The Compleat ^Angler 



VIAT. Let him come, I'll try a fall with him. But I had thought 

 that the grayling had been always in season with the trout, and had 

 come in and gone out with him. 



Pise. Oh, no ! assure yourself a grayling is a winter fish ; but 

 such a one as would deceive any but such as know him very well 

 indeed ; for his flesh, even in his worst season, is so firm, and will 

 so easily calver, that in plain truth he is very good meat at all times ; 

 but in his perfect season (which, by the way, none but an overgrown 

 grayling will ever be), I think him so good a fish, as to be little 

 inferior to the best trout that ever I tasted in my life. 



VIAT. Here's another skipjack ; and I have raised five or six 

 more at least while you were speaking. Well, go thy way, little 

 Dove ! thou art the finest river that ever I saw, and the fullest of 

 fish. Indeed, sir, I like it so well that I am afraid you will be 

 troubled with me once a year, so long as we two live. 



Pise. I am afraid I shall not, sir ; but were you once here a 

 May or a June, if good sport would tempt you, I should then 

 expect you would sometimes see me ; for you would then say it 

 were a fine river indeed, if you had once seen the sport at the 

 height. 



VIAT. Which I will do, if I live, and that you please to give 

 me leave. There was one, and there another. 



Pise. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of his own 

 making ! why, what a dangerous man are you ! 



VIAT. I, sir : but who taught me ? and as Damaetas says by his 

 man Dorus, so you may say by me, 



If any man such praises have, 



What then have /, that taught the knave! 



But what have we got here ? a rock springing up in the middle of 

 the river ! this is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw. 



Pise. Why, sir, from that pike that you see standing up there 

 distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool : and young Mr. 

 Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in landscape, 

 in black and white, in a blank book I have at home, as he has done 



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