chap, xii.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 357 



For the first ; it is with a Minnow, half a foot, or 

 a foot, within the superficies of the water. And as 

 to the rest that concerns this sort of Angling, I 

 shall wholly refer you to Mr. Walton's direction, 

 who is undoubtedly the best Angler with a Min- 

 now in England: only in plain truth I do not ap- 

 prove of those baits he keeps in salt, — unless where 

 the living-ones are not possibly to be had (though 

 I know he frequently kills with them, and, perad- 

 venture more than with any other, nay, I have 

 seen him refuse a living one for one of them) — and 

 much less of his artificial one : for though we do 

 it with a counterfeit-fly, methinks it should hardly 

 be expected that a man should deceive a fish with 

 a counterfeit-fish. Which having said, I shall only 

 add, and that out of my own experience, that I do 

 believe a Bull-head, with his gill-fins cut off (at 

 some times of the year especially) to be a much 

 better bait for a Trout, than a Minnow, and a 

 Loach much better that that : to prove which I 

 shall only tell you, that I have much oftener taken 

 Trouts with a Bull-head or a Loach in their throats 

 (for there a Trout has questionless his first diges- 

 tion) than a Minnow ; and that one day especially, 

 having angled a good part of the day with a Min- 

 now, and that in as hopeful a day, and as fit a 

 water, as could be wished for that purpose, with- 

 out 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 



