148 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



work them together with your hands before the fire ; then 

 make these into balls, and they will keep all the year. 



And if you fish for a Carp with gentles, then put upon your 

 hook a small piece of scarlet, the sixth of an inch square, it 

 being soaked in, or anointed with, oil of petre, called by some, 

 oil of the rock : and if your gentles be put, two or three days 

 before, into a box or horn anointed with honey, and so put upon 

 your hook as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to 

 kill this crafty fish this way as any other ; but still, as you are 

 fishing, chew a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and 

 cast it into the pond about the place where your float swirns. 

 Other baits there be ; but these, with diligence and patient 

 watchfulness, will do it better than any that I have ever 

 practised or heard of. And yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs 

 of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for a 

 Carp ; and you know, it is more easily made. And having 

 said thus much of the Carp,* my next discourse shall be of the 

 Bream, which shall not prove so tedious; and therefore I 

 desire the continuance of yo.ur attention. 



But, first, I will tell you how to make this Carp, that is so 

 curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as shall make 

 him worth all your labour and patience. And though it is not 

 without some trouble and charges, yet it will recompense both. 



Take a Carp (alive if possible;) scour him, and rub him 

 clean with water and salt, but scale him not ; then open him, 

 and put him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save 

 when you open him, into a small pot, or kettle ; then take sweet 

 marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful ; a sprig 

 of rosemary, and another of savory ; bind them into two or 



* The haunts of the river Carp are, in the winter months, the broadest 

 and most quiet parts of the river ; but in summer, they lie in deep holes, 

 nooks, and reaches, near some scour, and under roots of trees, hollow 

 banks, and, till they are near rotting, amongst or near great beds of weed, 

 flaps, &c. 



Pond Carp cannot, with propriety, be said to have any haunts ; only it 

 is to be noted, that they love a fat rich soil, and never thrive in a cold 

 hungry water. 



They breed three or four times a-year ; but their first spawning time is 

 the beginning of May. 



Baits for the Carp are all sorts of earth and dunghill worms, flag- worms, 

 grasshoppers, though not at top, oxbrains, the pith of an ox's backbone, 

 green peas, and red or black cherries, with the stones taken out. 



Fish with strong tackle, very near the bottom, and with a fine grass or 

 gut next the hook ; and use a goose quill float. Never attempt to angle 

 for the Carp in a boat ; for they will not come near it. 



It is said there are many Carp in the Thames, westward of London; 

 and that about February they retire to the creeks in that river ; in some 

 of which, many above two feet long have been taken with an angle. 

 Angler's Sure Guide, p. 179. 



Carp live the longest out of the water of any fish. It is a common prac- 

 tice in Holland to keep them alive for three weeks or a month, by hanging 

 them in a cool place, with wet moss, in a net, and feeding them with bread 

 and milk. 



