THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 297 



did, and within so few paces of me, that I am as certain of it as 

 I can be of any thing I did not see, and, which made it appear 

 the more strange, the Grayling was not above eleven inches 

 long. 



I must here also beg leave of your master, and mine, not to 

 controvert, but to tell him, that I cannot consent to his way of 

 throwing in his rod to an overgrown Trout, and afterwards 

 recovering his fish wi|h his tackle : for though I am satisfied 

 fle has sometimes done it, because he says so, yet I have found 

 it quite otherwise : and though I have taken with the angle, 

 I may safely say, some thousands of Trouts in my life, my 

 top never snapped, though my line still continued fast to the 

 remaining part of my rod, by some lengths of line curled round 

 about my top, and there fastened, with wax silk, against such 

 an accident, nor my hand never slacked, or slipped by any 

 other chance, but I almost always infallibly lost my fish, 

 whether great or little, though my hook came home again. 

 And I have often wondered how a Trout should so suddenly 

 disengage himself from so great a hook as that we bait with a 

 Minnow, and so deep bearded as those hooks commonly are, 

 when I have seen by the forenamed accidents, or the slipping 

 of a knot in the upper part of the line, by sudden and hard 

 striking, that though the line has immediately been recovered, 

 almost before it could be all drawn into the \yater, the fish 

 cleared and was gone in a moment. And yet, to justify what he 

 says, I have sometimes known a Trout, having carried away 

 a whole line, found dead three or four days after, with the 

 hook fast sticking in him ; but then it is to be supposed he had 

 gorged it, which a Trout will do, if you be not too quick with 

 him when he comes at a Minnow, as sure and much sooner than 

 a Pike : and I myself have also, once or twice in my life, taken 

 the same fish, with my own fly sticking in his chaps, that he 

 had taken from me the day before, by the slipping of a hook in 

 the arming. .But I am very confident a Trout will not be 

 troubled two hours with any hook that has so much as one 

 handful of line left behind with it, or that is not struck through 

 a bone, if it be in any part of his mouth only : nay, I do 

 certainly know that a Trout, so soon as ever he feels himself 

 pricked, if he carries away the hook, goes immediately to the 

 bottom, and will there root, bke a hog upon the gravel, till he 

 either rub out or break the hook in the middle. And so much 

 for this first sort of angling in the middle for a Trout. 



The second w r ay of angling in the middle is with a worm, 

 grub, cadis, or any other ground-bait, for a Grayling ; and that 

 is with a cork, and a foot from the bottom, a Grayling taking 

 it much better there than at the bottom, as has been said before ; 

 and this alwavs in a clear water, and with the finest tackle. 



