of the water, as you do with the fly; it must stand upon the shank of
the hook, in like manner with the artificial fly; if it come into the
bend of the hook, the fish will little or not at all value it, nor if
you pull the blue gut out of it; and to make it keep that place, you
must, when you set on your hook, fasten a horse hair or two under the
silk, with the ends standing a very little out from under the silk, and
pointing towards the line; this will keep it from sliding back into the
bend; and thus used, it is a most excellent bait for a Trout. You may
imitate the cad-bait, by making the body of chamois, the head of black
silk.
I might here notice several sorts of flies, with the colours that are
used to make them; but for the reasons before given, that their colours
alter in several rivers and soils, and also because, though I name the
colours, yet it is not easy to choose that colour by any description,
except so largely performed as would be over large, and swell this
small piece beyond my intended conciseness, which are easy and short,
if rightly observed, are full enough, and sufficient for making and
finding out all sorts of flies in all rivers. I shall only add, that
the Salmon flies must be made with wings standing one behind the other,
whether two or four; also he delights in the most gaudy and orient
colours you can choose; the wings I mean chiefly, if not altogether,
with long tails and wings.
CHAP. IV.
OF ANGLING AT THE GROUND.
Now we are come to the second part of angling, viz. under the water,
which if it be with the ground-line for the Trout, then you must not
use any float at all, only a plumb of lead, which I would wish might
be a small bullet, the better to roll on the ground; and it must also
be lighter or heavier, as the stream runs swift or slow, and you
must place it about nine inches or a foot from the hook; the lead
must run upon the ground, and you must keep your line as straight as
possible, yet by no means so as to raise the lead from the ground;
your top must be very gentle, that the fish may more easily, and to
himself insensibly, run away with the bait, and not be scared with
the stiffness of the rod; and if you make your top of black thorn and
whale-bone, as I before directed, it will conduce much to this purpose:
neither must you strike so soon as you feel the fish bite, but slack
your line a little, that so he may more securely swallow the bait, and
hook himself, which he will sometimes do, especially if he be a good
one; the least jerk, however, hooks him, and indeed you can scarce
strike too easily. Your tackle must be very fine and slender, and so
you will have more sport than if you had strong lines, which frighten
the fish, but the slender line is easily broke; with a small jerk.
Morning and evening are the best times for the ground-line for a Trout,
in clear weather and water, but in cloudy weather, or muddy water, you
may angle at ground all day.
2. You may also in the night angle for the Trout with two great garden
worms, hanging as equally in length as you can place them on your hook;
cast them from you as you would cast the fly, and draw them to you
again upon the top of the water, and not suffer them to sink; therefore
you must use no lead this way of angling; when you hear the fish rise,
give some time for him to gorge your bait, as at the ground, then
strike gently. If he will not take them at the top, add some lead, and
try at the ground, as in the day time; when you feel him bite, order
yourself as in day angling at the ground. Usually the best Trouts bite
in the night, and will rise in the still deeps, but not ordinarily in
the stream.
3. You may angle also with a minnow for the Trout, which you must put
on your hook thus: first, put your hook through the very point of his
lower chap, and draw it quite through; then put your hook in at his
mouth, and bring the point to his tail, then draw your line straight,
and it will bring him into a round compass, and close his mouth that no
water gets in, which you must avoid; or you may stitch up his mouth; or
you may, when you have set on your hook, fasten some bristles under the
silk, leaving the points about a straw’s breadth and half, or almost
half an inch standing out towards the line, which will keep him from
slipping back. You may also imitate the minnow as well as the fly, but
it must be done by an artist with the needle.
You must also have a swivel or turn, placed about a yard or more from
your hook, observing you need no lead on your line, for you must
continually draw your bait up the stream, near the top of the water.
If you strike a large Trout, and it should break either your hook or
line, or get off, then near to her hole, if you can discover it, or the
place you struck her, fix a short stick in the water, and with your
knife loose a small piece of the rind, so as you may lay your line in
it, and yet the bark be close enough to keep your line in, that it slip
not out, nor the stream carry it away: bait your hook with a garden
or lob-worm, your hook and line being very strong, let the bait hang
a foot from the stick, then fasten the other end of your line to some
stick or bough in the bank, and within one hour, you may be sure of
her, if all your tackle hold.
