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IZAAK WALTON 
 
KCUTLEDGE, WARNPiS, & ROUTLBDGE, FARRINGDON $TREKT. 
 
 NEW TORK; 56, WALKER STREET. 
 

THE 
 
 COMPLETE ANGLER 
 
 BT 
 
 IZAAK WALTON & CHARLES 'COTTON. 
 
 IZAAK WAL'iON. 
 
 EDITED BY .•'EPHi^.MEB^^, , 
 
 OF "bell's life in LONDON." 
 
 LONDON: 
 EOUTLEDGE, WAENES, AND EOUTLEDGE, 
 
 FAERINGDON STREET. 
 
 NEW YOKK: 56, WALKER STREET. 
 
 1859. 
 
^9^^?<? 
 
 1 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 PoE some years past I have been taming over in my mind tlie 
 possibility, having been long clearly convinced of the necessity, of 
 publishing, a new, a cheap, a pleasantly and profusely and profitably 
 illustrated edition of the " Complete Anglee," with what I will 
 call "modernizing" notes and additions. I have ever found all 
 things reasonable in desire, possible of execution : and happily, the 
 thorough fulfilment of this last aspiration of mine has proved no 
 exception to my experience. 
 
 Having been not altogether a silent observer of the successful 
 progress through the reading world of the cheap series of books, old 
 and new, published by Messrs. Ingram, Cooke, & Co., under the 
 general and appropriate title of " The Illustrated National Library," 
 I resolved to try and add one more to the number. To the above 
 firm, full of public spirit and intelligent energy, I communicated 
 my intentions and projects. They were approved of j and the offer 
 on my part to carry them into effect, under certain conditions and 
 with aid specified, was as freely accepted and ratified by the gentle- 
 men named, as it was conscientiously and hopefully proposed. 
 Hence Walton and Cotton in a modern dress, ornamental and 
 useful. 
 
 Reader, fear not. I have touched with no profaning pen the 
 sacred text of those venerable writers. You have it here in its 
 primitive purity — word after word, as it was printed in the fifth and 
 last edition, published in the year 1676, under the eyes and hands 
 of the authors. What more have I done ? A great deal — which I 
 will briefly tell you. 
 
 The first edition of the " Complete Anglee" appeared in 1653, 
 exactly two hundred years ago, and though during Walton's life- 
 time four subsequent editions were published, with additions and 
 improvements, original errors in the natural history of quadrupeds, 
 birds, fishes, and insects, not only remained, but were augmented. 
 Those errors must be imputed to the general ignorance of the time 
 in which Walton wrote, in matters of natural history, and not to his 
 specifically. The most glaring and dangerous of those errors I have 
 cleared away by means of foot-notes. 
 
 a2 
 
iv ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 If an}^ candid reader of apprehensive mind will peruse the " Com- 
 plete Anglee" he must agree with me that it lacks the instruc- 
 tive element — it amuses far more than it teaches — it talks more of 
 fish and of catching them than it shows hy detailed practical direc- 
 tions how to catch them. Occasionally directions are given ; but 
 they are not always correct, and, except in a few instances, they are 
 antiquated and not unfrequently erroneous. At least I think so; 
 and have endeavoured to apply a remedy. Wherever I have found 
 the piscatorial directions of Walton and Cotton right I have said so, 
 and not interfered. Where I have found them contrariwise, I have 
 pointed it out and written new instructions, frequently at great 
 length — more lengthened than the original chapters to which they 
 stand appended. 
 
 I will not encroach upon the reader's time by stating minutely 
 all that I have done. In a word, I will at once and fearlessly pre- 
 dicate that I have written, by mean's of foot-notes and complemen- 
 tary essays to chapters, a complete modern treatise on the different 
 branches of angling — on bottom-fishing, spinning, and trolling, on 
 fly-fishing with the artificial fly, and on daping or dibbing with the 
 natural one. I have written succinctly the natural history of each of 
 our river-fish — that of the salmon rather lengthily than succinctl}' — 
 I have shown their habits, pointed out their haunts, named the best 
 baits for them, and shown how they are to be used. I have taught 
 how the rod and line are to be handled, and how the artificial fly is 
 to be thrown and worked in the water, as far as a long-practised 
 pen can teach it. I have described the best sorts of angling gear ; 
 and to Cotton's instructions for making artificial flies I have added 
 my own, elucidated with drawings of the natural fly and of the 
 artificial one in its finished state and in the incipient and progres- 
 sive stages of its fabrication. 
 
 Of what I have done, enough. The book will tell its own tale 
 — one I trust that will not dim, by even a passing shade, the re- 
 putation of him who, for more than fifteen years, has been the pis- 
 catory preacher of BelVs Life, who has written A Hand-hook of 
 Angling, and The Boole of the Salmon, and more besides — in fine, 
 reader, of your tutor, brother and friend, 
 
 London, MarcJi, 1853. Ephemeea. 
 
 N.B. — The notes signed "H." are from Sir John Hawkins's edi- 
 tion of Walton ; those with " Ed." attached are orio^inal. 
 
SKETCH OF WALTON'S LIFE. 
 
 The fame of Petrarch rests upon his Sonnets, and not upon his larger 
 Italian poems, or upon his elaborate Latin ones, on which he relied for 
 immortality. The fame of Walton — and wide and perenniiis cere is that 
 fame — rests upon his simply written *' Complete Angler," and not by any 
 means on works which very likely he more prized, viz., *' The Lives of 
 Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson," and poems that he 
 wrote or edited. Why so? Because the "Complete Angler" is so 
 written, that it not only comes home to the "hearths and bosoms" of all 
 anglers, but nearly of all men. It is an angling pastoral, babbling of all 
 things that " are in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or in the waters 
 under the earth." The immortal author of it was born at Stafford, in 
 the month of August, 1593. We hear no more of him until lie attained 
 his 30th year, when he is found carrying on the business of a " sempster," 
 or man-milliner, in London. His first shop was a very small one, situate 
 in the "Koyal Burse," Cornhill ; that is to say, the lloyal Exchange. 
 "Yet here," writes Sir John Hawkins, "did he carry on his trade till 
 some time before the year 1624 : when he dwelt on the north side of 
 Fleet-street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and 
 abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the * Harrow, ' now the old 
 timber-house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane" (the house is 
 now a goldsmith's. No. 128). Here he carried on the business of a linen- 
 draper, occupying only half a shop, the other half belonging to John 
 Mason, a hosier. 
 
