THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 199 



There is aiso a little fish called a Sticklebag, a fish without 

 scales, but hath his body fenced with several prickles. I know 

 not where he dwells in winter ; nor what he is good for in sum- 

 mer, but only to make sport for boys and women anglers, and 

 to feed other fish that be fish of prey, as Trouts in particular, 

 who will bite at him as at a Penk ; and better, if your hook be 

 rightly baited with him ; for he may be so baited as, his tail 

 turning like the sail of a windmill, will make him turn more 

 quick than any Penk, or Minnow, can. For note, that the 

 nimble turning of that, or the Minnow, is the perfection of 

 Minnow fishing. To which end, if you put your hook into his 

 mouth, and out at his tail ; and then, having first tied him with 

 white thread a little above his tail, and placed him after such a 

 manner on your hook as he is like to turn, then sew up his 

 mouth to your line, and he is like to turn quick, and tempt any 

 Trout : but if he do not turn quick, then turn his tail, a little 

 more or less, towards the inner part, or towards the side of the 

 hook; or put the Minnow or Sticklebag a little more crooked 

 or more straight on your hook, until it will turn both true and 

 fast, and then doubt not but to tempt any great Trout that lies 

 in a swift stream. * And the Loach, that I told you of, will do 

 the like : no bait is more tempting, provided the* Loach be not 

 too big. 



And now, scholar, with the help of this fine morning, and 

 your patient attention, I have said all that my present memory 

 will afford me, concerning most of the several fish that are 

 usually fished for in fresh waters. 



Venator. But, master, you have, by your former civility, 

 made me hope that you mil make good your promise, and say 

 something of the several rivers that be of most note in this 

 nation ; and also of fish-ponds, and the ordering of them : and 

 do it, I pray, good master ; for I love any discourse of rivers, 

 and fish, and fishing ; the time spent in such discourse passes 

 away very pleasantly. 



* The Minnow, if used in this manner, is so tempting a bait, that few- 

 fish are able to resist it. The present Earl of told me, that in the 



month of June last, at Kimpton Hoo, near Wellwyn, in Hertfordshire, he 

 caught (with a Minnow) a Rud, which, insomuch as the Hud is not 

 reckoned, nor does the situation of his teeth, which are in his throat, 

 bespeak him to be a fish of prey, is a fact more extraordinary than that 

 related by Sir George Hastings, in chap. iv. of a Fordidge Trout, (of which 

 kind of fish none had he-n known to be taken with an angle,) which h 

 caught, and supposed it bit for wantonness. 



