THE THIRD DAY. 

 CHAPTER XII. 



PlSCATOR. 



A NGLING in the Middle, then, for Trout or Grayling, is of 

 *" two sorts : with a Penk or Minnow for a Trout ; or with 

 a Worm, Grub, or Cadis for a Grayling. 



For the first ; it is with a Minnow, half a foot, or a foot, 

 within the superficies of the water. And as to the rest that 

 concerns this sort of Angling, I shall wholly refer you to Mr. 

 Walton's direction, who is undoubtedly the best Angler with a 

 Minnow in England : only in plain truth I do not approve of 

 those baits he keeps in salt, unless where the living ones are 

 not possibly to be had (though I know he frequently kills with 

 them, and peradventure more than with any other, nay, I have 

 seen him refuse a living one for one of them), and much less 

 of his artificial one ; for though we do it with a counterfeit- 

 fly, methinks it should hardly be expected that a man should 

 deceive a fish with a counterfeit-fish. Which having said, I 

 shall only add, and that out of my own experience, that I do 

 believe a Bull-head, with his gill-fins cut off, at some times 

 of the year especially, to be a much better bait for a Trout 

 than a Minnow, and a Loach much better than that : to prove 

 which I shall only tell you, that I have much oftener taken 

 Trouts with a Bull-head or a Loach in their throats (for there 

 a Trout has questionless his first digestion) than a Minnow ; 

 and that one day especially, having angled a good part of the 

 day with a Minnow, and that in as hopeful a day, and as fit a 

 water, as could be wished for that purpose, without raising any 