 Walton did not marry until he was about forty years of age, and then, 
 in 1632, he removed to a house in Chancery-lane, then seven doors higher 
 up than the corner house on the left hand, or western side. Here he re- 
 sumed his old trade as a sempster, or milliner. His wife was the sister 
 of Dr. Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells, one of the seven bishops sent to 
 the Tower in the reign of James II. She was a prudent and pious wo- 
 man, largely accomplished, and in her society Walton enjoyed content 
 and happiness. He left business and London, 1643 — at tlie age of fifty 
 — on a fair competency, and lived sometimes at Stafford, and elsewhere ; 
 but mostly in the families of eminent English clergymen, by Vhom he was 
 much beloved. His favourite recreation whilst in London was angling, 
 in which art he was considered the greatest proficient of his day. The 
 rivers he frequented, were the Lea and New lliver, and occasionally, in 
 all x>robability, the Thames. The first edition of his " Complete Angler" 
 appeared in 1653, when he was in his sixtieth year, and its popularity 
 was so great, that it ran through four editions in the space of twenty- 
 three years. Walton, in the year 1676, and in the eighty -third year of 
 his age, was preparing a fifth, with additions, for the press ; when Mr. 
 Cotton wrote the second part of the work. It seems Mr. Cotton sub- 
 
VI SKETCH OF WALTON S LIFE. 
 
 mitted the manuscript to Walton's perusal, who returned it with his ap- 
 probation, and a few marginal strictures : and in that year they came 
 abroad together. Mr. Cotton's book had the title of the "Complete 
 Angler. Part II. : being Instructions how to angle for Trout or Gray- 
 ling, in a clear Stream ;" and it has ever since been received as a Second 
 Part of V/alton's book. In the title-page is a cipher composed of the 
 initial letters of both their names ; which cipher, Mr. Cotton tells us, he 
 had caused to be cut in stone, and set up over a fishing-house, that he 
 had erected near his dwelling, on the bank of the lovely river Dove, which 
 divides the counties of Stafford and Derby. 
 
 Mr. Cotton's book is a judicious supplement to Walton's ; for it must 
 not be concealed, that Walton, though he was so expert a bottom-angler, 
 knew but little of fly-fishing ; and indeed he is so ingenuous as to confess, 
 that the greater part of what he said on that subject was communicated 
 to him by Mr. Thomas Barker, * and not the result of his own experience. 
 And of Cotton it must be said, that living in a country where fly-fishing 
 was, and is, almost the only practice, he had not only the means of ac- 
 quiring, but actually possessed more skill in the art, as also in the method 
 of making flies, than most men of his time. His book is, in fact, a con- 
 tinuation of Walton's, not only as it teaches at large that branch of the 
 art of angling which Walton had but slightly treated on, but as it takes 
 up Venator, Walton's piscatory disciple, just where his master had left 
 him ; and this connexion between the two parts will be clearly seen, when 
 it is remarked, that the traveller whom Cotton invites to his home and 
 so hospitably entertains, and also instructs in the art of fly-fishing — we 
 say this traveller — and, Venator, the pupil of Walton, come out to be one 
 and the same person. Not farther to anticipate what will be found in 
 the Second Part, it shall here sufiice to say, that there is great spirit 
 in the dialogue ; and that the same conversible, communicative temper 
 appears in it, that so eminently distinguishes the piece it accompanies. 
 
 In 1662, Walton lost his wife. She was buried in the cathedral church 
 of Worcester, and her monumental inscription tells, that she was ' ' a 
 woman of remarkable prudence, and of primitive piety ; her great and 
 general knowledge, with such true humility, and blest with such Chris- 
 tian meekness, as made her worthy of a more memorable monument." 
 She left oftspring, a son, called after his father, Izaak, a daughter, named 
 Anne, after herself. The son entered into holy orders, and became 
 chaplain to Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Sarum, by whose favour he attained 
 to the dignity of a canon residentiary of that cathedral. He died at the 
 age of sixty-nine, much respected, for his good temper, discretion, can- 
 dour and sincerity, by all the clergy of the diocese. The daughter mar- 
 ried Dr. W. Hawkins, prebendary of Winchester. 
 
 In 1683, when he was ninety years old, Walton published, '' Thealmar 
 and Clearchus, a pastoral history, in smooth and easy verse, written long 
 since by John Chalkhill, Esq. ; an acquaintance and friend of Edmund 
 Spencer. " To this poem he wrote a preface, containing a very amiable 
 
 * This gentleman published, in the year lGyl,two years previously to the 
 appearence of Walton's work, a book entitled " The Art of Angling," dedicated 
 to Lord Montague. It was rejjrinted in 1653, and again in 1659, with the en- 
 larged title of " Barker's Delight, or the Art of Angling." Though an earlier 
 writer than AValton, the latter has been designated, "the common father of all 
 anglers." 
 
SKETCH OF WALTON S LIFE. VU 
 
 character of the author. He lived but a very little time after the pub- 
 lication of this poem, for, as Wood says, he ended his days on the 
 fifteenth day of December, 1683, in the great frost, at Winchester, in the 
 house of the above-named Dr. William Hawkins. He was buried in the 
 Cathedral, and in a chapel in the fourth aisle, called Prior Silksteed's 
 chapel : on a large black flat marble stone is this inscription to his 
 memory, the poetry whereof has very little to recommend it. 
 
 HERE RESTETH THE BODY OF 
 
 MR. ISAAC WALTON, 
 
 WHO DYED THE 15tH OF DECEMBER, 1683. 
 
 Alas ! he's gone before. 
 Gone to return no more ; 
 Our panting breasts aspire 
 After their aged sire. 
 Whose well-spent life did last 
 Full ninety years and past : 
 But now he hath begun 
 That which wiU ne'er be done, 
 Crown'd with eternal bliss. 
 We wish our souls with his. 
 
 Votis modestis'sic flerunt liberi. 
 
 Between Walton's retirement from business and his death, he wrote 
 the lives* of Dr. Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. 
 George Herbert, and Dr. Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, all learned and 
 pious men. He also wrote a few copies of verses on minor passing events. 
 
 Upon a retrospect of the foregoing particulars, and a view of some 
 others mentioned in a subsequent letter and in his Will, it will appear 
 that Walton possessed that essential ingredient in human felicity, "mens 
 Sana in corpore sano ;" for in his eighty -third year he professes a resolu- 
 tion to begin a pilgrimage of more than a hundred miles, into a country 
 the most difficult and hazardous that can be conceived for an aged man 
 to travel in, to visit his friend Cotton, and doubtless to enjoy his favourite 
 diversion of angling in the delightful streams of the Dove, — and on the 
 ninetieth anniversary of his birthday, he, by his Will, declares himself 
 to be of perfect memory. ^ • 
 
 As to his worldly circumstances^-^iotwith standing the adverse accident 
 of his being obliged, by the troubles of the times, to quit London, and 
 his occupation — ^they appear to have been commensurate, as well with 
 the wishes as the wants of any but a covetous and intemperate man ; 
 in his relations and connexions, such a concurrence of circumstances is 
 visible, as it would be almost presumption to pray for. 
 
