122 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate 

 river Dove, and in Trent, and some other smaller rivers, as that 

 which runs by Salisbury, yet he is not so general a fish as the 

 Troui, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for.* And so I shall 

 take my leave of him : and now come to some observations of the 

 Salmon, and how to catch him. 



CHAP. vii. PlSCATOR. THE Salmon is accounted the King of 



The Salmon, fresh-water fish ; and is ever bred in rivers relating 

 to the sea, yet so high, or far from it, as admits of no tincture of 

 salt, or brackishness. He is said to breed or cast his spawn, 

 in most rivers, in the month of August : f some say, that then 

 they dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there 

 place their eggs or spawn, after the melter has done his natural 

 office, and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it over with 

 gravel and stones ; and then leave it to their Creator's protection, 

 who, by a gentle heat which he infuses into that cold element, 

 makes it brood, and beget life in the spawn, and to become 

 Samlets early in the spring next following. 2 



The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this 

 natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before 

 winter, both the melter and spawner : but if they be stopt by 

 floodgates or weirs, or lost in the fresh waters, then those so left 

 behind by degrees grow sick and lean, and unseasonable, and 

 kipper, that is to say, have bony gristles grow out of their lower 

 chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which hinders their feeding ; 

 and, in time, such fish so left behind pine away and die. 'Tis 

 observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea ; but he 



VARIATION. 



2 protection, by whose power the spawn becomes Samlets the next spring following. 



* Notwithstanding Walton's assertion, experienced anglers affirm that although the 

 Grayling may, yet he very rarely does, take the minnow. He will take gentles very 

 eagerly. When you fish for him with a fly, you can hardly use one too small. The 

 Grayling is found in great plenty in many rivers in the north, particularly the Humber. 

 And in the Wye, which runs through Herefordshire and Monmouthshire into the 

 Severn, have been taken, with an artificial fly, very large ones : as also great numbers of 

 a small, but excellent fish, of the Trout kind, called a Last-spring. They are not easily 

 to be got at without a boat, or wading; for which reason those of that countryu.se a 

 thing they call a Corracle, or truckle : 'in some places it is called a coble, from the Latin 

 corbnla, a little basket; it is a basket, shaped like the half of a walnut-shell, but 

 shallower in proportion, and covered on the outside with a horse's hide ; it has a bench 

 in the middle, and will just hold one person, and is so light, that the countrymen will 

 hang it on their heads like a hood, and so travel, with a small paddle which serves for 

 a stick, till they come to a river ; and then they launch it, and step in. There is great 

 difficulty in getting into one of these truckles, for the instant you touch it with your foot 

 it flies from you ; and when you are in, the least inclination of the body oversets it. H. 



t Their usual time of spawning is about the beginning of September, but it is said 

 those in the Severn spawn in May. H. 



