CHAP. VI. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



and therefore bolder than a Trout ; for he will rise 

 twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise 

 again. He lias been taken with a fly made of the 

 red feathers of a paralrita, a strange outlandish bird ; 

 and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a 

 small motFi, or indeed, at most flies that are not too 

 big. He is a fish that lurks close, all Winter : but 

 is "very pleasant and jolly after mid- April, and in 

 May^ and in the hot months \ He is of a very fine 

 shape; his flesh is white; his teeth, those little ones 

 that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender 

 a mouth, that he is oiftner lost after an angler has 

 hooked him, than any 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 Trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle 

 for*. And so I shall take my leave of him : and now 



* The haunts of the Grayling are so nearly the same with those ot 

 the Trout, that in fishing for either, you may, in many rivers, catch 

 both. 



They spawn about the beginning of April ; when they lie, mostly, in 

 sharp streams. 



Baits for the Grayling are chiefly the same as those for the Trout, 

 except the minnow, which he will not take so freely. He will also 

 take gentles very eagerly. When you fish for him with a fly, you can 

 hardly use one too small. 



The Grayling is much more apt to rise than descend; therefore, when 

 you angle for him, alone, and not for the Trout, rather use a float, 

 with the bait from six to nine inches from the bottom, than the run- 

 ning-line. 



The Grayling is found in great plenty in mariy rivers in the north, 

 particularly the Humber. And in the Wye, which runs through Here- 

 fordshire and Monmouthshire into the Severn^ I have 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; of which, some- 

 what will be said in a subsequent note. They are not easily to be got 

 at without a boat, or, wading; for which reason, those of that coun- 

 try use a thing they call a thorrocle, or truckle: in some places it is 

 called a coble, from the Latin corbula, 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 coun- 

 trymen 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 get- 

 ting into one of those truckles, for the instant you touch it with your- 



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