CHAP. III. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 135 



and not washed after he is gutted- for note. That 

 lying long in water, and washing the blood out of any 

 fish after they be gutted, abates much of their sweetness 

 you will find the Chub, (being dressed in the blood, 

 and quickly), to be such meat as will recompense your 

 labour, and disabuse your opinion. 



Or you may dress the Cha vender or Chub thus : 



When you have scaled him, and cut oiF his tail 

 and fins, and washed him very clean ; then chine or 

 slit him through the middle, as a salt-fish is usually cut ; 

 then give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back 

 with your knife. And broil him on charcoal, or wood 

 coal, that are free from smoke. And all the time he is 

 a broiling, baste him with the best sweet butter, and 

 good store of salt mixed with it. And to this, 

 add a little thyme cut exceeding small, or bruised into 

 the butter. The Cheventhus dressed ; hath the watery- 

 taste taken a way, for which so many except against him. 

 Thus was the Cheven dressed that you now liked so 

 well, and commended so much. But note again, that if 

 this Chub that you eat of, had been kept till to-mor- 

 row, he had not been worth a rush. And remember, 

 that his throat be washed very clean, I say very clean,- 

 and his body not washed after he is gutted, as indeed 

 no fish should be. 



Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken tore- 

 cover the lost credit of the poor despised Chub. And 

 now I will give you some rules how to catch him : And 

 I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catch- 

 ing a Chub ; for there is no fish better to enter a young 

 angler, he is so easily caught, but then it must be this 

 particular way. 



Go to the same hole in which I caught my Chub ; 

 where, in most hot days, you will find a dozen or twenty 

 Chevens floating near the top of the water. Get two or 

 three grashoppers as you go over the meadow ^ And get 

 secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion 

 as is possible. Then put a grashopper on your hook ; 

 and let your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the 

 water, to which end you must rest your rod on some 

 bough of the tree. But it is likely the Chubs will sink 



