198 NOTES ON PISH AND FISHING. 



attention of English anglers ; or at least, as the old works 

 on angling show, they paid special attention to his 

 capture ; " trolling " with the dead gorge bait on a leaded 

 hook, more or less as we troll now, and live-baiting being 

 the methods of fishing in vogue. Dame Juliana Berners 

 thus instructeth : — 



" Take a codlynge hoke, and take a roche or a fresh heeryng, and a 

 wyre with, an hole in the ende, and put it in at the mouth, and out at 

 the taylle, down by the ridge of the fresshe heeryng ; and thenne put 

 the hoke in after, and drawe the hoke into the cheke of the freshe 

 heeryng ; then put a plumbe of lead upon your lyne a yarde longe 

 from your hoke, and a flote in mid waye betwene ; and caste it in a 

 pytte where the pyke usyth, and this is the best and moost surest crafte 

 of takynge the pyke. Another manere of takynge him there is ; take 

 a frosshe [frog] and put in on your hoke, at the necke, betwene the 

 skynne and the body, on the backe half, and put on a, note a yerde 

 therefro, and caste it where the pyke hauntyth, and ye shall have 

 hym. Another manere : take the same bayte, and put it in assafetida, 

 and caste it in the water wyth a corde and a corke, and ye shall not 

 iayl of hym." 



Thus we see that Walton was not the first to recom- 

 mend a frog as a good bait for a jack, though his well- 

 known directions for putting it tenderly on the hook " as 

 though you loved him," will be remembered when Dame 

 Juliana Berners is forgotten. 



Angling was a roughish kind of business in the good 

 dame's times, and long afterwards, but refined enough 

 for the fish " of the period." Trolling made progress, 

 and Nobbes, though as I have remarked at page 48, not 

 deserving the name of the " Father of Trolling," in his 

 Complete Troller in 1682, disseminated sounder views in 

 this department of jack-fishing. Since these various 

 improvements have been made, and for those who care 

 to fish for jack before the weeds are down, a day's 



