The Compleat ^Angler 



the smallest cork, or float, and the least weight of plumb you can 

 that will but sink, and that the swiftness of your stream will allow ; 

 which also you may help, and avoid the violence of the current, by 

 angling in the returns of a stream, or the eddies betwixt two streams, 

 which also are the most likely places wherein to kill a fish in a 

 stream, either at the top or bottom. 



Of grubs for a grayling, the ash-grub, which is plump, milk-white, 

 bent round from head to tail, and exceeding tender, with a red head, 

 or, the dock-worm, or grub of a pale yellow, longer, lanker, and 

 tougher than the other, with rows of feet all down his belly, and a 

 red head also, are the best ; I say, for a grayling, because, although 

 a trout will take both these (the ash-grub especially), yet he does not 

 do it so freely as the other, and I have usually taken ten graylings 

 for one trout with that bait ; though if a trout come, I have observed 

 that he is commonly a very good one. 



These baits we usually keep in bran, in which an ash-grub 

 commonly grows tougher, and will better endure baiting ; though he 

 is yet so tender, that it will be necessary to warp in a piece of a stiff 

 hair with your arming, leaving it standing out about a straw-breadth 

 at the head of your hook, so as to keep the grub either from slipping 

 totally off when baited, or at least down to the point of the hook ; 

 by which means your arming will be left wholly naked and bare, 

 which is neither so sightly, nor so likely to be taken ; though to help 

 that (which will however very oft fall out), I always arm the hook I 

 design for this bait with the whitest horse-hair I can chuse, which 

 itself will resemble, and shine like that bait, and consequently will do 

 more good, or less harm, than an arming of any other colour. These 

 grubs are to be baited thus : the hook is to be put under the head or 

 chaps of the bait, and guided down the middle of the belly (without 

 suffering it to peep out by the way, for then the ash-grub especially 

 will issue out water and milk, till nothing but the skin shall remain, 

 and the bend of the hook will appear black, through it) till the point 

 of your hook come so low that the head of your bait may rest, and 

 stick upon the hair that stands out to hold it ; by which means it can 

 neither slip of itself, neither will the force of the stream, nor quick 

 pulling out, upon any mistake, strip it off. 



