Piscator
The GUDGEON is reputed a fish of excellent taste, and to be very
wholesome. He is of a fine shape, of a silver colour, and beautified
with black spots both on his body and tail. He breeds two or three times
in the year; and always in summer. He is commended for a fish of
excellent nourishment. The Germans call him Groundling, by reason of his
feeding on the ground; and he there feasts himself, in sharp streams and
on the gravel. He and the Barbel both feed so: and do not hunt for flies
at any time, as most other fishes do. He is an excellent fish to enter a
young angler, being easy to be taken with a small red worm, on or very
near to the ground. He is one of those leather-mouthed fish that has his
teeth in his throat, and will hardly be lost off from the hook if he be
once strucken.
They be usually scattered up and down every river in the shallows, in
the heat of summer: but in autumn, when the weeds begin to grow sour and
rot, and the weather colder, then they gather together, and get into the
deeper parts of the water; and are to be fished for there, with your
hook always touching the ground, if you fish for him with a float or
with a cork. But many will fish for the Gudgeon by hand, with a running
line upon the ground, without a cork, as a Trout is fished for: and it
is an excellent way, if you have a gentle rod, and as gentle a hand.
There is also another fish called a POPE, and by some a RUFFE; a fish
that is not known to be in some rivers: he is much like the Perch for
his shape, and taken to be better than the Perch, but will not grow to
be bigger than a Gudgeon. He is an excellent fish; no fish that swims is
of a pleasanter taste. And he is also excellent to enter a young angler,
for he is a greedy biter: and they will usually lie, abundance of them
together, in one reserved place, where the water is deep and runs
quietly; and an easy angler, if he has found where they lie, may catch
forty or fifty, or sometimes twice so many, at a standing.
You must fish for him with a small red worm; and if you bait the ground
with earth, it is excellent.
There is also a BLEAK or fresh-water Sprat; a fish that is ever in
motion, and therefore called by some the river-swallow; for just as you
shall observe the swallow to be, most evenings in summer, ever in
motion, making short and quick turns when he flies to catch flies, in
the air, by which he lives; so does the Bleak at the top of the water.
Ausonius would have called him Bleak from his whitish colour: his back
is of a pleasant sad or sea-water-green; his belly, white and shining as
the mountain snow. And doubtless, though we have the fortune, which
virtue has in poor people, to be neglected, yet the Bleak ought to be
much valued, though we want Allamot salt, and the skill that the
Italians have, to turn them into anchovies. This fish may be caught with
a Pater-noster line; that is, six or eight very small hooks tied along
the line, one half a foot above the other: I have seen five caught thus
at one time; and the bait has been gentles, than which none is better.
Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial fly, which is to
be of a very sad brown colour, and very small, and the hook answerable.
There is no better sport than whipping for Bleaks in a boat, or on a
bank, in the swift water, in a summer's evening, with a hazel top about
five or six foot long, and a line twice the length of the rod. I have
heard Sir Henry Wotton say, that there be many that in Italy will catch
swallows so, or especially martins; this bird-angler standing on the top
of a steeple to do it, and with the line twice so long as I have spoken
of. And let me tell you, scholar, that both Martins and Bleaks be most
excellent meat.
And let me tell you, that I have known a Heron, that did constantly
frequent one place, caught with a hook baited with a big minnow or a
small gudgeon. The line and hook must be strong: and tied to some loose
staff, so big as she cannot fly away with it: a line not exceeding two
yards.
The fourth day-continued
Is of nothing, or of nothing worth