The next way of angling is with a troll for the Pike, which is very
delightful; you may buy your troll ready made, therefore I shall not
trouble myself to describe it, only let it have a winch to wind it
up withall. For this kind of fish, your tackle must be strong, your
rod must not be very slender at the top, where you must place a small
slender ring for your line to run through; let your line be silk, at
least two yards next the hook, and the rest of strong shoe-maker’s
thread; your hook double, and strongly armed with wire, for above a
foot; then with a probe or needle, you must draw the wire in at the
fish’s mouth and out at the tail, that so the hook may lie in the mouth
of the fish, and both the points on either side; upon the shank of the
hook fasten some lead very smooth, that it go into the fish’s mouth,
and sink her with the head downward, as though she had been playing on
the top of the water, and were returning to the bottom; your bait may
be small Roach, Dace, Gudgeon, Loach, or sometimes a Frog; your hook
thus baited, you must tie the tail of the fish close and fast to the
wire, or else with drawing to and again, the fish will rend off the
hook, or, which I judge neater, with a needle and strong thread, stitch
through the fish on either side the wire, and tie it very fast: all
being thus fitted, cast your fish up and down in such places as you
know Pike frequent, observing still, that he sink some depth before
you pull him up again. When the Pike rises, if it be not sunk deep,
you may see the water move, or at least you may feel him; then slacken
your line, and give him length enough to run away to his hold, whither
he will go directly, and there pouch it, ever beginning, as you may
observe, with the head swallowing that first, thus let him lie, until
you see the line move in the water, and then you may certainly conclude
he hath pouched your bait, and rangeth abroad for more; then with your
troll wind up your line, till you think you have it almost straight,
then with a smart jerk hook him, and make your pleasure to your
content. Some use no rod at all, but hold the line in links on their
hand, using lead and float. Others use a very great hook, with the hook
at the tail of the fish, and when the Pike rises, then they strike at
the first pull. Others put a strong string or thread in at the mouth
of the bait, and out at one of the gills; then over the head, and in
at the other gill, and so tie the bait to the hook, leaving a little
length of the thread or string betwixt the fish and the hook, that so
the Pike may turn the head of the bait, the better to swallow it, and
then as before; after some pause, strike. Some tie the bait-hook and
line to a bladder or bundle of flags, or bull-rushes, fastening the
line very gently in the cleft of a small stick, to hold the bait from
sinking more than its allowed length, half a yard. The stick must be
fastened to the bladder or flags, to which the line being tied, that it
may easily unfold and run to its length, and so give the Pike liberty
to run away with the bait, and by the bladder or flags, recover their
line again. You must observe this way to turn off your bait with the
wind or stream, that they may carry it away. Some use, for more sport,
if the Pike be a great one, to tie the same to the foot of a goose,
which the Pike, if large, will sometimes pull under the water. Before I
proceed to give you each sort of bait for every kind of fish, give me
leave to add a caution or two, for the ground-line and fishing, as I
did for the natural and artificial fly, and then we shall go on.
There are two ways of fishing for Eels, proper and peculiar to that
fish alone; the first is termed by some, angling for Eels, which is
thus: take a short strong rod, and exceeding strong line, with a
little compassed, but strong hook, which you must bait with a large
well-scoured red worm, then place the end of the hook very easily in
a cleft of a stick, that it may very easily slip out; with this stick
and hook thus baited, search for holes under stones, timbers, roots, or
about flood-gates; if there be a good Eel, give her time, and she will
take it; but be sure she has gorged it, and then you may conclude, if
your tackling hold, she is your own.
The other way is called bobbing for Eels, which is thus: take the
largest garden worms, scour them well, and with a needle run a very
strong thread or silk through them from end to end; take so many as
that at last you may wrap them about a board, for your hand will be
too narrow, a dozen times at least, then tie them fast with the other
two ends of the thread or silk, that they may hang in so many long
bouts or hanks; then fasten all to a strong cord, and something more
than a handful above the worms, fasten a plumb of lead, of about three
quarters of a pound, making your cord sure to a long and strong pole;
with these worms thus ordered, you must fish in a muddy water, and
you will feel the Eels tug strongly at them; when you think they have
swallowed them as far as they can, gently draw up your worms and Eels,
and when you have them near the top of the water, hoist them amain to
land; and thus you may take three or four at once, and good ones, if
there be store.
