138 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



may make sport, being tied about the body or wings of a goose 

 or duck, and she chased over a pond.* And the like may be 

 done with turning three or four live baits thus fastened to blad- 

 ders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or flags, to swim down a river, 

 whilst you walk quietly alone on the shore, and are still in 

 expectation of sport. The rest must be taught you by practice ; 

 for time will not allow me to say more of this kind of fishing 

 with live baits. 



And for your dead bait for a Pike : for that you may be taught 

 by one day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that 

 fishes for him ; for the baiting your hook with a dead Gudgeon 

 or a Roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a 

 thing to take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet 

 because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling 

 you that that was told me for a secret it is this : 



Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint 

 your dead bait for a Pike : and then cast it in a likely place ; 

 and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards 

 the top of the water, and so up the stream : and it is more than 

 likely that you have a Pike follow with more than common 

 eagerness. 



And some affirm, that any bait anointed with the marrow of 

 the thigh bone of a hern is a great temptation to any fish.f 



These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of 

 note, that pretended to do me a courtesy. J But if this direc- 



* A rod twelve feet long, and a ring of wire, 

 A winder and barrel, will help thy desire 

 In killing a Pike ; but the forked stick, 

 With a slit and a bladder, and that other fine trick, 

 "Which our artists call snap, with a goose or a duck, 

 Will kill two for one, if you have any hick ; 

 The gentry of Shropshire do merrily smile, 

 To see a goose and a belt the fish to beguile. 

 When a Pike suns himself, and a frogging doth go, 

 The two inched hook is better, I know, 

 Than the ordinary snaring. But still I must cry, 

 " When the Pike is at home, mind the cookery." 



15 A R K i R 's Art of Angling. 



j- If this be so, it must arise, I think, from its fishy smell giving token 

 of a goodly morsel of food, the undoubted cause of Salmon roe being so 

 good a bait J. R. 



* The Pike loves a still, shady, unfrequented water, and usually lies 

 amongst or near weeds ; such as flags, bulrushes, candocks, reeds, or in 

 the green fog that sometimes covers standing waters, though he will some- 

 times shoot out into the clear stream. He is sometimes caught at the top, 

 and in the middle ; and often, especially in cold weather, at the bottom. 



Their time of spawning is about the end of February or the beginning 

 of March ; and chief season, from the end of May to the beginning of 

 February. 



Pikes are called Jacks till they become twenty-four inches long. 



The baits for Pike, besides those mentioned by Walton, are a small 



Trout ; the Loach and Miller's-thumb ; the head end of an Eel, with the 



ekin taken oft' below the fins ; a small Jack ; a Lob-worm ; and, in winter, 



the fat of bacon. And notwithstanding what Walton and others say 



