308 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



your plumbs fitted to your cork, your cork to the condition 

 of the river, that is, to the swiftness or slowness of it ; and 

 both, when the water is very clear, as fine as you can ; and 

 then you are never to bait with above one of the lesser sort 

 of brandlings ; or, if they are very little ones indeed, you 

 may then bait with two, after the manner before directed. 



When you angle for a trout, you are to do it as deep, that 

 is, as near the bottom as you can, provided your bait do not 

 drag ; or if it do, a trout will sometimes take it in at that 

 posture : if for a grayling, you are then to fish further from 

 the bottom, he being a fish that usually swims nearer the 

 middle of the water, and lies always loose ; or however, is 

 more apt to rise than a trout, and more inclined to rise than 

 to descend even to a ground-bait. 



With a grub or cadis, you are to angle with the same 

 length of line, or if it be all out as long as your rod it is not 

 the worse, with never above one hair, for two or three lengths 

 next the hook, and with the smallest cork or float, and the 

 least weight of plumb you can that will but sink, and that 

 the swiftness of your stream will allow ; which also you may 

 help, and avoid the violence of the current, by angling in the 

 returns of a stream, or the eddies betwixt two streams, which 

 also are the most likely places wherein to kill a fish in a 

 stream, either at the top or bottom. 



Of grubs for a grayling, the ash-grub, which is plump, 

 milk-white, bent round from head to tail, and exceeding 

 tender, with a red head, or the dock- worm, or grub of a pale 

 yellow, longer, lanker, and tougher than the other, with rows 

 of feet all down his belly, and a red head also, are the best ; 

 I say, for a grayling, because, although a trout will take both 

 these, the ash-grub especially, yet he does not do it so freely 

 as the other, and I have usually taken ten graylings for one 

 trout with that bait ; though if a trout come, I have observed 

 that he is commonly a very good one. 



These baits we usually keep in bran, in which an ash-grub 

 commonly grows tougher, and will better endure baiting ; 

 though he is yet so tender, that it will be necessary to warp 

 in a piece of a stiff hair with your arming, leaving it standing 

 out about a straw- breadth at the head of your hook, so as to 

 keep the grub either from slipping totally off when baited, or 

 at least down to the point of the hook ; by which means 

 your arming will be left wholly naked and bare, which is 

 neither so sightly, nor so likely to be taken : though to help 



