124 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE SALMON ; WITH DIRECTION'S HOW TO 

 FISH FOR HIM, 



THE SALMON Salma salar LINNJKUS. 



Piscator. THE Salmon is accounted the king of fresh water 

 iish ; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high, 

 or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt or brackishness. 

 He is said to breed, or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the 

 month of August : * some say, that then they dig a hole, or 

 grave, in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs, 



very eagerly. When you fish for him with a fly, you can hardly use one 

 too small. 



The Grayling is much more apt to rise than descend ; therefore, when 

 you angle for him alone, ami not for the Trout, rather use a float, with 

 the bait from six to nine inches from the bottom, than the running line. 



The Grayling is found in great plenty in many rivers in the north, 

 particularly the Humber. And in the Wye, which runs through Here* 

 fordshire and Monmouthshire into the Severn, I have taken, with an 

 artificial fly, very large ones ; as also great numbers of a small, but 

 excellent fish, of the Trout kind, called a Lastspring ; of which somewhat 

 will be said in a subsequent note. They are not easily to be got at without 

 a boat, or wading ; for which reason, those of that country use a thing 

 they call a thorricle, or truckle ; in some places it is called a coble, from 

 the Latin corbula, a little basket ; it is a basket, shaped like the half of a 

 walnut shell, but shallower in proportion, and covered on the outside with 

 a horse's hide ; it has a bench in the middle, and will just hold one person 

 and is so light, that the countrymen will hang it on their heads like a hood, 

 and so travel with a small paddle, which serves for a stick, till they come 

 to a river, and then they lanch it and step in. There is great difficulty 

 in getting into one of these truckles, for the instant you touch it with 

 your foot it flies from you ; and, when you are in, the least inclination of 

 the body oversets it. It is very diverting to see how upright a man is 

 forced to sit in these vessels, and to mark with what state and solemnity 

 he draws up the stone which serves for an anchor, when he would remove, 

 and lets it down again : however, it is a sort of navigation that I would 

 wish our piscatory disciple never to attempt. 



* Their usual time of spawning is about the latter end of August, or 

 the beginning of September; but it is said that those in the Severn spawn 

 in May. 



