176 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



be caught with divers kinds of baits ; as namely, with 

 powdered beef, with a lob or garden-worm, with a minnow, 

 or gut of a hen, chicken, or the guts of any fish, or with 

 almost anything, for he is a greedy fish :* but the eel may be 

 caught especially with a little, a very little lamprey, which 

 some call a pride, and may in the hot months be found many 

 of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps in 

 other rivers, yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in a 

 dunghill. 



Next note, that the eel seldom stirs in the day, but then 

 hides himself; and therefore he is usually caught by night, 

 with one of these baits of which I have spoken : and may be 

 then caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the 

 bank, or twigs of a tree ; or by throwing a string across the 

 stream with many hooks at it, and those baited with the 

 aforesaid baits, and a clod, or plummet, or stone, thrown into 

 the river with this line, that so you may in the morning find 

 it near to some fixed place ; and then take it up with a drag- 

 hook, or otherwise. But these things are, indeed, too common 

 to be spoken of ; and an hour's fishiug with an angler will 

 teach you better, both for these and many other common 

 things in the practical part of angling, than a week's discourse. 

 I shall therefore conclude this direction for taking the eel, by 

 telling you, that in a warm day in summer I have taken 

 many a good eel by sniggling, and have been much pleased 

 with that sport. 



And because you, that are but a young angler, know not 

 what sniggling is, I will now teach it to you. You remember 

 I told you, that eels do not usually stir in the day time ; for 

 then they hide themselves under some covert ; or under 

 boards or planks about flood-gates or weirs or mills ; or in 

 holes on the river banks : so that you, observing your time 

 in a warm day, when the water is lowest, may take a strong 



* To this truth I myself can bear witness. When I dwelt at Twickenham, 

 a large canal adjoined to my house, which I stocked with fish. I had from 

 time to time broods of ducks, which, with their young ones, took to the water. 

 One dry summer, when the canal was very low, we missed many young ducks, 

 but could not find out how they went. Resolving to take advantage of the 

 lowness of the water to clean the canal, a work which had not been done for 

 thirty years before, I drained and emptied it, and found in the mud a great 

 number of large eels. Some of them I reserved for the use of my family ; which 

 being opened by the cook surprised us all ; for in the stomachs of several of 

 them were found, undigested, the necks and heads of young ducks, which, 

 doubtless, were those of the ducks we had missed. H. 



