THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 93 



exceedingly small or bruised into the butter. The 

 cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken 

 away, for which so many except against him. 

 Thus was the cheven dressed that you now liked 

 so well and commended so much. But note again 

 that if this chub that you ate of had been kept till 

 to-morrow, he had not been worth a rush. And 

 remember that his throat be washed very clean, 

 I say very clean, and his body not washed after 

 he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be. 



Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken 

 to recover the lost credit of the poor despised 

 chub. And now I will give you some rules how to 

 catch him, and I am glad to enter you into the art 

 of fishing by catching a chub, for there is no better 

 fish to enter a young angler, he is so easily caught ; 

 but then it must be this particular way. 



Go to the same hole in which I caught my chub, 

 where, in most hot days, you will find a dozen or 

 twenty chevens floating near the top of the water. 

 Get two or three grasshoppers as you go over the 

 meadow, and get secretly behind the tree, and 

 stand as free from motion as possible. Then put 

 a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook 

 hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to 

 which end you must rest your rod on some bough 

 of the tree. But it is likely the chubs will sink 

 down towards the bottom of the water at the first 

 shadow of your rod, for the chub is the fearfullest 

 of fishes, and will do so if but a bird flies over him 

 and makes the least shadow on the water. But 



