200 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year : these in any 

 stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for roach or dace, or 

 for a chub ; and your rule is, to fish not less than a handful 

 from the bottom. 



I shall next tell you a winter bait for a roach, a dace, or 

 chub, and it is choicely good. About All-hallowtide and so 

 till frost comes, when you see men ploughing up heath 

 ground, or sandy-ground or greenswards, then follow the 

 plough, and you shall find a white worm as big as two 

 maggots, and it hath a red head : you may observe in what 

 ground most are, for there the crows will be very watchful 

 and follow the plough very close ; it is all soft, and full of 

 whitish guts ; a worm, that is, in Norfolk and some other 

 counties, called a grub ; and is bred of the spawn or eggs of 

 a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground 

 under cow or horse-dung, and there rests all winter, and in. 

 March or April comes to be first a red, and then a black 

 beetle. Gather a thousand or two of these, and put them 

 with a peck or two of their own earth, into some tub or firkin, 

 and cover and keep them so warm that the frost or cold air 

 or winds kill them not : these you may keep all winter, and 

 kill fish with them at any time ; and if you put some of them 

 into a little earth and honey, a day before you use them, you 

 will find them an excellent bait for bream, carp, or indeed for 

 almost any fish. 



And after this manner you may also keep gentles all 

 winter ; which are a good bait then, and much the better for 

 being lively and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles 

 thus : take a piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick, hang 

 it in some corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay : 

 and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel and 

 scour themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever 

 you incline to fish j and these gentles may be thus created 

 till after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gentles to 

 fish with all the year, then get a dead cat or a kite, and let it 

 be fly-blown ; and when the gentles begin to be alive and to 

 stir, then bury it and them in soft moist earth, but as free 

 from frost as you can ; and these you may dig up at any time 

 when you intend to use them : these will last till March, and 

 about that time turn to be flies. 



But if you will be nice to foul your fingers, which good 

 anglers seldom are, then take this bait : get a handful of well- 

 made malt> and put into a dish of water ; and then wash and 