1. When you angle at ground, keep your line as straight as possible,
suffering none of it to lie in the water, because it hinders the nimble
jerk of the rod; but if, as sometimes it will happen, that you cannot
avoid but some little will lie in the water, yet keep it in the stream
above your float, by no means below it.
2. When you angle at ground for small fish, put two hooks to your line,
fastened together thus: lay the two hooks together, then draw the one
shorter than the other by nine inches, this will cause the other end
to over-reach as much, as the other is shorter at the hooks, then turn
that end back, and with a water-knot, in which you must make both the
links to fasten, tie them so as both links may hang close together,
and not come out at both ends of the knot. Then upon that link which
hangeth longest, fasten your lead near a foot above the hook; put upon
your hooks two different baits, and so you may try, with more ease
and less time, what bait the fish love best; and also very often, as
I have done, take two fish at once with one rod. You have also, by
this experience, one bait for such as feed close upon the ground, as
Gudgeon, Flounder, &c. and another for such as feed a little higher, as
Roach, Dace, &c.
3. Some use to lead their lines heavily, and to set their float about
a foot or more from the end of the rod, with a little lead to buoy it
up, and thus in violent swift streams, they avoid the offence of a
float, and yet perfectly discern the biting of the fish, and so order
themselves accordingly; but this has its inconvenience, viz. the lying
of the line in the water.
4. Give all fish time to gorge the bait, and be not over hasty, except
you angle with such tender baits as will not endure nibbling at, but
must upon every touch be struck at, as sheep’s blood and flies, which
are taken away at the first pull of the fish, and therefore enforce
you, at the first touch, to try your fortune.
Now we are to speak next of baits, more particularly proper for every
fish, wherein I shall observe this method, first to name the fish, then
the baits, according as my experience hath proved them grateful to the
fish; and to place them as near as I can in such order as they come
in season, though many of them are in season at one instant of time,
and equally good. I would not be understood, as if when a new bait
comes in, the old one were antiquated and useless; for I know the worm
lasts all the year, flies all the Summer, one sort of bob-worm all the
Winter, the other under cow-dung, in June and July; but I intimate that
some are found when others are not in rerum natura.
CHAP. V.
OF ALL SORTS OF BAITS FOR EACH KIND OF FISH, AND HOW TO FIND AND KEEP
THEM.
[Illustration: SALMON]
The SALMON takes the artificial fly very well; but you must use a
troll, as for the Pike, or he, being a strong fish, will hazard your
line, except you give him length: his flies must be much larger than
you use for other fish, the wings very long, two or four, behind one
another, with very long tails; his chiefest ground-bait a great garden
or lob-worm.
[Illustration: TROUT]
2. The TROUT takes all sorts of worms, especially brandlings; all sorts
of flies, the minnow, young frogs, marsh-worm, dock-worm, flag-worm,
all sorts of cad-bait, bob, palmers, caterpillars, gentles, wasps,
hornets, dores, bees, grasshoppers, cankers, and bark-worm; he is a
ravenous, greedy fish, and loveth a large bait at ground, and you must
fit him accordingly.
[Illustration: GRAYLING]
3. The UMBER, or GRAYLING, is generally taken with the same baits as
the Trout; he is an eager fish, biteth freely, and will rise often at
the same fly, if you prick him not.
[Illustration: BARBEL]
The BARBEL bites best at great red worms, well scoured in moss;
gentles, cheese, or paste, made of cheese with suet, maggots, and red
worms; feed much for this fish.
[Illustration: CARP]
4. CARP and TENCH love the largest red worms, the
[Illustration: TENCH]
especially if they smell much of tar; to which end you may, some small
time before you use them, take so many as you will use at that time,
and put them by themselves in a little tar, but let them not lie long
lest it kill them; paste also of all sorts, made with strong-scented
oils, tar, bread, grain boiled soft, maggots, gentles, marsh-worm,
flag-worm, especially; feed much and often for these fish.
[Illustration: PIKE]
The PIKE takes all sorts of baits, save the Fly, Gudgeon, Roach, Dace,
[Illustration: LOACH]
and young frogs in Summer. You may halter him thus: fasten a strong
line with a snare at the end of it to a pole, which if you go
circumspectly to work, he will permit you to put it over his head, and
then you must by strength, hoist him to land.
[Illustration: EEL]
EELS take great red worms, beef, wasps, guts of fowls, and the minnow.
