OBSERVATIONS OF THE LUCE OR PIKE 



of these Water-frogs, if you intend to fish with a frog for a 

 Pike, you are to choose the yellowest that you can get, for that 

 the Pike ever likes best. And thus use your frog, that he may 

 continue long alive. 



Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do 

 from the middle of April till August, and then the frog's mouth 

 grows up, and he continues so for at least six months without 

 eating, but is sustained, none, but He whose Name is Wonder- 

 ful, knows how : I say, put your hook, I mean the arming-wire, 

 through his mouth, and out at his gills, and then with a fine 

 needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg with only one 

 stitch to the arming-wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg 

 above the upper joint to the armed wire ; and in so doing, use 

 him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little as you 

 may possibly, that he may live the longer. 



And now, having given you this direction for the baiting 

 your Ledger-hook with a live fish or frog, my next must be to 

 tell you, how your hook thus baited must or may be used : and 

 it is thus. Having fastened your hook to a line, which if it be 

 not fourteen yards long, should not be less than twelve ; you 

 are to fasten that line to any bough near to a hole where a 

 Pike is, or is likely to lie, or to have a haunt, and then wind 

 your line on any forked stick, all your line, except half a yard 

 of it, or rather more, and split that forked stick with such a 

 nick or notch at one end of it, as may keep the line from any 

 more of it ravelling from about the stick than so much of it as 

 you intend ; and choose your forked stick to be of that bigness 

 as may keep the fish or frog from pulling the forked stick under 

 the water till the Pike bites, and then the Pike having pulled 

 the line forth of the cleft or nick of that stick in which it was 

 gently fastened, he will have line enough to go to his hold and 

 pouch the bait : and if you would have this Ledger-bait to keep 

 at a fixed place, undisturbed by wind or other accidents, which 

 may drive it to the shore-side ; for you are to note, that it is 

 likeliest to catch a Pike in the midst of the water, then hang 

 a small plummet of lead, a stone, or piece of tile, or a turf in a 

 string, and cast it into the water, with the forked stick, to hang 

 upon the ground, to be a kind of anchor to keep the forked 

 stick from moving out of your intended place till the Pike come. 

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