114 THE COMPLETE ANGLEU. PART I 



advise anglers to be patient, and forbear swearing, lest 

 they be heard, and catch no fish. 



And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain 

 that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Hereford- 

 shire, are observed to make the sheep that graze upon 

 them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool ; 

 that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a 

 particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they 

 did that year before they came to feed in it ; and coarser, 

 again, if they shall return to their former pasture; and, 

 again, return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine wool 

 ground: which I tell you, that you may the better believe 

 that I am certain, if I catch a Trout in one meadow, he 

 shall be white and faint, and very like to be lousy ; and 

 as certainly, if I catch a Trout in the next meadow, he 

 shall be strong, and red, and lusty, and much better 

 meat. Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a Trout 

 in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the 

 enamelled colour of him hath been such as hath joyed 

 me to look on him : and I have then, with much plea- 

 sure, concluded with Solomon, " Every thing is beauti- 

 ful in his season." 



(I) The Trout delights in small purling rivers, and brooks, with gravelly bot- 

 t OBS and a swift stream. His haunt* are an eddy, behind a stone, a log, or a 

 bank that projects forward into the river, and against which the stream drires ; 

 a shallow between two streams ; or, towards the latter end of the summer, a 

 mill-tail. His hold is usually in the deep, under the hollow of a bank, or the 

 root of M tree. 



The Trout spawns about the beginning of NoYember, and does not recover 

 till the beginning of March. 



Walton has been so particular on the subject of Trout-fishing, that he has left 

 very little room to say any thing, by way of annotation, with respect to Baits. 

 or the method of uking this fish : yet there are some directions and observa- 

 tions pertinent to this chapter, which it would not be consistent with the 

 ntended copiousness and accuracy of this work to omit 



When you fish for Urge Trout or Salmon, a winch will be .very useful : upon 

 the rod with which you use the winch, whip a number of small rings of about 

 an eighth of an inch diameter, and, at first about two feet distant from each 

 other, but, afterwards, diminishing gradually in their distances till you come 

 o the end ; the winch must be screwed ou to the butt of your rod : and round 

 be barrel let there be wound eight or ten yards of wove hair or silk line. 



