210 THE COMPLETE 'ANGLER. PART I. 



* 



sently. Throw this bait, thus ordered, which will look 

 very yellow, into any great still hole where a Trout is, 

 and he will presently venture his life for it, it is not to 

 be doubted, if you be not espied ; and that the bait first 

 touch the water before the line. And this will do best 

 in the deepest water. 



Next, let me tell you, I have been much pleased to 

 walk quietly by a brook, with a little stick in my hand, 

 with which I might easily take these, and consider the 

 curiosity of their composure: and if you shall,ever like 

 to do so, then note, that your stick must be a little 

 hazel, or willow, cleft, or have a nick at one end of it, by 

 which means you may, with ease, take many of them in 

 that nick out of the water, before you have any occasion 

 to use them. These, my honest scholar, are some obser- 

 vations, told to you as they now come suddenly into my 

 memory, of which you may make some use : but for the 

 practical part, it is that that makes an angler : it is dili- 

 gence, and observation, and practice, and an ambition 

 to be the best in the art, that must do it. 1 I will tell you, 



(I) The author has now done describing the several kinds offish, excepting 

 the few little one* that follow, with the methods of taking them ; but has said 

 liule or nothing of Float-JUhing: it may therefore not be amiss here to lay 

 dvwo some rales about it. 



Let the rod be light aod stiff, aad withal so smart in the spring, as to strike 

 I the tip of the whale-bone. From fourteen to fifteen feet is a good length. 



la places where you sometimes meet with Barbel, as at Shepperton and 

 Hampton, in Middlesex, the fittest line is one of six or seven hairs at top, and so 

 diminishing for two yards ; let the rest be strong Indian grass, to within about 

 half a yard of the hook, which raaj be whipped to a fine grass or silt-worm gut. 

 Aod ihis line will kill a fish of six pounds weight. 



But lor mere Roach aod Dace-fishing, accustom yourself to a single-hair 

 line ; with which an artist m*y kill a fish of a pound and a half weight. 



For jour float: In slow streams a neat round goose-quill is proper; but for 

 deep or rapid rivers, or in an eddy, the cork, shaped like a pear, is indisputably 

 the b*st, which should not in general exceed the size of a nutmeg; let not the 

 quill which you put through it be more than hilf an inch above and below the 

 cork: aod tins flout, though some prefer a swan's quill. ha great advantage 

 over a b*re quill; for the quill being defended from the water by the cork, does 

 ot soften; and the cork enables you to lead your line so heavily, as that the 

 hook sinks almost as soon as you put into the water; whereas, when you lead 

 but lightly, it doe* not go to the bottom till it is near the end of your swim. 

 Aad in leading your line*, be careful to balance them so nicely, that a very 



