56 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



mixed up with gin or with brandy is also said to be irresistible, 

 but I cannot say that I have found it so, although assured of 

 large takes made with it by friends : perhaps the carp I offered 

 it to had " taken the pledge." A green pea is a noted bait for 

 carp. One carp-fisher I know of, swears by boiled beans, the 

 large yellow haricots, or the smaller broad bean for the hook, 

 ground-baiting with boiled barley. Others get good results 

 from knobs of potato about the size of a gooseberry. Mr. 

 Goodwin, of Hampton Court, assured me that he has made some 

 wonderful takes of very large carp, up to fourteen or fifteen 

 pounds weight each, with potato, in the canal in the park there. 

 His method was as follows : Choosing a clear place where 

 ther were no weeds at the bottom, he would every evening for 

 some days throw in two or three handfuls of chopped potatoes 

 (the red potatoes are supposed to be preferable, but that may 

 be only a whim) . Then, when about to fish, he would take, not 

 a float, but a rod with ledger tackle, with tolerably stout gut, 

 and baiting the hook with a piece of potato he would throw in 

 the tackle in the usual way, and allow the lead to rest on the 

 bottom, slackening the running line. In time a bite would 

 ensue ; the fish would carry away the potato, and as he went 

 off for two or three feet, the line would be yielded to him easily 

 and without check, and would run freely through the bullet, 

 when the strike brought matters to an explanation, and, as the 

 gut was pretty stout, he was not allowed, even though a big 

 fish, to have everything his own way. The potato should be 

 parboiled just sufficiently to make it stick well on the hook. 

 In this way, Mr. Goodwin assured me that he used to take two 

 or three large carp whenever he went to fish for them, the 

 evening being the preferable time. Stout tackle can be used 

 thus, because the gut rests on the bottom, and the carp cannot 

 see it as he can when it runs directly from the bait up through 

 the water. It is for this reason that I always recommend, in 

 carp-fishing, that the bait should rest on the bottom, and some 

 inches of the line likewise ; for, though the carp will detect the 

 finest gut, as I have said, when the bait is pendent, yet he will 

 not notice the coarsest tackle if it rests on the bottom. Indeed, 

 I once took a seven-pound carp on an eel line with coarse string 

 snooded hooks, in a pond where no one has ever been able by 

 ordinary float and line-fishing to catch the carp at all, though 

 they abound in the pond, and are of large size. In using paste 

 baits, the angler will find it to his account, if instead of using 

 a single hook he employs a small brazed triangle, or three hooks 