 For — not to mention the patronage of those many prelates and digni- 
 taries of the church, men of piety and learning, with whom he lived in a 
 close intimacy and friendship ; or, the many ingenious and worthy persons 
 with whom he corresponded and conversed ; or, the esteem and respect 
 testified by printed letters and eulogiums which his writings had procured 
 
 * A remarkably cheap illustrated edition (price One Shilling) of them forms 
 the second number of " The Universal Library," publishing this (1853) year, by 
 Ingram, Cooke, and Co. 
 
Vlll 
 
 SKETCH OF WALTON S LIFE. 
 
 him ; to be matched with a woman of an exalted understanding, and a 
 mild and humble temper, to have children of good inclinations and sweet 
 and amiable dispositions, and to see them well settled, is not the lot of 
 every man, who, preferring a social to a solitary life, chooses to become 
 the head of a family. 
 
 But blessings like these are comparatively light, when weighed against 
 those of a mind stored like his with a great variety of useful knowledge, 
 and a temper that could harbour no malevolent thought or insidious de- 
 sign ; nor stoop to the arts of fraud or flattery, but disposed him to love 
 and virtuous friendship, to the enjoyment of innocent delights and recrea- 
 tions, to the contemplation of the works of nature, and the ways of Pro- 
 vidence, and to the still sublimer pleasures of rational piety. 
 
 If, possessing all these benefits and advantages, external and internal, 
 together with a mental constitution, so happily attempered, as to have 
 been to him a perpetual fountain of cheerfulness, we can entertain a 
 doubt that Walton was one of the happiest of men, we estimate them at 
 a rate too low, and show ourselves ignorant of the nature of that felicity, 
 to which it is possible, even in this life, for virtuous and good men with 
 the blessing of Grod to arrive. 
 
 The foregoing biographical sketch is condensed from the life of Walton 
 prefixed to an edition of his "Complete Angler" published in 1797 by 
 Sir J. Hawkins, who in a remote degree (Anne Walton's only daughter 
 married a Hawkins) was by affinity descended from the common ancestor, 
 figuratively, of all anglers. 
 
 WALTON S HOUSE, 
 
THE EPISTLE DEDICATOHY. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL 
 
 JOHN OFFLEY, Esq., 
 
 OP MADELEY MANOR, IN THE COUNTY OF STAFFORD. 
 
 My most nON-QURED FllIEND, 
 
 Sir, — I have made so ill use of your former favours, as by them to be encouraj?ed 
 to entreat, that they may be enlarg-ed to the patronage and protection of this book : 
 and I have put on a modest conlidence, that, I shall not be denied, because it is a 
 discourse of fish and lishing, which you know so well, and both love and practise so 
 much. 
 
 You are assured, though there be ignorant men of another belief, that angling is an 
 art : and you know that art better than others ; and that this truth is demonstrated 
 by the fruits of that pleasant labour which you enjoy, when you purpose to give rest 
 to your mind, and divest yourself of your more serious business, and (which is often) 
 dedicate a day or two to this recreation. 
 
 At which time, if common Anglers should attend you, and be eye-witnesses of the 
 success, not of your fortune but your skill, it would doubtless beget in them an emu- 
 lation to be like you, and that emulation might beget an industrious diligence to be 
 80; but I know it is not attainable by common capacities. And there be now many 
 men of great wisdom, learning, and experience, which love and practise this art, that 
 know I speak the truth. 
 
 Sir, this pleasant curiosity of fish and fishing, of which you are so great a master 
 has been thought worthy the pens and practices of divers in other nations, that have 
 been reputed men of great learning and wisdom: and amongst those of this nation, I 
 remember Sir Henry Wotton (a dear lover of this art) has told me, that his intentions 
 were to write a discourse of the art, and in praise of angling ; and doubtless he had 
 done so, if death had not prevented him ; the remembrance of which hath often made 
 me sorry; for if he had lived to do it, then the unlearned angler had seen some better 
 treatise of this art, a treatise that might have proved worthy his perusal, which, 
 though some have undertaken, I could never yet see in English. 
 
 But mine may be thought as weak, and as unworthy of common view ; and I do 
 here freely confess, that I should rather excuse myself, than censure others, my own 
 discourse being liable to so many exceptions ; against which you, sir, might make this 
 one, that it can contribute nothing to your knowledge. And lest a longer epistle may 
 diminish your pleasure, I shall make this no longer than to add this following truth, 
 that I am really, 
 
 Sir, 
 Your most affectionate friend. 
 
 And most humble servant, 
 
 Iz. Wa. 
 
%\^t of Jllttstrations. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE. 
 ORNAMENTAL TITLE. 
 ORIGINAL TITLE. 
 MONOGRAM, page 239. 
 
 PORTRAITS: ^^^^ 
 
 Waltok Title 
 
 WOTTON ^1 
 
 Donne 170 
 
 Cotton 241 
 
 VIGNETTES : 
 
 Walton's House viii 
 
 HoBSE AND Gkoom, Lea-beidge 13 
 
 "VValtham: Abbey 52 
 
 Old Rte-House 60 
 
 Teddington Weie 185 
 
 Islam Hall 243 
 
 AsHBORNE Hall ...... 249 
 
 Stbaits of Dove Dale . . . 251 
 Cotton's Fishing-House . . 260 
 
 Pike Pool 279 
 
 AsHBOENE Church 313 
 
 FISH: 
 
 Chub 50 
 
 Trout 71 
 
 Grayling 106 
 
 Perch 168 
 
 FISH : PAGE 
 
 Salmon 117 
 
 Pike 132 
 
 Carp 151 
 
 Bream . 158 
 
 Tench 365 
 
 Eel 177 
 
 Barbel 182 
 
 Gudgeon 188 
 
 Ruffe 187 
 
 Bleak 188 
 
 Roach 198 
 
 Dace 199 
 
 Minnow 211 
 
 Loach 211 
 
 Miller's Thumb 211 
 
 TACKLE . 
 
 Flight OF Hooks 105 
 
 Salmon Fly 118 
 
 Gorge Hook 14i2 
 
 Natural Flies 314 
 
 Artificial Flies 315 
 
 Fly-making .... . 316 
 
XI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 JFirst IBay. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chaptee I. A Dialogue between Piscatos (an Angler), Venatoe (a Hunter), 
 
 and AucEPS (a Falconer) 13 
 
 Secontr Ba^. 
 
 II. Of the Ottee, otter-hunting, and Observations about the Habits 
 
 of the Chub 44 
 
 ^i)irtr Bag. 
 
