Piscator and Venator
Piscator. The Chub, though he eat well, thus dressed, yet as he is
usually dressed, he does not. He is objected against, not only for being
full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he
eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not firm, but short and
tasteless. The French esteem him so mean, as to call him Un Villain;
nevertheless he may be so dressed as to make him very good meat; as,
namely, if he be a large Chub, then dress him thus:
First, scale him, and then wash him clean, and then take out his guts;
and to that end make the hole as little, and near to his gills, as you
may conveniently, and especially make clean his throat from the grass
and weeds that are usually in it; for if that be not very clean, it will
make him to taste very sour. Having so done, put some sweet herbs into
his belly; and then tie him with two or three splinters to a spit, and
roast him, basted often with vinegar, or rather verjuice and butter,
with good store of salt mixed with it.
Being thus dressed, you will find him a much better dish of meat than
you, or most folk, even than anglers themselves, do imagine: for this
dries up the fluid watery humour with which all Chubs do abound. But
take this rule with you, That a Chub newly taken and newly dressed, is
so much better than a Chub of a day's keeping after he is dead, that I
can compare him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a
tree, and others that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water.
But the Chub being thus used, and dressed presently; and not washed
after he is gutted, for note, that lying long in water, and washing the
blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much of their
sweetness; you will find the Chub, being dressed in the blood, and
quickly, to be such meat as will recompense your labour, and disabuse
your opinion.
Or you may dress the Chavender or Chub thus:
When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and fins, and washed him
very clean, then chine or slit him through the middle, as a salt-fish is
usually cut; then give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back
with your knife, and broil him on charcoal, or wood coal, that are free
from smoke; and all the time he is a-broiling, baste him with the best
sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it. And, to this, add a
little thyme cut exceedingly small, or bruised into the butter. The
Cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which so many
except against him. Thus was the Cheven dressed that you now liked so
well, and commended so much. But note again, that if this Chub that you
eat of had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth a rush. And
remember, that his throat be washed very clean, I say very clean, and
his body not washed after he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be.
Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken to recover the lost
credit of the poor despised Chub. And now I will give you some rules how
to catch him: and I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by
catching a Chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young Angler, he
is so easily caught, but then it must be this particular way:
Go to the same hole in which I caught my Chub, where, in most hot days,
you will find a dozen or twenty Chevens floating near the top of the
water. Get two or three grasshoppers, as you go over the meadow: and get
secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion as is possible.
Then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of
a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod on some
bough of the tree. But it is likely the Chubs will sink down towards the
bottom of the water, at the first shadow of your rod (for Chub is the
fearfullest of fishes), and will do so if but a bird flies over him and
makes the least shadow on the water; but they will presently rise up to
the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them
again. I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best
Chub, which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see,
and move your rod, as softly as a snail moves, to that Chub you intend
to catch; let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four inches
before him, and he will infallibly take the bait. And you will be as
sure to catch him; for he is one of the leather-mouthed fishes, of which
a hook does scarce ever lose its hold; and therefore give him play
enough before you offer to take him out of the water. Go your way
presently; take my rod, and do as I bid you; and I will sit down and
mend my tackling till you return back.
Venator. Truly, my loving master, you have offered me as fair as I could
wish. I'll go and observe your directions.
Look you, master, what I have done, that which joys my heart, caught
just such another Chub as yours was.
Piscator. Marry, and I am glad of it: I am like to have a towardly
scholar of you. I now see, that with advice and practice, you will make
an Angler in a short time. Have but a love to it; and I'll warrant you.
Venator. But, master! what if I could not have found a grasshopper?
Piscator. Then I may tell you, That a black snail, with his belly slit,
to show his white, or a piece of soft cheese, will usually do as well.
