c 1 1 A [-. x i . ] THE THIRD DA Y. 267 



PlSCATOR. You are in the right, it does so : and a worm is so 

 sure a bait at all times, that, excepting in a flood, I would I had 

 laid thousand pounds that I killed fish, more or less, with it, 

 winter or summer, every day throughout the year ; those days 

 always excepted, that upon a more serious account always ought 

 so to be. But not longer to delay you, I will begin and tell you 

 that Angling at the bottom is also, commonly, of two sorts (and 

 yet there is a third way of angling with a ground-bait, and to 

 very great effect too, as shall be said hereafter); namely, by 

 hand: or with a cork or float. 



That we call Angling by hand, is of three sorts. 



The first with a line about half the length of the rod, a good 

 weighty plumb, and three hairs next the hook, which we call a 

 running-line, and with one large brandling, or a dew-worm of a 

 moderate size, or two small ones of the first, or any other sort, 

 proper for a Trout, of which my father Walton has already given 

 you the names, and saved me a labour ; or indeed almost any 

 worm whatever ; for if a Trout be in the humour to bite, it must 

 be such a worm as I never yet saw, that he will refuse ; and if 

 you fish with two, you are then to bait your hook thus : You are, 

 first, to run the point of your hook in at the very head of your 

 first worm, and so down through his body till it be past the knot, 

 and then let it out, and strip the worm above the arming (that you 

 may not bruise it with your fingers) till you have put on the other, 

 by running the point of the hook in below the knot, and upwards 

 through his body towards his head, till it be but just covered with 

 the head, which being done, you are then to slip the first worm down 

 over the arming again till the knots of both worms meet together. 



The second way of angling by hand, and with a running-line, 

 is with a line something longer than the former, and with tackle 

 made after this same manner. At the utmost extremity of your 

 line, where the hook is always placed in all other ways of 

 angling, you are to have a large pistol or carabine bullet, into 

 which the end of your line is to be fastened with a peg or pin, 

 even and close with the bullet ; and, about half a foot above 

 that, a branch of line, of two or three handfuls long, or more for 

 a swift stream, with a hook at the end thereof, baited with some 

 of the forenamed worms, and, another half a foot above that, 

 another armed and baited after the same manner, but with 

 another sort of worm, without any lead at all above: by which 

 means you will always certainly find the true bottom of all depths ; 

 which with the plumbs upon your line above, you can never do, 



