216 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



remembering the discourse of Dubravius. I will therefore 

 stop here, and tell you, according to my promise, how to 

 catch the pike. 



His feeding is usually of fish or frogs, and sometimes a 

 weed of his own called pickerel-weed, of which I told you 

 some think pikes are bred ; for they have observed that 

 where none have been put into ponds, yet they have there 

 found many, and that there has been plenty of that weed 

 in those ponds, and [they think] that that weed both breeds 

 and feeds them ; but whether those pikes so bred will ever 

 breed by generation as the others do, I shall leave to the 

 disquisitions of men of more curiosity and leisure than I 

 profess myself to have, and shall proceed to tell you, that 

 you may fish for a pike, either with a ledger or a walking- 

 bait ; and you are to note, that I call that a ledger-bait 

 which is fixed or made to rest in one certain place when 

 you shall be absent from it ; and I call that a walking- 

 bait which you take with you, and have ever in motion. 

 Concerning which two I shall give you this direction, that 

 your ledger-bait is best to be a living bait (though a dead 

 one may catch), whether it be a fish or a frog ; and that 

 you may make them live the longer, you may, or indeed 

 you must, take this course : 



First, for your live bait. Of fish, a roach or dace is, I 

 think, best and most tempting (and a perch is the longest 

 lived on a hook), and having cut off his fin on his back, which 

 may be done without hurting him, you must take your knife, 

 which cannot be too sharp, and between the head and the 

 fin on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar as 

 you may put the arming- wire of your hook into it, with a 

 little bruising or hurting the fish as art and diligence wil 



: 



