THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 113 



throat and stomach ; from whence I concluded, that had I angled 

 with that bait, I liad 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 practise : to which I shall 

 only add, that a grayling will certainly rise at, and sometimes 

 take a minnow, though 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 'tis affirmed by many, that he will 

 sometimes do it, and I myself know it to be true ; for though I 

 never took a sravlinsr so, yet a man of mine once did, and within 

 so few paces of me, that I am as certain of it as I 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 consent to his way of 



throwino- in his rod to an overgrown trout, and afterwards rcco- 



vering his fish with his tackle. For though 1 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 may safely 



say, some thousands of trouts in my life, my top never snapped, 



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 w^axed silk, against such an accident : nor my 



hand never slacked, or slipped 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 minnow, and so deep bearded as those hooks 



commonly are, when I have seen by the forenamed accidents, or 



the slipping of a knot in the upper part of the line, by sudden 



and hard striking, that though the line has immediately been 



recovered, almost before it could be all drawn into the water, the 



fish cleared, and was gone in a moment. And yet, to justify 



what he says, I have sometimes known a trout, having carried 



away a whole line, found dead, three or four days after, with the 



hook fast sticking in him : but then it is to be supposed he had 



gorged it, which a trout will do, if you be not too quick with 



him, when he comes at a minnow, as sure and much sooner than 



