_Pisc_. Wel, Scholer, now we are sate downe and are at ease, I shall
tel you a little more of _Trout_ fishing before I speak of the _Salmon_
(which I purpose shall be next) and then of the _Pike_ or _Luce_. You
are to know, there is night as well as day-fishing for a _Trout_, and
that then the best are out of their holds; and the manner of taking
them is on the top of the water with a great _Lob_ or _Garden worm_, or
rather two; which you are to fish for in a place where the water runs
somewhat quietly (for in a stream it wil not be so well discerned.) I
say, in a quiet or dead place neer to some swift, there draw your bait
over the top of the water to and fro, and if there be a good _Trout_ in
the hole, he wil take it, especially if the night be dark; for then he
lies boldly neer the top of the water, watching the motion of any
_Frog_ or _Water-mouse_, or _Rat_ betwixt him and the skie, which he
hunts for if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead
holes, where the great _Trouts_ usually lye neer to their hold.
And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook,
and let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually
forsake it, as he oft will in the day-fishing: and if the night be not
dark, then fish so with an _Artificial fly_ of a light colour; nay he
will sometimes rise at a dead Mouse or a piece of cloth, or any thing
that seemes to swim cross the water, or to be in motion: this is a
choice way, but I have not oft used it because it is void of the
pleasures that such dayes as these that we now injoy, afford an
_Angler_.
And you are to know, that in _Hamp-shire_, (which I think exceeds all
_England_ for pleasant Brooks, and store of _Trouts_) they use to catch
_Trouts_ in the night by the light of a Torch or straw, which when they
have discovered, they strike with a _Trout_ spear; this kind of way
they catch many, but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness
of it, nor like it now I have seen it.
_Viat_. But Master, do not _Trouts_ see us in the night?
_Pisc_. Yes, and hear, and smel too, both then and in the day time, for
_Gesner_ observes, the _Otter_ smels a fish forty furlong off him in
the water; and that it may be true, is affirmed by Sir _Francis Bacon_
(in the eighth Century of his Natural History) who there proves, that
waters may be the _Medium_ of sounds, by demonstrating it thus, _That
if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those that
stand on a bank neer to that place may hear the noise without any
diminution of it by the water_. He also offers the like experiment
concerning the letting an _Anchor_ fall by a very long Cable or rope on
a Rock, or the sand within the Sea: and this being so wel observed and
demonstrated, as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that
_Eeles_ unbed themselves, and stir at the noise of the Thunder, and not
only as some think, by the motion or the stirring of the earth, which
is occasioned by that Thunder.
And this reason of Sir _Francis Bacons_ [Exper. 792] has made me crave
pardon of one that I laught at, for affirming that he knew _Carps_ come
to a certain place in a Pond to be fed at the ringing of a Bel; and it
shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am a
fishing, until Sir _Francis Bacon_ be confuted, which I shal give any
man leave to do, and so leave off this Philosophical discourse for a
discourse of fishing.
Of which my next shall be to tell you, it is certain, that certain
fields neer _Lemster_, a Town in _Herefordshire_, are observed, that
they make the Sheep that graze upon them more fat then the next, and
also to bear finer Wool; that is to say, that that year in which they
feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yeeld finer wool then the
yeer before they came to feed in it, and courser again if they shall
return to their former pasture, and again return to a finer wool being
fed in the fine wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may the better
believe that I am certain, If I catch a _Trout_ in one Meadow, he shall
be white and _faint_ and very like to be _lowsie_; and as certainly if
I catch a _Trout_ in the next Meadow, he shal be strong, and _red_, and
_lusty_, and much better meat: Trust me (Scholer) I have caught many a
_Trout_ in a particular Meadow, that the very shape and inamelled
colour of him, has joyed me to look upon him, and I have with _Solomon_
concluded, _Every thing is beautifull in his season_.
It is now time to tell you next, (according to promise) some
observations of the _Salmon_; But first, I wil tel you there is a fish,
called by some an _Umber_, and by some a _Greyling_, a choice fish,
esteemed by many to be equally good with the _Trout_: it is a fish that
is usually about eighteen inches long, he lives in such streams as the
_Trout_ does; and is indeed taken with the same bait as a _Trout_ is,
for he will bite both at the _Minnow_, the _Worm_, and the _Fly_, both
_Natural_ and _Artificial_: of this fish there be many in _Trent_, and
in the River that runs by _Salisbury_, and in some other lesser Brooks;
but he is not so general a fish as the _Trout_, nor to me either so
good to eat, or so pleasant to fish for as the _Trout_ is; of which two
fishes I will now take my leave, and come to my promised Observations
of the _Salmon_, and a little advice for the catching him.