144 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



duck, and she chased over a pond : and the like may be done 

 with turning three or four live-baits, thus fastened to bladders, or 

 boughs, or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, whilst 

 you walk quietly alone on the shore, and are still in expectation 

 of sport.* The rest must be taught you by practice, for time 

 will not allow me to say more of this kind of fishing with live- 

 baits. 



And for your dead-bait for a pike, for that you may be taught 

 by one day's going afishing with me, or any other body that 

 fishes for him ; for the baiting your hook with a dead gudgeon 

 or a roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a 

 thing to take up any time to direct you to do it : and yet, be- 

 cause I cut you short in that, I will commute for it, by telling 

 you that that was told me for a secret, it is this : 



Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your 

 dead-bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place ; and 

 when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the 

 top of the water, and so up the stream ; and it is more than 

 likely that you have a pike follow with more than common eager- 

 ness. 



And some affirm, that any bait anointed with the marrow of 

 the thigh-bone of a hern, is a great temptation to any fish.f 



These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of 

 note, that pretended to do me a courtesy : but if this direction to 

 catch a pike thus do you no good, yet I am certain this direction 

 how to roast him when he is caught is choicely good, for I have 

 tried it ; and it is somewhat the better for not being common : 

 but with my direction you must take this caution, that your pike 

 must not be a small one, that is, it must be more than half a yard, 

 and should be bigger. 



* This i3 anything but an angler-like practice, and should give no plea- 

 sure. It is described in the Berners' Treatyse thus : " Take the same 

 bayte and put it in asafetida and cast it in the water wyth a corde and a 

 corke : and ye shall not fayll of hym. And yf ye lyste to have good sporte : 

 thenne tye the corde to a gose fote, and ye shall se good halynge v^rhether 

 the gose or the pyke shall have the better."— .f/n. Ed. 



t Rennie makes a good remark here : " If this be so, it must arise, I 

 think, from its fishy smell giving token of a goodly morsel of food, the 

 undoubted cause of salmon roe being so good for bait." 



