272 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART n. 



of them three, four, five, and six loaches in his throat and stomach; 

 from whence I concluded, that had I angled with that bait, I had 

 made a notable day's work oft. 



But after all, there is a better way of angling with a minnow 

 than perhaps is fit either to teach or to practise ; to which I 

 shall only add, that a Grayling will certainly rise at, and some- 

 times take a minnow, though it will be hard to be believed by any 

 one who shall consider the littleness of that fish's mouth, very 

 unfit to take so great a bait ; but is affirmed by many that he 

 will sometimes do it, and I myself know it to be true ; for though 

 I never took a Grayling so, yet a man of mine once did, and 

 within so few paces of me, that I am as certain of it as I can be 

 of anything I did not see, and (which made it appear the more 

 strange) the Grayling was not above eleven inches long. 



I must here also beg leave of your master, and mine, not to con- 

 trovert, but to tell him, that I cannot consent to his way of throw- 

 ing in his rod to an overgrown Trout, and afterwards recovering 

 his fish with his tackle : for though I am satisfied he has some- 

 times done it, because he says so, yet I have found it quite 

 otherwise : and though I have taken with the angle, I may safely 

 say, some thousands of Trouts in my life, my top never snapt, 

 though my line still continued fast to the remaining part of my 

 rod (by some lengths of line curled round about my top, and there 

 fastened, with waxt silk, against such an accident), nor my hand 

 never slackt, or slipt by any other chance, but I almost always 

 infallibly lost my fish, whether great or little, though my hook 

 came home again. And I have often wondered how a Trout should 

 so suddenly disengage himself from so great a hook as that we 

 bait with a minnow, and so deep bearded as those hooks com- 

 monly are, when I have seen by the forenamed accidents, or the 

 slipping of a knot in the upper part of the line, by sudden and 

 hard striking, that though the line has immediately been recovered, 

 almost before it could be all drawn into the water, the fish cleared, 

 and gone in a moment. And yet, to justify what he says, I have 

 sometimes known a Trout, having carried away a whole line, 

 found dead three or four days after, with the hook fast sticking in 

 him ; but then it is to be supposed he had gorged it, which a 

 Trout will do, it you be not too quick with him when he comes 

 at a minnow, as sure and much sooner than a Pike : and I 

 myself have also, once or twice in my life, taken the same fish, 

 with my own fly sticking in his chaps, that he had taken from 

 me the day before, by the slipping of a hook in the arming. 



