

The North Country Angler. 81 



CHAP. XXV. 



Of Night-Lines . How to make them. When, 

 where, and how to lay them. 



JL HIS practice is generally complained of, 

 and decried by all our fair anglers, as they call 

 themselves; nay, even by our Gentlemen, who 

 niake no scruple of taking ten or a dozen loose 

 hands, and with their nets sweeping as many 

 pools, and destroying all the breeding fish. Per- 

 haps this chapter will not be approved of ; and 

 several may say, I had better have written 

 nothing about it. But as I have been accused 

 of doing a great deal of mischief this way, and 

 could not have so many great fish without some 

 extraordinary judgment, I shall let my reader 

 know how I came by it; and they that like my 

 method, may take it, and they that do not, may 

 let it alone. 



I have been often, at several little towns near 

 the sea, where the fishermen go off in their 

 cobles, and shoot their great lines; and when the 

 weather has not been favourable, have laid their 

 tratts or short Iines 3 near the shore, and in the 

 rivers, or where the becks run into the sea : I 

 have seen them catch a great many small fish, of 

 several sorts. I was very inquisitive, and took 

 notice how the lines were made, and the snoods 

 with hooks at them, were fastened to the lines ; 

 what baits they used, and how they put them 

 on ; how, and in what places they laid them, 

 with a stone at each end, and sometimes a buoy, 