 III. How tofishfor andcook the CHAVEH-DEEor Chttb . ... 52 
 
 IV. Observations (by no means sound) of the Nature and Breeding of 
 
 the Teout, and how to tish for him ; the Milkmaid's Song . . 60 
 V. More Directions how to fish for, and how to make for the Teout 
 
 an artificial Minnow and Flies 70 
 
 J^ourt^ Bap. 
 
 VI. Observations of the Umbee or Grayling ; and Dii-ections how to 
 
 tish for him 
 
 VII. Observations of the Salmon; Directions how to fish for him 
 
 VIII. Observations of the Pike ; Directions how to fish for him 
 
 IX. Observations of the Carp; Directions how to fish for him 
 
 X. Observations of the Beeam ; and Directions to catch him 
 
 XI. Observations of the Tench ; Advice how to angle for him 
 
 XII. Observations of the Peech ; Directions how to fish for him 
 
 XIII. Observations of the Eel, and other Fish that want Scales 
 
 how to fish for them 
 
 XIV. Observations of the Barbel; Directions how to fish for him 
 XV. Observations of the Gudgeon, the Ruefe, and the Bleak 
 
 how to fish for them 
 
 XVI. Is of Nothing, or that which is Nothing worth 
 
 and 
 
 and 
 
 106 
 111 
 131 
 147 
 157 
 164 
 167 
 
 172 
 ISO 
 
 186 
 190 
 
 £iitJ) {last) Bai?. 
 
 XVn. Of Roach and Dace, and how to fish for them ; and of Cabts . . 196 
 XVIII. Of the Minnow or Penk, of the Loach, and of the Bull-Head or 
 
 Miller's Thumb 210 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 CnAPTEB XIX. Of several Pavers ; and some Observations of Fish .... 213 
 
 XX. Of Fish-Ponds, and how to order them 217 
 
 XXI. Directions for making of a Lnie, and for the colouring of both Rod 
 
 and Line 223 
 
 The First and Second Days contain a Chapter, simply conversational, each. 
 The Third Day, two Chapters and a half on Chnb and Trout Fishing. 
 The Fourth Day begins in the middle of the Fifth Chapter, and extends to 
 the Sixteenth Chapter, inclusive. The Fifth Day, comprising five Chapters, 
 by no means interesting ones to the mere angler, terminates the First Part 
 of" The Complete Angler." Piscator and Venator intended to angle for two 
 or three days only : love of the art caused them to prolongtheir teaching, 
 study, and practice of it. 
 
 PAET II. 
 jFirst Baw. 
 
 Chapter l')^ Dialogue between Piscator Junior (Cotton) and Viator (the 
 II. C Venator of the First Part of the Book). All these Chapters 
 III- ) are initiatorj', cliiefly descriptive of the River Dove and other 
 
 vicinous Rivers, and of Beresford 2 13 
 
 Sfcontf Ban. 
 
 IV. Angling at the "Top," at the " Middle," and at the " Bottom" . 263 
 
 V. Of Fly-iishing and Fly-Making 264 
 
 VI. A practical Lesson on Fly-Fishing for Trout and Grayling . . 274 
 VII. Lists of Artificial Flies for the Months of January, February, 
 March, April, and May ; showing also how to dib or dape with 
 the Green-Drake or May-Fly, and how to make that famous Fly 
 
 artificially 281 
 
 VIII. Of the Stone-Fly; also a List of Flies for June, July, August, 
 September, October, November, and December; with some 
 good Remarks on the Green-Drake, and Stone-Fly, and on 
 Poaching 295 
 
 ^!;iitf (last) Bat). 
 
 IX. A Short Dialogue, and a Lapse in Angling on the Part of Piscator. 
 
 Viator fishes successfully by himself 302 
 
 X. Showing how Trout and Grayling are best cooked .... 303 
 XI. Teaches the Art of Angling at the Bottom with Worms, Grubs, 
 
 and Cadis 305 
 
 XII. Contains Directions touching Angling at the Middle with a Min- 
 now for Trout, and with a Worm, Grub, or Cadis for a Grayling. 
 Farewell between Piscator Junior and Viator . . . .310 
 
KOR^E a.ND GROOM, LEA BRIJJQE. 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CO^NTERENCZ BETWIXT AN ANGLEE, A HUNTER, AND A FALCONER ; 
 EACH C0M3IENDING HIS RECREATION. 
 
 [JFirst ©aij.] 
 
 PlSCATOR^ YeNATOR, AuCEPS. 
 
 PiscATOR. You are well overtaken, Gentlemen ; a good 
 morning to you both ; I have stretched my legs up Tottenham- 
 hill to overtake you, hoping your business may occasion yon 
 towards Ware, whither I am going this tine, fresh May 
 morning. 
 
 Yenator. Sir, I for my part shall almost answer your 
 hopes ; for my purpose is to drink my morning's draught at 
 the Thatched-house in Hoddesden, and I think not to rest till 
 I come thither, where I have appointed a friend or two tO' 
 
14 , < THE COMPLE^.E ANGLER. 
 
 meet me : but for this gentleman that you see with me, I 
 Imow not how far he intends his journey ; he came so lately 
 into my company, that I have scarce had time to ask him 
 the question. 
 
 AucEPS. Sir, I shall, by your favour, bear you company as 
 far as Theobald's,'"' and there leave you ; for then I turn up 
 to a friend's house who mews a hawk for me, which I now 
 long to see. 
 
 Yen. Sir, we are all so happy as to have a fine, fresh, cool 
 morning ; and I hope we shall each be the happier in the 
 other's company. And, gentlemen, that I may not lose yours, 
 I shall either abate or amend my pace to enjoy it ; knowing 
 that, as the Italians say, "Good company in a journey makes 
 the way to seem the shorter." 
 
 Aug. It may do so, sir, with the help of good discourse, 
 which methinks we may promise from you that both look and 
 speak so cheerfully ; and for my part I promise you, as an 
 invitation to it, that I will be as free and open-hearted as 
 discretion will allow me to be with strangers. 
 
 Yen. And, sir, I promise the like. 
 
 Pisc. I am right glad to hear your answers, and in confi- 
 dence you speak the truth, I shall put on a boldness to ask 
 you, sir, whether business or pleasure caused you to be so 
 early up, and walk so fast ; for this other gentleman hath 
 declared that he is going to see a hawk that a friend mews 
 for him. 
 
 Yen. Sir, mine is a mixture of both, a little business and 
 more pleasure ; for I intend this day to do all my business, 
 and then bestow another day or two in hunting the Otter, 
 which a friend, that I go to meet, tells me is much pleasanter 
 than any other chase whatsoever : howsoever, I mean to try it ; 
 for to-morrow morning we shall meet a pack of Otter-dogs 
 of noble Mr. Sadler's, upon Am well-hill, who will be there so 
 early that they intend to prevent [forestall] the sun-rising. 
 
