45$ Tltt COMPLETE ANGLER. PART II. 



now ; and that, one clay especially, having angled a 

 good part of the day with a minnow, (and that in as 

 hopeful a day, and as lit a water, as could be wished for 

 that purpose,) without raising any one fish, I at last 

 fell to it with the worm ; and, with that, took fourteen 

 in a very short space; amongst all which, there wag 

 not, to my remembrance, so much as one, that had not 

 a loach or two, and some 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 of it. 



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

 minnow, than perhaps is fit either to teach or to prac- 

 tise. To which, I shall only add, that a Grayling will 

 certainly rise at, and sometimes take a minnow ; (hough 

 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 1 can be of any thing 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 controvert, but to tell him, that I cannot con- 

 sent to his way of throwing iii his rod to an over-grown 

 Trout; and afterwards recovering his fish, with his 

 tackle. For though I am satisfied he has sometimes 

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

 otherwise. And though I have taken with the angle, (I 

 mny 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 



