CHAP. III. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 55 



But now what shall be done with my Chub or Cheven 

 that I have caught? 



Pise. Marry, Sir, it shall be given away to some poor 

 body; for I'll warrant you I'll give you a Trout for your 

 supper: and it is a good beginning of your art to offer 

 your first-fruits to the poor, who will both thank you 

 and God for it, which I see by your silence you seem 

 to consent to. And for your willingness to part with it 

 so charitably, I will also teach more concerning Chub- 

 fishing: You are to note, that in March and April he 

 is usually taken with worms; in May, June, and July, 

 he will bite at any fly, or at cherries, or at beetles with 

 their legs and wings cut off, or at any kind of snail, or 

 at the black bee that breeds in clay walls. And he 

 never refuses a grasshopper, on the top of a swift 

 stream, 1 nor, at the bottom, the young humble-bee that 

 breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found by the 

 mower of it. In August, and in the cooler months, a 

 yellow paste, made of the strongest cheese, and pounded 

 in a mortar, with a little butter and saffron, so much of 

 it, as being beaten small, will turn it to a lemon colour. 

 And some make a paste, for the winter months, at 

 which time the Chub is accounted best, (for then it is 

 observed, that the forked bones are lost, or turned into 

 a kind of gristle, especially if he be baked) of cheese 

 and turpentine. He will bite also at a minnow, or penk, 3 

 as a Trout will: of which I shall tell you more here- 

 after, and of divers other baits. But take this for a 

 rule, that, in hot weather, he is to be fished for towards 



(1) In the Thames, above Richmond, the best way of using the grasshopper 

 for Chub, is to fish with it as with an artificial fly ; the first joints of the legs 

 must be pinched off; and in this way, when the weed is rotten, which is sel- 

 dom till September, the largest Dace are taken. 



(2) Chub will also take small Gudgeons in the way you troll for Pike: the 

 hook ought not to be so heavy leaded upon the shank ; they gorge immediately 

 on taking the bail. 