 Pisc. Sir, my fortune has answered my desires, and my 
 purpose is to bestow a day or two in helping to destroy some 
 of those villanous vermin ; for I hate them perfectly, because 
 they love fish so well, or rather, because they destroy so much ; 
 indeed so much that, in my judgment, all men that keep 
 Otter-dogs ought to have pensions from the king, to encourage 
 
 * A house built by Lord Burleigh in Herts, and by his son, an Earl of 
 Salisbury, exchanged with James I, for Hatfield-house. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANaT.^Jl. 15 
 
 them to destroy the very breed of those base Otters, they do 
 so much mischief. 
 
 Yen. But what say you to the Foxes of the Nation, would 
 not you as willingly have them destroyed 1 for doubtless they 
 do as much mischief as Otters do. 
 
 Pisc. O sir, if they do, it is not so much to me and my 
 fraternity, as those base vermin the Otters do. 
 
 Aug. Why, sir, I pray, of what fraternity are you, that 
 you are so 'angry with the poor Otters? 
 
 Pisc. I am, sir, a brother of the Angle, and therefore an 
 enemy to the Otter :* for you are to note that we Anglers all 
 love one another, and therefore do I hate the Otter, both for 
 my own and for their sakes who are of my brotherhood. 
 
 Vent. And I am a lover of Hounds ; I have followed many 
 a pack of dogs many a mile, and heard many merry hunts- 
 men make sport and scoJfF at Anglers. 
 
 Aug. And I profess myself a Falconer, and have heard many 
 grave serious men pity them, it is such a heavy^ contemptible, 
 dull, recreation. 
 
 PiSG. You know, gentlemen, it is an easy thing to scoff at 
 any art or recreation ; a little wit, mixed with ill-nature, con- 
 fidence, and malice, will do it ; but though they often venture 
 boldly, yet they are often caught, even in their own trap, 
 according to that of Lucian, the father of the family of scoffers. 
 
 Lucian, well skill'd in scoffing, this hath writ, 
 Friend, that's your folly, which you think your wit ; 
 This, you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, 
 Meaning another, when yourself you jeer. 
 
 If to this you add what Solomon says of scoffers, that 
 ^* they are an abomination to mankind," let them that think 
 
 * The otter has almost disappeared from the Lea, and is now rare in 
 all the rivers of the Metropolitan counties. This amphibious animal is 
 destructive to trout and small river fish ; but, strange as it may appear, 
 he proves the conservator of salmon, by destroying trout, the worst enemies 
 of that fish. The otter cannot, in open water, catch the salmon, who is too 
 fleet for him; but he sometimes captures that fish in shallow and confined 
 water, more by stratagem than speed. Trout the Otter can run down. He 
 kills them in large numbers, to the delight of the owners of salmon rivers. 
 When salmon are in the act of spawning, they are surrounded by trout, hun- 
 gering after the ova, the greater portion of which they would devour were they 
 not beaten off by one or other of the breeding salmon. Trout, moreover, feed 
 voraciously on salmon-fry, so that by destroying them the Otter does good 
 service to salmon-hunting. Otter-fishing, with Otter-hounds, is very exciting 
 sport, and is now principally confined to the midland, western, and northern 
 counties, and to the lowlands of Scotland. The Otter packs of the Earl of 
 Aberdeen and the Marquis of Worcester are very celebrated. — Ed. 
 
16 THE- COMPLE^?^: ANGLER. 
 
 fit scofi on, and be scoffers still ; but I account them enemies 
 to me and to all that love virtue and angling. 
 
 And for you, that have heard many grave, serious men, pity 
 Anglers ; let me tell you, sir, there be many men that are by 
 others taken to be serious and grave men, whom we contemn 
 and pity. Men that are taken to be grave, because nature 
 A/hath made them of a sour complexion ; money-getting men, 
 jl men that spend all their time, first in getting, and next in 
 anxious care to keep it ; men that are condemned to be rich, 
 and then always busy or discontented ; for these poor rich 
 men, we Anglers pity them perfectly, and stand in no need to 
 borrow their thoughts to think ourselves so happy. No, no, 
 sir, we enjoy a contentedness above the reach of such dis- 
 positions, and as the learned and ingenuous Montaigne says — 
 like himself, freely, " When my cat and I entertain each 
 other with mutual apish tricks, as playing with a garter, who 
 knows but that I make my cat more sport than she makes 
 me ? Shall I conclude her to be simple, that has her time to 
 begin or refuse to play as freely as I myself have !■ Nay, who 
 knows but that it is a defect of my not understanding her 
 language (for doubtless cats talk and reason with one another), 
 that we agree no better *? And who knows but that she pities 
 me for being no wiser than to play with her, and laughs and 
 censures my folly for making sport for her, when we two play 
 together ? ' 
 
 Thus freely speaks Montaigne concerning cats ^ and I hope 
 I may take as great a liberty to blame any man, and laugh at 
 him too, let him be never so grave, that hath not heard what 
 Anglers can say in the justification of their art and recreation ; 
 which I may again tell you is so full of pleasure, that we need 
 not borrow their thoughts to make ourselves happy. 
 
 Yen. Sir, you have almost amazed me ; for though I am 
 no scofier, yet I have, I pray let me speak it without ofi:ence, 
 always looked upon Anglers as more patient and more simple 
 men, than I fear I shall find you to be. 
 
 Pisc. Sir, I hope you will not judge my earnestness to be 
 impatience : and for my simplicity, if by that you mean a 
 harmlessness, or that simplicity which was usually found in 
 the primitive Christians, who were, as most Anglers are, quiet 
 men, and followers of peace ; men that were so simply wise, 
 as not to sell their consciences to buy riches, and with them 
 vexation and a fear to die ; if you mean such simple men as 
 lived in those times when there were fewer lawyers ; when 
 men might have had a lordship safely conveyed to them in a 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 17 
 
 piece of parchment no bigger tliaii your hand, though several 
 sheets will not do it safely in this wiser age; I say, sir, if you 
 take us Anglers to be such simple men as I have spoken, 
 then myself and those of my profession will be glad to be so 
 understood : but if by simplicity you meant to express a 
 general defect in those that profess and practise the excellent 
 art of angling, 1 hope in time to disabuse you, and make the 
 contrary appear so evidently, that, if you will but have patience 
 to hear me, I shall remove all the anticipations that discourse, 
 or time, or prejudice, have possessed you with against that * 
 laudable and ancient art ; for I know it worthy the knowledge 
 and practice of a wise man. 
 
