288 THE COMMON EEL. 



buried straight in the worm, will be pulled quite across the throat 

 of the eel and hold him fast. Then keep a steady pull on the line 

 till you thoroughly tire him out, and having safely landed him you 

 may, by squeezing one of the points of the needle through his 

 skin, draw that and the whole line after it, without going through 

 the cutting and maiming process, generally required to dislodge a 

 hook from an eel's stomach. 



And now I must beg to offer a few remarks on bobbing for 

 eels ; a very ancient and good plan for capturing these fishes. In 

 order to put this in practice, you must first of all take care to pro- 

 vide yourself with a good stock of large worms ; the species is 

 immaterial, but they ought to be well scoured, which from being 

 too often omitted, is frequently the cause of this mode of angling 

 not succeeding so well as would otherwise have done. Having 

 then these worms all duly prepared, with a long needle pass a 

 thread of worsted through them till you have what will make a 

 tolerable sized bundle of them, then tie all the ends of the threads 

 together, making a kind of mop of them. 



This done, fasten them all to a stout line about two yards long. 

 Six or eight inches above the worms there should be a knot for a 

 lead plummet to rest upon, which should be tolerably weighty in 

 order that the baits may be sunk the more readily. The line 

 should then be fastened to a short taper pole, about three or four 

 yards long. Being thus prepared you must angle in muddy water, 

 or in the deeps or sides of creeks, and you will easily find out 

 when the eel lays hold as they often do several at a time by 

 their tugging away at the worms, let them pull away unmolested 

 for a short time, and then hauling them gently towards the top of 

 the water hoist them suddenly to land, and then do your best to 

 secure all you can ; for frequently you may throw two or three on 

 shore at the same time, and yet every of them will contrive to 

 slip through your fingers and escape back into the water again. 



It is but seldom you can prevail the larger eels to bite during 

 the day time, though sometimes in hot thundery weather they will 

 venture forth, as they will in rivers affected with the tide just on 

 the rise of flood ; but even in those places the evening is the 

 best time for taking thenu The best plan however to catch large 

 eels is with a strong night line baited either with worms, a min- 

 now, a small pride lamprey, or a portion of one of the smaller of 