Bait night-hooks for him with small Roach, the hook must lie in the
mouth of the fish, as for the Pike; this way takes the greatest Eels.
[Illustration: GUDGEON]
7. The GUDGEON, RUFF, and BLEAK, take the smallest red worms, cad-bait,
gentles, and wasps. The BLEAK takes the natural or artificial fly,
especially in the evening.
8. The RUFF taketh the same baits as the PEARCH, save that you must
have lesser worms, he being a smaller fish.
[Illustration: ROACH]
9. For ROACH and DACE take small worms, cad-bait, flies, bobs, sheep’s
blood, small white snails, all sorts of worms bred on herbs or trees,
paste, wasps, and gnats.
The BLEAK is an eager fish, and takes the same baits as the ROACH, only
they must be less. You may angle for him with as many hooks on your
line at once, as you can conveniently fasten on it.
10. The CHEVIN or CHUB, all sorts of earth-worms, bob, the minnow,
flies of all sorts, cad-bait, all sorts of worms bred on herbs and
trees, especially oak-worms, young frogs, wasps, bees, or grasshoppers,
on the top of the water; cheese, grain, beetles, a great brown fly
that lives on the oak, black snails, their bellies slit that the white
appear; he loves a large bait, as a wasp, colwort-worm, and then a wasp
altogether.
[Illustration: BREAM]
11. The BREAM takes red worms, especially those that are got at the
root of a great Dock, it lies wrapped up in a knot, or round clue;
paste, flag-worms, wasps, green-flies, butter-flies, or a grasshopper,
his legs being cut off.
12. FLOUNDER, SHAD, and MULLET, love red worms of all sorts, wasps, and
gentles.
As for the MINNOW, LOACH, BULL-HEAD, or
[Illustration: MILLER’S THUMB]
being usually children’s recreation, I once purposed to have omitted
them wholly, but considering they often are baits for better fish, as
Trout, Pike, Eel, &c. Neither could this discourse be general, if they
were omitted; and though I should wave mentioning them, yet I cannot
forget them, who have so often vexed me with their unwelcome eagerness;
for the
[Illustration: MINNOW]
will have a part in the play, if you come where he is; which is almost
every where, you need not seek him: I find him much oftener than I
desire, it is only in deep still places which he least frequents, and
is not over curious in his baits; any thing will serve that he can
swallow, and he will strain hard for what he cannot gorge: but chiefly
likes small red worms, cad-bait, worms bred on trees, and wasps.
The LOACH and BULL-HEAD are much of the same diet; but their principal
bait is small red worms.
Having spoken before of pastes, I shall now shew how you may make the
same; and though there be as many kinds as men have fancies, yet I
esteem these best.
1. Take the tenderest part of the leg of a young rabbit, virgin
wax, and sheep’s-suet; beat them in a mortar till they be perfectly
incorporated, then with a little clarified honey, temper them before
the fire into a paste.
2. Sheep’s-kidney suet, as much cheese, fine flower or manchet, make it
into a paste; soften it with clarified honey.
3. Sheep’s blood, cheese, fine manchet, clarified honey; make all into
a paste.
4. Sheep’s blood, saffron, and fine manchet; make all into a paste.
You may add to any paste, coculus-indiæ, assa-fœtida, oil of polipody
of the oak, of lignum vitæ, of ivy, or the gum of ivy dissolved: I
judge there is virtue in these oils, and gum especially, which I would
add to all pastes I make, as also a little flax to keep the paste, that
it wash not off the hook.
CHAP. VI.
TO KEEP YOUR BAITS.
1. Paste will keep very long, if you put virgin wax and clarified honey
into it, and stick well on the hook, if you beat cotton wool, or flax
into it, when you make your paste.
2. Put your worms into very good long moss, whether white, red, or
green, matters not; wash it well, and cleanse it from all earth and
filth, wring it very dry, then put your worms into an earthen pot,
cover it close that they crawl not out; set it in a cool place in
Summer, and in Winter in a warm place, that the frost kill them not;
every third day in Summer change your moss, and once in the week in
Winter; the longer you keep them before you use them the better: clean
scouring your worms makes them clear, red, tough, and to live long on
the hook, and to keep colour, and therefore more desireable to the
fish: a little Bol Amoniac put to them, will much further your desire,
and scour them in a short time: or you may put them all night in water,
and they will scour themselves, which will weaken them; but a few hours
in good moss will recover them. Lest your worms die, you may feed them
with crumbs of bread and milk, or fine flour and milk, or the yolk
of an egg, and sweet cream coagulated over the fire, given to them a
little and often; sometimes also put to them earth cast out of a grave,
the newer the grave the better; I mean the shorter time the party hath
been buried, you will find the fish will exceedingly covet them after
this earth, and here you may gather what gum that is, which J. D. in
his _Secrets of Angling_, calls ‘Gum of Life.’
