8 THE JOLLY ANGLER. 



willow-trees, against the osier bank, up the right hand 

 water (from here I used to take my clay); where I put 

 on a light rod, a single hair line, with a porcupine float, 

 the same as 1 used for the bottom of the tide at Putney, 

 and No. 11 hook; throw in a little ground-bait, and you 

 will generally catch two or three dozen Dace the last hour 

 and a half of the flood-tide; when it falls a little, the fish 

 leave off biting here, and that is the time to take your 

 boat to Putney -bridge, where you may fish the tide down. 

 I used generally to leave off at Putney three quarters of 

 an hour before low water, so as to have the tide in my 

 favour home. At 



BATTERSEA BRIDGE 



there are many Roach and Dace, but there are very few 

 Barbel. I have fished here some hundred times, when I 

 lived on the spot, but never saw six taken with a line; so 

 that you may fish safely with single hair, though it is of 

 less advantage in the tide than in smooth, clear, and steady 

 water. We are now getting too near town to expect much 

 sport; still there are many Roach and Dace to be caught 

 at Vauxhall, Westminster, and the other bridges, where 

 the kind inquiries of u What sport?" " Do they bitel" 

 " A maggot at one end, and a fool at t'other," &c. with 

 occasionally a handful of dirt or a stone coining in the 

 water or on your head, renders angling any thing but an 

 amusement. I shall leave the Thames with this remark, 

 that I should place it before any other river for bottom- 

 angling, was it not for the great drawback, if you fish 

 in the best places, of being cramped up in a punt or boat 

 all day; not but there are, as I said before, a great many 

 good places to angle from on the banks above Richmond. 

 In punt-fishing, the boatmen of whom you hire the punt 

 know the best places where to fix it much better than I 

 could describe them, as each man is well acquainted with 

 the localities of his own neighbourhood. Angling in this 

 river is prohibited, under a heavy penalty, from the 1st of 

 March until the 1st of June, in consequence of its being 

 the spawning season*. 



* I never heard of this Act being put in force. 



