188 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



when it is soft, then put your water from it ; and then take a 

 sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward with 

 the point of your knife, take the back part of the husk off from it, 

 and yet leaving a kind of inward husk on the corn, or else it is 

 marred ; and then cut off that sprouted end, I mean a little of 

 it, that the white may appear ; and so pull off the husk on the 

 cloven side, as I directed you ; and then cutting off a very little 

 of the other end, that so your hook may enter ; and if your hook 

 be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait, 

 either for winter or summer you sometimes casting a little of 

 it into the place where your float swims. 



And to take the Roach and Dace, a good bait is the young 

 brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their heads in blood ; espe- 

 cially good for Bream, if they be baked, or hardened in their 

 husks in an oven, after the bread is taken out of it ; or hardened 

 on a fire-shovel : and so also is the thick blood of sheep, being 

 half dried on a trencher, that so you may cut it into such pieces 

 as may best fit the size of your hook ; and a little salt keeps it 

 from growing black, and makes it not the worse, but better : 

 this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered. 



There be several oils of a strong smell that I have been told 

 of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could 

 say much ; but I remember I once carried a small bottle from 

 Sir George Hastings to Sir Henry Wotton, (they were both 

 chemical men,) as a great present : it was sent, and received, and 

 used with great confidence ; and yet, upon inquiry, I found it 

 did not answer the expectation of Sir Henry ; which, with the 

 help of this and other circumstances, makes me have little belief 

 in such things as many men talk of. Not but that I think 

 fishes both smell and hear, (as I have expressed in my former 

 discourse,) but there is a mysterious knack, which, though 

 it be much easier than the philosopher's stone, yet is not 

 attainable by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the 

 brain or breast of some chemical man, that, like the Rosicru- 

 cians, will not yet reveal it. But let me, nevertheless, tell 

 you, that camphor, put with moss into your worm-bag with 

 with your worms, makes them (if many anglers be not very 

 much mistaken) a tempting bait, and the angler more fortunate. 

 But I stepped by chance into this discourse of oils and fishes' 

 smelling ; and though there might be more said, both of it and 

 of baits for Roach and Dace, and other float-fish, yet I will 

 forbear it at this time,* and tell you, in the next place, how 



* Roach delight in gravelly or sandy bottoms ; their haunts, especially 

 as winter approaches, are clear, deep, and still waters ; and at other times, 

 they lie in and near the weeds, and under the shade of boughs. 



T'hey spawn about the latter end of May, when they are scabby and un- 

 wholesome ; Jmt they are again in order in about three weeks. The 



