198 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. FART 1. 



will make it a most excellent paste. But when you fish 

 with it, you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a 

 nimble hand, or ihe bait is lost, and the fish too ; if one 

 may lose that which he never had. With this paste you 

 may, as I said, take both the Roach and the Dace or 

 Dare ; for they be much of a kind, in matter of feeding, 

 cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore 

 take this general direction, for some other baits which 

 may concern you to take notice of: they will bite almost 

 at any fly, but especially at ant-flies ; concerning which 

 take this direction, for it is very good. 



Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant- 

 hill, in which place you shall find them in the month of 

 June ; or if that be too early in the year, then, doubtless, 

 you may find them in July, August, and most of Septem- 

 ber. Gather them alive, with both their wings : and then 

 put them into a glass that will hold a quart or a pottle ; 

 but first put into the glass a handful, or more, of the 

 moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much 

 of the roots of the grass of the said hillock ; and then put 

 in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings : lay a 

 clod of earth over it ; and then so many as are put into the 

 glass without bruising will live there a month or more, 

 and be always in readiness for you to fish with : but if you 

 would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen 

 pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, (which is better,) 

 then wash your barrel with water and honey ; and having 

 pot into it a quantity of earth and grass roots, then put in 

 your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a 

 year. These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly 

 bait for Roach or Dace, or for a Chub : and your rule is 

 not to fish less than a handful from the bottom. 



1 shall next tell you a winter-bait for a Roach, a Dace, 

 pr Chub ; and it is choicely good. About All-hallantide, 

 (and so till frost comes,) when you see men ploughing up 



