The Compleat ^Angler 



with waxed 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 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 a pike : and I 

 myself have also, once or twice in my life, taken the same fish, with 

 my own fly sticking in his chaps, that he had taken from me the 

 day before, by the slipping of a hook in the arming : but I am very 

 confident a trout will not be troubled two hours with any hook that 

 has so much as one handful of line left behind with it, or that is not 

 struck through a bone, if it be in any part of his mouth only ; nay, 

 I do certainly know that a trout, so soon as ever he feels himself 

 pricked, if he carries away the hook, goes immediately to the bottom, 

 and will there root, like a hog upon the gravel, till he either rub out 

 or break the hook in the middle. And so much for this sort of 

 angling in the middle for a trout. 



The second way of angling in the middle is with a worm, grub, 

 cadis, or any other ground-bait for a grayling ; and that is with a 

 cork, and a foot from the bottom, a grayling taking it much better 

 there, than at the bottom, as has been said before ; and this always 

 in a clear water, and with the finest tackle. 



To which we may also, and with very good reason, add the third 

 way of angling by hand with a ground-bait, as a third way of fishing 

 in the middle, which is common to both trout and grayling, and (as 

 I said before) the best way of angling with a worm, of all other I 

 ever tried whatever. 



3*6 



