THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 183 



ing fastened your hook to a line, which if it be 

 not fourteen yards long should not be less than 

 twelve, you are to fasten that line to any bough 

 near to a hole where a pike is, or is likely to lie 

 or to have a haunt, and then wind your line on 

 any forked stick, all your line, except half a yard 

 of it, or rather more, and split that forked stick 

 with such a nick or notch at one end of it as may 

 keep the line from any more of it ravelling from 

 about the stick than so much of it as you intend. 

 And choose your forked stick to be of that big- 

 ness as may keep the fish or frog from pulling the 

 forked stick under the water till the pike bites, 

 and then the pike having pulled the line forth of 

 the cleft or nick of that stick in which it was 

 gently fastened, he will have line enough to go to 

 his hold and pouch the bait. And if you would 

 have this ledger-bait to keep at a fixed place, un- 

 disturbed by wind or other accidents, which may 

 drive it to the shore-side, for you are to note that 

 it is likeliest to catch a pike in the midst of the 

 water, then hang a small plummet of lead, a 

 stone, or piece of tile, or a turf, in a string, and 

 cast it into the water with the forked stick, to hang 

 upon the ground, to be a kind of anchor to keep 

 the forked stick from moving out of your intended 

 place till the pike come. This I take to be a very 

 good way to use so many ledger-baits as you in- 

 tend to make trial of. 



Or if you bait your hooks thus with live fish or 

 frogs, and in a windy day fasten them thus to a 



