206 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Well, scholar, I have told you the substance of all that either 

 observation or discourse, or a diligent survey of Dubravius and 

 Lebault, hath told me ; not that they, in their long discourses, 

 nave not said more ; but the most of the rest are so common 

 observations, as if a man should tell a good arithmetician that 

 twice two is four. I will therefore put an end to this discourse ; 

 and we will here sit down and rest us. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING OF A LINE, AND FOR THE COLOURING 

 OF BOTH ROD AND LINE. 



Piscator. WELL, scholar, I have held you too long about 

 these cadis, and smaller fish, and rivers, and fish ponds ; and 

 my spirits are almost spent, and so, I doubt, is your patience : 

 but being we are now almost at Tottenham, where I first met 

 you, and where we are to part, I will lose no time, but give 

 you a little direction how to make and order your lines, and to 

 colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is very 

 needful to be known of an angler ; and also how to paint your 

 rod, especially your top ; for a right grown top is a choice com- 

 modity, and should be preserved from the water soaking into it, 

 which makes it in wet weather to be heavy and fish ill favour - 

 edly, and riot true ; and also it rots quickly for want of 

 painting ; and I think a good top is worth preserving, or I had 

 not taken care to keep a top above twenty years.* 



eafety ; then fishing with our hands on both sides the hedge, that is, one 

 on either side, we catthed what quantity of Carp was wanting." 

 Bowlker, p. 62. 



The reader may also consult a book published about the year 1712, entitled 

 A Discourse of Fish and Fis/i-ponds, by a Person of Honour, who, I have 

 been told by one who knew him, was the Honourable Roger North, author 

 of the Life of the Lord Keeper Guildford. See vol. i. p. 202. 



* The author having said nothing about choosing or making rods in any 

 part of his book, it was thought proper to insert the following directions : 



For fishing at the bottom, whether with a running line or float, the reed, 

 or cane-rod is, on account of its lightness and elasticity, the best, especially 

 if you angle for those fish which bite but tenderly, as R^ach and Dace. 

 And of these there are rods that put up, and make a walking stick. There 

 are others in many joints, that put up together in a bag, and are therefore 

 called bag-rods : these last are very useful to travel with, as they take but 

 little room. Next to these is the hazel, but that is more apt to warp than 

 the cane ; these, as also excellent fly-rods, are to be had at all the fishing 

 tackle shops in London, and therefore need no particular description, only 

 be careful, whenever you bespeak a rod of reed, or cane, that the workman 

 does not rasp down into the bark which grows round the joints, a fault 

 which the makers of rods are often guilty of; the consequence whereof is, 

 that the rod is thereby made weaker at the joints than elsewhere, and there 

 being no bark to repel the wet, it soon rots, and, whenever you hook a 

 large fish, certainly breaks. 