Nay, sometimes a worm, or any kind of fly, as the ant-fly, the
flesh-fly, or wall-fly; or the dor or beetle which you may find under
cow-dung; or a bob which you will find in the same place, and in time
will be a beetle; it is a short white worm, like to and bigger than a
gentle; or a cod-worm; or a case-worm; any of these will do very well to
fish in such a manner.
And after this manner you may catch a Trout in a hot evening: when, as
you walk by a brook, and shall see or hear him leap at flies, then, if
you get a grasshopper, put it on your hook, with your line about two
yards long; standing behind a bush or tree where his hole is: and make
your bait stir up and down on the top of the water. You may, if you
stand close, be sure of a bite, but not sure to catch him, for he is not
a leather-mouthed fish. And after this manner you may fish for him with
almost any kind of live fly, but especially with a grasshopper.
Venator. But before you go further, I pray, good master, what mean you
by a leather-mouthed fish?
Piscator. By a leather-mouthed fish, I mean such as have their teeth in
their throat, as the Chub or Cheven: and so the Barbel, the Gudgeon, and
Carp, and divers others have. And the hook being stuck into the leather,
or skin, of the mouth of such fish, does very seldom or never lose its
hold: but on the contrary, a Pike, a Perch, or Trout, and so some other
fish, which have not their teeth in their throats, but in their mouths,
which you shall observe to be very full of bones, and the skin very
thin, and little of it. I say, of these fish the hook never takes so
sure hold but you often lose your fish, unless he have gorged it.
Venator. I thank you, good master, for this observation. But now what
shall be done with my Chub or Cheven that I have caught?
Piscator. Marry, Sir, it shall be given away to some poor body; for I'll
warrant you I'll give you a Trout for your supper: and it is a good
beginning of your art to offer your first-fruits to the poor, who will
both thank you and God for it, which I see by your silence you seem to
consent to. And for your willingness to part with it so charitably, I
will also teach more concerning Chub-fishing. You are to note, that in
March and April he is usually taken with worms; in May, June, and July,
he will bite at any fly, or at cherries, or at beetles with their legs
and wings cut off, or at any kind of snail, or at the black bee that
breeds in clay walls. And he never refuses a grasshopper, on the top of
a swift stream, nor, at the bottom, the young humble bee that breeds in
long grass, and is ordinarily found by the mower of it. In August, and
in the cooler months, a yellow paste, made of the strongest cheese, and
pounded in a mortar, with a little butter and saffron, so much of it as,
being beaten small, will turn it to a lemon colour. And some make a
paste for the winter months, at which time the Chub is accounted best,
for then it is observed, that the forked bones are lost, or turned into
a kind of gristle, especially if he be baked, of cheese and turpentine.
He will bite also at a minnow, or peek, as a Trout will: of which I
shall tell you more hereafter, and of divers other baits. But take this
for a rule, that, in hot weather, he is to be fished for towards the
mid-water, or near the top; and in colder weather, nearer the bottom;
and if you fish for him on the top, with a beetle, or any fly, then be
sure to let your line be very long, and to keep out of sight. And having
told you, that his spawn is excellent meat, and that the head of a large
Cheven, the throat being well washed, is the best part of him, I will
say no more of this fish at the present, but wish you may catch the next
you fish for.
But, lest you may judge me too nice in urging to have the Chub dressed
so presently after he is taken, I will commend to your consideration how
curious former times have been in the like kind.
You shall read in Seneca, his Natural Questions, that the ancients were
so curious in the newness of their fish, that that seemed not new enough
that was not put alive into the guest's hand; and he says, that to that
end they did usually keep them living in glass bottles in their
dining-rooms, and they did glory much in their entertaining of friends,
to have that fish taken from under their table alive that was instantly
to be fed upon; and he says, they took great pleasure to see their
Mullets change to several colours when they were dying. But enough of
this; for I doubt I have staid too long from giving you some
Observations of the Trout, and how to fish for him, which shall take up
the next of my spare time.
The third day-continued
On the Nature and Breeding of the Trout, and how to fish for him