chap, xii.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 359 



round about my top, and there fastened with waxed 

 silk, against such an accident) nor my hand never 

 slacked, or slipped by any other chance, but I al- 

 most always infallibly lost my fish, whether great 

 or little, though my hook came home again. And 

 I have often wondered how a Trout should so sud- 

 denly disengage himself, from so great a hook as 

 that we bait with a Minnow, and so deep-bearded 

 as those hooks commonly are ; when I have seen by 

 the fore-named accidents, or the slipping of a knot in 

 the upper part of the line, by sudden and hard strik- 

 ing, that though the line has immediately been reco- 

 vered, almost before it could be all drawn into the 

 water, — the fish cleared, and was gone in a moment. 

 And yet, to justify what he says, I have sometimes 

 known a Trout, having carried away a whole line, 

 found dead three or four days after, with the hook 

 fast sticking in him : but then it is to be supposed 

 he had gorged it, which a Trout will do, if you be 

 not too quick with him, when he comes at a Min- 

 now, as sure and much sooner than a Pike : and I 

 myself have also, once or twice in my life, taken 

 the same fish with my own fly sticking in his chaps, 

 that he had taken from me the day before, by the 

 slipping of a hook in the arming. But I am very 

 confident a Trout will not be troubled two hours 

 with any hook, that has so much as one handful 

 of line left behind with it, or that is not struck 

 through a bone, if it be in any part of his mouth 

 only : nay, I do certainly know that a Trout, so 