 But, gentlemen, though I be able to do this, I am not so 
 unmannerly as to engross all the discourse to myself; and, 
 therefore, you two having declared yourselves, the one to be 
 a lover of hawks, the other of hoiinds, I shall be most glad 
 to hear what you can say in the commendation of that 
 recreation which each of you love and practise ; and having / 
 heard wliat you can say, I shall be glad to exercise your / 
 attention with Avhat I can say concerning my own recreation/ 
 and art of angling, and by this means we shall make the way! 
 to seem the shorter ; and if you likb my motion, I would 
 have Mr. Falconer to begin. 
 
 Auc. Your motion is consented to with all my heart ; and 
 to testify it, I will begin as you have desired me. 
 
 And lirst, for the element that I use to trade in, — which is 
 the air, — an element of more worth than weight — an element 
 that doubtless exceeds both the earth and water; for though 
 I sometimes deal in both, yet the air is most properly mine, — 
 I and my hawks iise that most, and it yields us most recrea- 
 tion : it stops not the high soaring of my noble, generous 
 falcon ; in it she ascends to such a height as the dull eyes of 
 beasts and fish are not able to reach to ; their bodies are too 
 gross for such high elevations : in the air my troops of hawks 
 soar up on high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, 
 then they attend upon and converse with the gods; therefore 
 I think my eagle is so justly styled " Jove's servant in ordi- 
 nary ;" and that very falcon that I am now going to see, 
 deserves no meaner title, for she usually in her flight en dan- 
 gel's herself, like the son of Djedalus, to have her wings 
 scorched by the sun's heat, she flies so near it ; but her mettle 
 makes her careless of danger ; for then she heeds nothing, but 
 makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so makes her 
 
 D 
 
18 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 highway over the steepest mountains and deepest rivers, and 
 in her glorious career looks with contempt upon those high 
 steeples and magnificent palaces which we adore and wonder 
 at j from v»diich height I can make her to descend by a word 
 from my mouth (which she both knows and obeys), to accept 
 of meat from my hand, to own me for her master, to go 
 home with me, and be willing the next day to afford me the 
 like recreation. 
 
 And more : this element of air which I profess to trade in, 
 the worth of it is such, and it is of such necessity, that no 
 creature whatsoever, not only those numerous creatures that 
 feed on the face of the earth, but those various creatures that 
 have their dwelling within the waters, every creature that 
 hath life in its nostrils, stands in need of my element. The 
 waters cannot preserve the fish without air, witness the not 
 breaking of ice in an extreme frost :'"' the reason is, for that 
 if the inspiring and expiring organ of any animal be stopped, 
 it suddenly yields to nature, and dies. Thus necessary is air 
 to the existence both of fish and beasts, nay, even to man 
 himself; the air or breath of life with which God at first 
 inspired mankind, he, if he wants it, dies presently, becomes 
 a sad object to all that loved and beheld him, and in an 
 instant turns to putrefaction. 
 
 Nay more, the very birds of the air, those that be not 
 hawks, are both so many and so useful and pleasant to man- 
 kind, that I must not let them pass without some observations. 
 They both feed and refresh him — feed him with their choice 
 bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices. I will not 
 imdertake to mention the several kinds of fowl by which this 
 is done — and his curious palate pleased by day, and which 
 with their very excrements afford him a soft lodging at night 
 — these I will pass by ; but not those little nimble musicians 
 of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which 
 nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. 
 
 As, first, the lark, when she means to rejoice, to cheer her- 
 self and those that hear her ; she then quits the earth, and 
 sings as she ascends higher into the air, and having ended 
 her heavenly employment, grows then mute and sad, to think 
 
 * Though deep waters may be frozen over, fish will live in them beneath the 
 ice. In shallow waters, fish are frequently frozen to death. Fish, like certain 
 quadrupeds — the northern bear, the marmot, and the little dormouse, frequently 
 remain in a torpid state during winter, and only revive with renewed increase 
 of temperature of the water, caused by rains or atmospheric influence. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 19 
 
 she must descend to the dull earth, which she would not 
 touch, but for necessity. 
 
 How do the blackbird and thrassel [thrush], with their 
 melodious voices, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in 
 their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art or 
 instrument can reach to ? 
 
 Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular 
 seasons, as, namel}^, the leverock, the titlark, the little linnet, 
 and the honest robin, that loves mankind both alive and 
 dead. 
 
 But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes 
 such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, 
 that it might make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. 
 He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, 
 should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet 
 descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and 
 redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and 
 say, " Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in 
 heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth f 
 
 And this makes me the less to wonder at the many aviaries 
 in Italy, or at the great charge of Varro's aviary, the ruins of 
 which are yet to be seen in Rome, and is still so famous there, 
 that it is reckoned for one of those notables which men of 
 foreign nations either record, or lay up in their memories, 
 when they return from travel. 
 
 This for the birds of pleasure, of which very much more 
 might be said. My next shall be of birds of political use. I 
 think 'tis not to be doubted that swallows* have been taught 
 to carry letters between two armies. But it is certain, that 
 when the Turks besieged Malta or Rhodes (I now remember 
 not which it was), pigeons are then related to carry and 
 recarry letters. And Mr. G. Sandys, in his Travels, relates it 
 to be done between Aleppo and Babjdon. But if that be dis- 
 believed, it is not to be doubted that the dove was sent out 
 of the ark by Noah, to give him notice of land, when to him 
 
 * Walton's knowledge of Natural History was as superficial and as supersti- 
 tious, if I may be allowed tlie use of the epithet, in many respects, as that of a 
 Munster peasant or Highland shepherd of the present day. No birds can be 
 trained to fly to and /row places. The carrier-pigeon will only fly with a mes- 
 sage, generally written on a slip of oiled-tissue paper lapped round theleg,/ro?re 
 a place to which the bird is taken, to its home. It will not carry a message 
 from its home or dove-cot to a given place ; it can make a return voyage, but 
 not an outimrd one. — Ed. 
 
 b2 
 
20 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 all appeared fco be sea ; and the dove proved a faithful and 
 comfortable messenger. And for the sacrifices of the law, a 
 pair of turtle-doves or young pigeons were as well accepted 
 as costly bulls and rams. And when God would feed the 
 prophet Elijah after a kind of miraculous manner, he did it 
 by ravens, who brought him meat morning and evening. 
 Lastly, the Holy Ghost, when he descended visibly upon our 
 Saviour, did it by assuming the shape of a dove. And to 
 conclude this part of my discourse, pray remember these 
 wonders were done by birds of the air, the element in which 
 they and I take so much pleasure. 
 
