358 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part ii. 



my remembrance, so much as one, that had not a 

 Loach or two, and some of them three, four, five, 

 and six, Loaches, in his throat and stomach ; from 

 whence I concluded, that had I angled with that 

 bait, I had made a notable day's work of 't. 



But after all, there is a better way of Angling 

 with a Minnow, than perhaps is fit either to teach 

 or to practise : to which I shall only add, that a 

 Grayling will certainly rise at, and sometimes take 

 a Minnow, though it will be hard to be believed 

 by any one, who shall consider the littleness of 

 that fish's mouth, very unfit to take so great a 

 bait : but 'tis affirmed by many, that he w r ill some- 

 times do it, and I myself know it to be true : for 

 though I never took a Grayling so, yet a man of 

 mine once did, and within so few paces of me, that I 

 am as certain of it as I can be of any thing I did not 

 see ; and, which made it appear the more strange, 

 the Grayling was not above eleven inches long. 



I must here also beg leave of your Master, and 

 mine, not to controvert, but to tell him, that I 

 cannot consent to his way of throwing in his rod 

 to an overgrown Trout, and afterwards recovering 

 his fish with his tackle. For though I am satisfied 

 he has sometimes done it, because he says so, yet 

 I have found it quite otherwise ; and though I have 

 taken with the Angle, I may safely say, some thou- 

 sands of Trouts in my life, my top never snapped 

 (though my line still continued fast to the remain- 

 ing part of my rod, by some lengths of line curled 



