76 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



the lost credit of the poor despised Chub. And now I will 

 give you some rules how to catch him : and I am glad to enter 

 you into the art of fishing by catching a Chub; for there is no 

 fish better to enter a young angler, he is so easily caught, but 

 then it must be this particular way. 



Go to the same hole in which I caught my Chub, where, in 

 most hot days, you will find a dozen or twenty Chevens floating 

 near the top of the water. Get two or three grasshoppers as 

 you go over the meadow ; and get secretly behind the tree, 

 and stand as free from motion as is possible. Then put a 

 grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of 

 a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod 

 on some bough of the tree. But it is likely the Chubs will sink 

 down towards the bottom of the water, at the first shadow of 

 your rod, (for a Chub is the fearfullest of fishes,) and will do so if 

 but a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow on the 

 water.* But they will presently rise up to the top again, and 

 there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again. I say, 

 when they lie upon the top of the water look out the best Chub, 

 (which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see,) 

 and move your rod as softly as a snail moves,f to that Chub you 

 intend to catch ; let your bait fall gently upon the water three 

 or four inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait. 

 And you will be as sure to catch him ; for he is one of the 

 leather-mouthed fishes, of which a hook does scarce ever lose 

 its hold ; and therefore give him play enough, before you offer 



to take him out of the water Go your way presently ; take 



my rod, and do as I bid you ; and I will sit down and mend my 

 tackling till you return back. 



Venator. Truly, my loving master, you have offered me as 

 fair as I could wish. I'll go, and observe your directions. 



Look you, master, what I have done ! that which joys my 

 heart, caught just such another Chub as yours was. 



Piscator. Marry, and I am glad of it : I am like to have a 

 towardly scholar of you. I now see, that with advice and 

 practice, you will make an angler in a short time. Have but 

 a love to it, and I '11 warrant you. 



Venatcfr. But, master, what if I could not have found a 

 Grasshopper ? 



Piscator. Then I may tell you, that a black snail, with his 

 belly slit, to shew his white, or a piece of soft cheese, will 

 usually do as well. Nay, sometimes a worm, or any kind of 



* This fearfulness of fishes of shadows seems to me to disprove Walton's 

 opinion of their quick-sightedness, inasmuch as they see nothing distinctly. 



f " No throwing," says Titus, in BLACKWOOD'S Magazine. " Put your 

 bait in as gently as a thief at a public dinner puts his hand into the high 

 sherift^s pocket" J. R. 



