162 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Much more is to be observed in this kind of fish and fishing ; 

 but it is far fitter for experience and discourse than paper. Only 

 thus much is necessary for you to know, and to be mindful and 

 careful of; that if the pike or pearch do breed in that river, they 

 ^vill be sure to bite first, and must first be taken. And for the 

 most part they are very large ; and will repair to your ground- 

 bait, not that they will eat of it, but will feed and sport them- 

 selves amongst the young fry that gather about and hover over 

 tlie bait. 



The way to discern the pike and to take him, if you mistrust 

 your bream-hook, — for I have taken a pike a yard long several 

 times at my bream-hooks, and sometimes he hath had the luck 

 to share my line, — may be thus : 



Take a small bleak, or roach, or gudgeon, and bait it, and set 

 it alive among your rods two feet deep from the cork, with a 

 little red worm on the point of the hook ; then take a few crumbs 

 of white bread, or some of the ground-bait, and sprinkle it gen- 

 tly amongst your rods. If Mr. Pike be there, then the little fish 

 will skip out of the water at his appearance, but the live-set bait 

 is sure to be taken. 



Thus continue your sport from four in the morning till eight, 

 and if it be a gloomy, windy day, they will bite all day long. 

 But this is too long to stand to your rods at one place, and it will 

 spoil your evening sport that day, which is this: 



About four of the clock in the afternoon repair to your baited 

 place ; and as soon as you come to the water-side, cast in one- 

 half of the rest of your ground-bait, and stand ofi': then whilst 

 the fish are gathering together, for there they will most cer- 

 tainly come for their supper, you may take a pipe of tobacco ;* 

 and then in with your three rods, as in tiie morning : you will 

 find excellent sport that evening till eight of the clock ; then 

 cast in the residue of your ground-bait, and next morning by 

 four of the clock visit them again for four hours, which is the 

 best sport of all ; and after that, let them rest till you and your 

 friends have a mind to more sport. 



* In Cotton's part of the Angler, we have further reason to believe that 

 honest Izaak loved to use the weed, by which, as old Heckewelder says, 

 " Men's brains are haled out, and asses' brains haled in." — Am. Ed. 



