306 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



with a ground -bait, and to very great effect too, as shall be 

 said hereafter ; namely, by hand, or with a cork or float. 



That we call angling by hand is of three sorts. 



The first, with a line about half the length of the rod, a 

 good weighty plumb, and three hairs next the hook, which 

 we call a running-line, and with one large brandling, or a 

 clew-worm of a moderate size, or two small ones of the first, 

 or any other sort, proper for a trout, of which my father 

 Walton has already given you the names, and saved me 

 labour ; or, indeed, almost any worm whatever ; for if a trout 

 be in the humour to bite, it must be such a worm as I never 

 yet saw, that he will refuse ; and if you fish with two, you 

 are then to bait your hook thus. You are first to run the point 

 of your hook in at the very head of your first worm, and so 

 down through his body, till he be past the knot, and then 

 let it out, and strip the worm above the arming, that you 

 may not bruise it with your fingers till you have put on the 

 other, by running the point of the hook in below the knot, 

 upwards through his body towards his head, till it be just 

 covered with the head ; which being done, you are then to 

 slip the first worm down over the arming again, till the 

 knots of both worms meet together. 



The second way of angling by hand, and with a running 

 line, is with a line something longer than the former, and 

 with tackle made after this same manner. At the utmost 

 extremity of your line, where the hook is always placed in 

 all other ways of angling, you are to have a large pistol or 

 carabine bullet, into which the end of your line is to be 

 fastened with a peg or pin, even and close with the bullet ; 

 and, about half a foot above that, a branch of line, of two or 

 three handfuls long, or more for a swift stream, with a hook 

 at the end thereof, baited with some of the fore-named 

 worms, and, half a foot above that, another armed and 

 baited after the same manner, but with another sort of 

 worm, without any lead at all above : by which means you 

 will always certainly find the true bottom in all depths ; 

 which with the plumbs upon your line above you can never 

 do, but that your bait must always drag whilst you are 

 sounding (which in this way of angling must be continually), 

 by which means you are like to have more trouble, and per- 

 adventure worse success. And both these ways of angling 

 at the bottom are most proper for a dark and muddy water, 

 by reason, that in such a condition of the stream, a man may 



