CHAP. IX.] THE FOURTH DAY. 14J 



in or anointed with oil of petre, called by some, oil of the rock : 

 and if your gentles be put, two or three days before, into a box or 

 horn anointed with honey, and so put upon your hook as to 

 preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish 

 this way as any other : but still, as you are fishing, chew a little 

 white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the pond 

 about the place where your float swims. Other baits there be ; 

 but these, with diligence and patient watchfulness, will do better 

 than any that I have ever practised or heard of. And yet I shall 

 tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a 

 paste is a good bait for a Carp ; and you know, it is more easily 

 made.* And having said thus much of the Carp,f my next 

 discourse shall be of the Bream, which shall not prove so tedious ; 

 and therefore I desire the continuance of your attention. 



But, first, I will tell you how to make this Carp, that is so 

 curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as shall make him 

 worth all your labour and patience. And though it is not without 

 some trouble and charges, yet it will recompense both. 



Take a Carp, alive if possible ; scour him, and rub him clean 

 with water and salt, but scale him not : then open him ; and put 

 him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save when you 

 open him, into a small pot or kettle : then take sweet marjoram, 

 thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful ; a sprig of rosemary, 

 and another of savoury ; bind them into two or three small bundles, 

 and put them to your Carp, with four or five whole onions, twenty 

 pickled oysters, and three anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp 



* And see a bait that serves likewise for the Bream in the next chapter. ^ — H. 



t The haunts of the river Carp are, in the winter monthsj the broadest and most quiet 

 parts of the river ; but in summer, they lie in deep holes, nooks, and reaches, near some 

 scour, and under roots of trees, hollow banks, and, till they are near rotting, amongst or 

 near great beds of weeds, flags, &c. Pond Carp cannot, with propriety, be said to have 

 any haunts ; only it is to be noted, that they love a fat rich soil, and never thrive in a 

 cold hungry water. They breed three or four times a year : but their first spawning-time 

 is the beginning of May. Baits for the Carp are, all sorts of earth and dunghill worms ; 

 flag-worms, grasshoppers, though not at top : ox-brains ; the pith of an ox's backbone ; 

 green pease ; and red or black cherries, with the stones taken out. Fish with strong 

 tackle, very near the bottom, and with a fine grass or gut next the hook : and use a 

 goose-quill float. Never attempt to angle for the Carp in a boat ; for they will not 

 come near it. It is said there are many Carp in the Thames, westward of London : and 

 that, about February, they retire to the creeks in that river ; in some of which, many 

 above two feet long have been taken with an angle. Angler's Sure Guide, p. 179. 



Carp live the longest out of the water of any fish. It is a common practice in Holland 

 to keep them alive for three weeks or a month, by hanging them in a cool place, with 

 wet moss in a net, and feeding them with bread steeped in milk ; taking care to refresh 

 the animal now and then by throwing fresh water over the net in which it is suspended. 

 — H. 



In Carp-fishing it must be a sine qu^ non to keep out of sight of the fish, and to prevent 

 the shadow from falling on the water. Perhaps the most certain mode of taking is to 

 have a line wholly of gut : and in lieu of a float, a swan-shot fixed at about two feet 

 above the hook, and lodged, whilst fishing, upon a dock leaf, or any similar substance. 



