138 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



and she chased over a pond.* And the like may be done with 

 turning three or four live baits, thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, 

 or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk 

 quietly alone on the shore, and are still in expectation of sport. 

 The rest must be taught you by practice ; for time will not allow 

 me to say more of this kind of fishing with live baits. 



And for your DEAD BAIT for a Pike : for that you may be taught 

 by one day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that fishes 

 for him ; for the baiting your hook with a dead gudgeon or a 

 roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a thing 

 to take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet, because I 

 cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that 

 was told me for a secret : it is this : Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of 

 spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a Pike ; and then 

 cast it into a likely place ; and when it has lain a short time at 

 the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water, and so up the 

 stream ; and it is more than likely that you have a Pike follow 

 with more than common eagerness. And some affirm, that any 

 bait anointed with the marrow of the thigh-bone of a heron is a 

 great temptation to any fish.t 



These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of 

 note, that pretended to do me a courtesy. J But if this direction 



* A rod twelve feet long, and a ring of wire, 

 A winder and barrel, will help thy desire 

 In killing a Pike : but the forked stick, 

 With a slit and a bladder, and that other fine trick, 

 Which our artists call snap, with a goose or a duck, 

 Will kill two for one, if you have any luck ' 

 The gentry of Shropshire do merrily smile, 

 To see a goose and a belt the fish to beguile. 

 When a Pike suns himself, and a-frogging doth go, 

 The two-inched hook is better, I know, 

 Than the ord'nary snaring. But still I must cry, 

 "When the Pike 'is at home, mind the cookery." 



Barker's Art of Angling. \\. 



t This latter recipe does not occur in the first edition. 



t The Pike loves a still, shady, unfrequented water, and usually lies amongst, or near 

 weeds ; such as flags, bulrushes, candocks, reeds, or in the green fog that sometimes 

 covers standing waters, though he will sometimes shoot out into the clear stream. Their 

 time of spawning is about the end of February or the beginning of March; and'chief 

 season, from the end of May to the beginning of February. Pikes are called Jacks, till 

 they become twenty-four inches long. The baits for Pike, besides those mentioned by 

 Walton, are a small trout ; the gudgeon, loach, and millers-thumb ; the head end of nn 

 eel with the skin taken off below the fins ; a small jack ; a lob-worm ; and in winter, the 

 fat of bacon. And notwithstanding what Walton and others say against baiting with a 

 perch, it is certain that Pikes have been taken with a small perch with the back fins 

 cut off, when neither a roach nor bleak would tempt them. Let your baits for Pike 

 be as fresh as possible. Dead ones should be carried in fresh bran, which will dry up 

 that moisture that otherwise would infect and rot them. 



As this volume is to be considered a reprint of Walton's " Complete Angler," and not 

 a new treatise on the art of fishing, it is deemed unnecessary to give directions for troll- 

 ing, although a method of Pike-fishing almost universally practised, and one of which 

 Walton has said so little. He, however, who wishes for instructions, may consult the 