 There is also a little contemptible winged creature, an in- 
 habitant of my aerial element, — namely, the laborious bee, — of 
 whose prudence, policy, and regular government of their own 
 commonwealth, I might say much, as also of their several 
 kinds, and how useful their honey and wax are both for meat 
 and medicines to mankind ; bub I will leave them to their 
 sweet labour, without the least disturbance, believing them 
 to be all very busy at this very time amongst the herbs and 
 flowers that we see nature puts forth this May morning. 
 
 And now to return to my hawks, from whom I have made 
 too long a digression; you are to note, that thay are usually 
 distinguished into two kinds ; namely, the long-winged and 
 the short-winged hawk : of the first kind, there be chiefly 
 in use amongst us in this nation, 
 
 The Gerfalcon and Jerkin, 
 The Falcon and Tassel-gentel, 
 The Laner and Lanaret, 
 The Bockerel and Bockeret, 
 The Saker and Sacaret, 
 The Merlin and Jack Merlin, 
 The Hobby and Jack : 
 
 There is the Stelletto of Spaiu, 
 
 The Blood-red Book from Turkey, 
 The Waskite from Yirginia : 
 
 And there is of short-winged hawks. 
 
 The Eagle and Iron, 
 The Goshawk and Tar eel. 
 The Sparhawk and Musket, 
 The French Pve, of two sorts. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 21 
 
 These are reckoned hawks of note and worth ; but we haTc 
 xilso hawks of an inferior rank, 
 
 The Stanyel, the Ringtail, 
 
 The Kaven, the Buzzard, 
 
 The Forked Kite, the Bald Buzzard, 
 
 The Heu-driver, and others that I forbear to name. "' 
 
 Gentlemen, if I should enlarge mj discourse to the obser- 
 vation of the eiries, the brancher, the raniish hawk, the 
 haggard, and the two sorts of lentners, and then treat of 
 their several ayries, their me wings, rare order of casting, and 
 the renovation of their feathers : their reclaiming, dieting, 
 and then come to their rare stories of practice ; I say, if I 
 should enter into these, and many other observations that I 
 <;ould make, it would be much, very much pleasure to me : 
 but lest I should break the rules of civility to you, by taking 
 up more than the proportion of time allotted to me, I will 
 here break off, and entreat you, Mr. Venator, to say what you 
 are able in the commendation of hunting, to which you are 
 so much affected ; and, if time will serve, I will beg your 
 favour for a further enlargement of some of those several 
 heads of which I have spoken. But no more at present. 
 
 Yen. Well, sir, and I will now take my turn, and will first 
 begin with a commendation of the Earth, as you have done 
 most excellently of the Air ; the earth being that element 
 upon which I drive my pleasant, wholesome, hungry trade. 
 The earth is a solid, settled element — an element most 
 universally beneficial both to man and beast : to men who 
 have their several recreations upon it, as horse-racing, hunting, 
 sweet smells, pleasant walks : the earth feeds man, and all 
 those several beasts that both feed him, and afford him 
 recreation. What pleasure doth man take in hunting the 
 stately stag, the generous buck, the wild boar, the cunning 
 
 * It is evident, from this list of so-called falcons, that "Walton's "Auceps" 
 was not an adept in the art of hawking. The blood-red rook, the French i)ye, 
 and the raven, are not falcons at all, and were never trained to fly at winged 
 game. Of the other birds named in the list, only three are used in liawking, 
 viz., the gerfalcon, the goshawk, and the falcon and tassel-gentel. It may be 
 necessary to explain the last two names. By " falcon" is meant the peregrine 
 falcon, the best of all the tribe; and " tassel gentel" is merely the peregrine in 
 its second or third year. The merlin and liobby are very small hawks, and 
 will catch quails, larks, and sometimes partridges. The same may be said of 
 the sparrow-hawk. The eagle, buzzard, hen-driver (now called hen-harrier), 
 and kite, were never valued in hawking. In fact, these latter birds do not 
 jpursue their quarry, but pounce upon it. — Ed. 
 
22 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 otter, the crafty fox, and the fearful hare 1 And if I may 
 descend to a lower game, what pleasure is it sometimes with 
 gins to betray the very vermin of the earth ] as, namely, the 
 fitchet, the fulimart, the ferret, the pole -cat, the mould- warp, 
 and the like creatures that live upon the face and within 
 the bowels of the earth ! How doth the earth bring forth 
 herbs, flowers, and fruits, both for physic and the pleasure of 
 mankind ! and above all, to me at least, the fruitful vine, of 
 which, when I drink moderately, it clears my brain, cheers 
 my heart, and sharpens my wit. How could Cleopatra have 
 feasted Mark Antony with eight wild boars roasted whole at 
 one supper, and other meat suitable, if the earth had not been 
 a bountiful mother 1 But to pass by the mighty elephant, 
 which the earth breeds and nourisheth, and descend to the 
 least of creatures, how doth the earth afford us a doctrinal 
 example in the little pismire, who in the summer provides 
 and lays up her winter provision, and teaches man to do the 
 like ! The earth feeds and carries those horses that carry us. 
 If I would be prodigal of my time and your patience, wdiat 
 might not I say in commendations of the earth 1 that puts 
 limits to the proud and raging sea, and by that means pre- 
 serves both m£in and beast, that it destroys them not, as we 
 see it daily doth those that venture upon the sea, and are 
 there shipwrecked, drowned, and left to feed haddocks ; when 
 we that are so wise as to keep ourselves on the earth, walk, 
 and talk, and live, and eat, and drink, and go a hunting : of 
 which recreation I will say a little, and then leave Mr. Piscator 
 to the commendation of angling. 
 
 Hunting is a game for princes and noble persons ; it hath 
 been highly prized in all ages ; it was one of the qualifications 
 that Xenophon bestowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter 
 of wild beasts.""' Hunting trains up the younger nobility to 
 the use of manly exercises in their riper age.f What more 
 manly exercise than hunting the wild boar, the stag, the buck, 
 the fox, or the hare 1 How doth it preserve health, and 
 increase strength and activity ! 
 
 * See Cyropjedia, education of Cyrus, book i. chap. 5. Cyrus, when a boy, 
 paid a visit to his maternal grandfather, Astyages, king of the Medes, who kejit 
 all sorts of wild beasts in large parks (paradeisoi, or paradises). Here the 
 young Persian prince hunted continually the lion, the bear, and wild boar, and 
 in the sporting-field prepared himself for the battle-field. — Ed. 
 
 t Professor John Wilson (the well-known Kit North of Blackwood) attri- 
 butes the excellency of our cavalry officers to their fox-hunting education. The 
 Duke of Wellington kept a pack of fox-hounds in Spain, and hunted when his- 
 troops were in their winter cantonments. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 23 
 
 And for tlie clogs that we use, \vho can commend their 
 excellency to that height which they deserve 'I How perfect 
 is the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his 
 first scent, but follows it through so many changes and 
 varieties of other scents, even over and in the water, and into 
 the earth ! What music doth a pack of dogs then make to 
 any man, whose heart and ears are so happy as to be set to 
 the tune of such instruments ! How will a right greyhound 
 £.x. his eye on the best buck in a herd, single him out, and 
 follow him, and him only, through a whole herd of rascal 
 game, and still know and then kill him ! For my hounds, I 
 knov/ the language of them, and they know the language and 
 meaning of one another as perfectly as we know the voices of 
 those with whom we discourse daily. 
 
