way of taking eels is by bobbing 

 for them; but this should be done either in the 

 tide-way, when it is coming in, till near high- 

 water, or in fresh waters, when they are muddy. 

 Take a good quantity of well-scoured dew-worms, 

 and with a needle run them on to a very 

 strong thread, from end to end : wrap these 

 a dozen or fourteen times about a trencher or 

 board, ,tie them fast with the two ends of the 

 thread, that they may hang down in so many 

 coils or hanks : these you must make fast with 

 a loop about the place where you tied them, to 

 a strong cord, and five or six inches above 

 the worms, you must have a plumb of lead 

 more than half a pound weight, with a hole 

 through it, and make it rest upon a knot on the 

 cord; or you may have your lead at the end of 

 the cord, in the middle of the hanks. The 

 other end of the cord you must loop on to the 

 end of a pole of a convenient length; and when 

 you have let your worms touch the bottom, 



