346 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART II. 



CHAP. XII. 

 Of ANGLING IN THE MIDDLE for Trout or Grayling. 



Piscator. ANGLING in the middle, then, for a Trout or 

 Grayling, is of two sorts; with a Pink or Minnow for a 

 Trout; or with a Worm, Grub, or Cadis, for a Grayling. 



For the first It is with a minnow, half-a-foot or a 

 foot within the superficies of the water. And as to the 

 rest that concerns this sort of angling, 1 shall wholly refer 

 you to Mr. Walton's directions, who is undoubtedly the 

 best angler with a minnow in England; only, in plain 

 truth, I do not approve of those baits he keeps in salt/ 

 unless where the living ones are not possibly to be had, 

 (though I know he frequently kills with them, and, 

 peradventure, more than with any other, nay I have seen 

 him refuse a living one for one of them,) and much less 

 of his artificial one;* for though we do it with a counter- 

 feit Hy, methinks it should hardly be expected that a man 

 should deceive a fish with a counterfeit fish. Which 

 having said, I shall only add (and that ont of my own 

 experience,) that I do believe a Bull-head, with his gill- 

 fins cut off, (at some times of the year especially) to be 

 a much better bait for a Trout than a minnow, and a 

 Loach much better than that : to prove which I shall only 

 tell you, that I have much oftener taken Trouts with a 

 bull-head or a loach in their throats (for there a Trout 

 has questionless his first digestion) than a minnow; and 

 that one day especially, having angled a good part of the 

 day with a minnow, and that in as hopeful a day, and as 

 fit a water, as could be wished for that purpose, without 



(1) Sc* p. til. (C) Set V . 81. 



