140 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 



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. This I take to be a very 

 good way, to use so many ledger-baits as you intend to make 

 trial of. 



Or if you bait your hooks thus with live fish or frogs, and 

 in a windy day, fasten them thus to a bough or bundle of 

 straw, and by the help of that wind can get them to move 

 across a pond or mere, you are like to stand still on the shore 

 and see sport presently if there be any store of pikes : or 

 these live baits may make sport, being tied about the body 

 or wings of a goose or duck, and she chased over a pond : and 

 the like may be done with turning three or four live baits 

 thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or 

 flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk quietly alone on 

 the shore, and are still in expectation of sport. The rest 

 must be taught you by practice, for time will not allow me to 

 say more of this kind of fishing with live baits. 



And for yoiir dead bait for a pike, for that you may be 

 taught by one day's going a fishing with me, or any other 

 body that fishes for him, for the baiting your hook with a 

 dead gudgeon or a roach, and moving it up and down the 

 water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you 



