CHAP. X.] THE roUBTH DAY. 225 



cast in one-half of the rest of your ground-bait, and stand 

 off: then, whilst the fish are gathering together, for there 

 they will most certainly come for their supper, you may take 

 a pipe of tobacco, 1 and then in with your three rods as in 

 the morning. You will find excellent sport that evening 

 till eight of the clock : then cast in the residue of your 

 ground-bait, and next morning by four of the clock, visit 

 them again for four hours, which is the best sport of all ; 

 and after that, let them rest till you and your friends have a 

 mind to more sport. 



From St. James's-tide until Bartholomew-tide 2 is the 

 best ; when they have had all the summer's food they are 

 the fattest. 



Observe, lastly, that after three or four days' fishing 

 together, your game will be very shy and wary, and you 

 shall hardly get above a bite or two at a baiting ; then your 

 only way is to desist from your sport about two or three 

 days : and in the meantime, on the place you late baited, 

 and again intend to bait, you. shall take a turf of green but 

 short grass, as big or bigger than a round trencher ; to the 

 top of this turf, on the green side, you shall, with a needle 

 and green thread, fasten one by one as many little red worms 

 as will near cover all the turf: then take a round board or 

 trencher, make a hole in the middle thereof, and through 

 the turf, placed on the board or trencher, with a string or 

 cord as long as is fitting, tied to a pole, let it down to the 

 bottom of the water for the fish to feed upon without dis- 

 turbance about two or three days : and after that you have 

 drawn it away, you may fall to, and enjoy your former 

 recreation. 3 B. A. 



1 Notwithstanding this suggestion, it is very probable that Walton did 

 not give way to the prevailing fashion for the weed. In his Life of Wotton, 

 he says : "his asthma seemed to be overcome in a great degree by his for- 

 bearing tobacco, which, as many thoughtful men do, he also had taken 

 immoderately." And again, in his Elegy on Dr. Donne : 



' ' Grief conceived and hid, consumes 



Man's life insensibly, as poison's fumes 

 Corrupt the 6mm." 



2 St. James's tide is the 25th of July ; St. Bartholomew's tide is the 

 24th of August. ED. 



3 The haunts of the bream, a fish which the angler seldom meets with, 

 are the deepest and broadest parts of gentle soft streams, with sandy clayey 



Q 