3. You must keep all other sorts of worms with the leaves of those
trees and herbs on which they are bred, renewing the leaves often in a
day, and put in fresh for the old ones: the boxes you keep them in must
have a few small holes to let in air.
4. Keep gentles or maggots with dead flesh, beast’s livers, or suet;
cleanse or scour them in meal, or bran, which is better; you may breed
them by pricking a beast’s liver full of holes, hang it in the sun in
Summer time; set an old course barrel, or small firkin, with clay and
bran in it, into which they will drop, and cleanse themselves in it.
5. Cad-bait cannot endure the wind and cold, therefore keep them in a
thick woollen bag, with some gravel amongst them: wet them once a day,
at least, if in the house, but often in the hot weather: when you carry
them forth, fill the bag full of water, then hold the mouth close, that
they drop not out, and so let the water run from them; I have thus kept
them three weeks, or you may put them into an earthern pot full of
water, with some gravel at the bottom, and take them forth into your
bag as you use them.
6. The spawn of some fish is a good bait, to be used at such time as
that fish is spawning: some days before they spawn they will bite
eagerly; if you take one that is full-bellied, take out the spawn, boil
it so hard as to stick on your hook, and so use it; or not boil it at
all, the spawn of SALMON is the best of all sorts of spawn.
7. I have observed, that CHEVIN, ROACH, and
[Illustration: DACE]
bite much better at the oak-worm, or any worm bred on herbs and trees,
especially if you angle with the same, when they shew themselves at
the top of the water, as with the natural fly, than if you use it
under: for I have observed, that when a gale of wind shakes the trees,
the worms fall into the water, and presently rise and float on the top,
where I have seen the fish rise at them, as at flies, which taught me
this experience; and indeed they sink not, till tost and beaten by the
stream, and so die and lose their colour; the fish then, as you may see
by your own on your hook, do not much esteem them.
8. There are two, some say three, sorts of cad-bait; the one bred
under stones, that lie hollow in shallow rivers, or small brooks, in a
very fine gravelly case or husk, these are yellow when ripe: the other
in old pits, ponds, or slow running rivers, or ditches, in cases or
husks of straw, sticks, or rushes, these are green when ripe: both are
excellent for TROUT, used as before directed, and for most sorts of
small fish. The green sort, which is bred in pits, ponds, or ditches,
may be found in March, before the other yellow ones comes in; the other
yellow ones come in season with May, or the end of April, and go out in
July: a second sort, but smaller, come in again in August.
9. Yellow bobs are also of two sorts, the one bred in mellow light
soils, and gathered after the plough, when the land is first broken up
from grazing, and are in season in the Winter till March; the other
sort is bred under cow-dung, hath a red head; and these are in season
in the Summer only: scour them in bran, or dry moss, or meal.
10. Bark-worms are found under the bark of an oak, ash, alder, and
birch, especially if they lie a year or more after they have fallen,
you may find a great white worm, with a brown head, something
resembling a dore bee, or humble-bee, this is in season all the year,
especially from September until June, or mid-May; the Umber covets this
bait above any, save fly, and cad-bait; you may also find this worm in
the body of a rotten alder, if you break it with an axe or beetle; but
be careful only to shake the tree in pieces with beating, and crush not
the worm: you may also find him under the bark of the stump of a tree,
if decayed.
11. Dry your wasps, dores, or bees, upon a tile-stone, or in an oven
cooled after baking, lest they burn; and to avoid that, you must lay
them on a thin board or chip, and cover them with another so supported,
as not to crush them, or else clap two cakes together: this way they
will keep long, and stick on your hook well. If you boil them hard,
they grow black in a few days.
12. Dry your sheep’s blood in the air, upon a dry board, till it become
a pretty hard lump; then cut it into small pieces for your use.