 I might enlarge myself in the commendation of hunting, 
 and of the noble hound especially, as also of the docibleness 
 of dogs in general ; and I might make many observations of 
 land creatures, that for composition, order, figure, and consti- 
 tution, approach nearest to the completeness and under- 
 standing of man ; especially of those creatures which Moses 
 in the law permitted to the Jews, which have cloven hoofs, 
 and chew the cud ; which I shall forbear to name, because 
 I will not be so uncivil to Mr. Piscator, as not to allow him a 
 time for the commendation of angling, which he calls an art ; 
 but doubtless it is an easy one ; and, Mr. Auceps, I doubt we 
 shall hear a watery discourse of it, but I hope it will not be 
 a long one. 
 
 Aug. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. 
 
 Pisc. Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I con- 
 fess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, 
 calm and quiet ; we seldom take the name of God into our 
 mouths but it is either to praise him or jn-ay to him ; if 
 others use it vainly in the midst of their recreations, so vainly 
 as if they meant to conjure, I must tell you that it is neither 
 our fault nor our custom ; we protest against it. But pray 
 remember, I accuse nobody ; for as I would not make a 
 " watery discourse," so I would not put too much vinegar into 
 it, nor would I raise the reputation of my own art by the 
 diminution or ruin of another's."^ And so much for the pro- 
 logue to what I mean to say. 
 
 And now for the water, the element that I trade in. The 
 
 * Spoken not only like an angler, but like a true sportsman, who appreciates 
 every sort of field-sport, though he gives a preference to one. — Ed. 
 
24 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 water is the eldest daughter of the creation, th.e element upon 
 which the Spirit of God did first move, the element which 
 God commanded to bring forth living creatures abundantly ; 
 and without which, those that inhabit the land, even all 
 creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly 
 return to putrefaction. Moses, the great lawgiver, and chief 
 philosopher, skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, who 
 was called the friend of God, and knew the mind of the 
 Almighty, names this element the first in the creation ; this 
 is the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, 
 and is the chief ingredient in the creation : many philosophers 
 have made it to comprehend all the other elements, and 
 most allow it the chiefest in the mixtion of all living crea- 
 tures. 
 
 There be that profess to believe that all bodies are made of 
 water, and may be reduced back again to water only : they 
 endeavour to demonstrate it tlius : 
 
 Take a willow, or any like speedy growing plant, newly 
 rooted in a box or barrel full of earth, weigh them all together 
 exactly when the tree begins to grow, and then weigh all 
 together after the tree is increased from its first rooting, to 
 weigh a liundred pound weight more than when it was first 
 rooted and weighed ; and you shall find this augment of the 
 tree to be without the diminution of one drachm weight of 
 the earth. Hence they infer this increase of wood to be from 
 water of rain, or from dew, and not to be from any other 
 element. And they afiirm they can reduce this wood back 
 again to water ; and they afiirm also the same may be done 
 in any animal or vegetable. And this I take to be a fair tes- 
 ', timony of the excellency of my element of water. 
 
 The water is more productive than the earth. Kay, the 
 earth hath no fruitfulness without showers or dews ; for all 
 the herbs and flowers and fruit are produced, and thrive by 
 the water ; and the very minerals are fed by streams that 
 run imder ground, whose natural course carries them to the 
 tops of many high mountains, as we see by several springs 
 breaking forth on the tops of the highest hills ; and this is 
 also witnessed by the daily trial and testimony of several 
 miners. 
 
 Nay, the increase of those creatures that are bred and fed 
 in the water is not only more and more miraculous, but more 
 advantageous to man, not only for the lengthening of his life, 
 but for preventing of sickness, for it is observed by the most 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 25 
 
 .earned plij^sicians, tiuit the casting off of Lent and other fish 
 days, which hath not only given the lie to so many learned, 
 pious, wise founders of colleges, for which we should be 
 ashamed, hath doubtless been the chief cause of those many 
 putrid, shaking, intermitting agues, unto which this nation of 
 ours is now more subject than those wiser countries that feed 
 on herbs, salads, and plenty of fish ; of which it is observed 
 in story, that the greatest part of tlie world now do.'^ And 
 it may be fit to remember tliat Moses appointed fish to be 
 the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet 
 was.t 
 
 And it is observable, not only that there are fish, as, namely, 
 the whale, three times as big as the mighty elephant, that is ] 
 so fierce in battle, but that tlie mightiest feasts have been of 
 fish. The Eomans in the height of their glory have made 
 fish the mistress of all their entertainments ; they have had 
 music to usher in their sturgeons, lampreys, and mullets, 
 which they would purchase at rates rather to be wondered at 
 than believed. He that shall view the writings of Macrobius 
 or Yarro may be confirmed and informed of this, and of the 
 incredible value of their fish and fish-ponds. 
 
 * The Protestants certainly have cast off Lent; and many of them vrill oat 
 meat on Good-Friday. Tlie majority of English Koman Catholics eat meat 
 four days out of the seven of the Lenten weeks. Very few fast on fiAi from 
 Shrove Tuesday to Easter Sunday : and in my opinion the latter would be far 
 more liable to agues or external influences in Piaster week, than tlie Protestant 
 beef-eaters. Walton frequently tries to prove too much. The inhabitants of 
 countries that should feed on " herbs, salads, and plenty of fish," would never 
 be so healthy and physically powerful as those whose principal food might be 
 flesh-raeat and bread. The golden eagle (falco crystatas), which feeds on flesli 
 exclusively, is a much more powerfid bird than the sea-eagle (Jalco clnereus), 
 whose food is fish, tliough the latter is the larger bird. — Ed. 
 
 t Moses did not appoint fish to be the " chief diet." He merely tells the 
 members of the " best commonwealth" what fish it is lawful for them to eat, 
 and what fish they should not touch. In respect to flesh-meat he does the 
 same. Leviticus xi. i), 10, Moses orders, " These shall ye eat of all that arc in 
 the waters : whatsoever hath tins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in 
 the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the 
 seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing 
 which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you." In Deut. xJv. 
 i), 10, the great lawgiver repeats his fish-eating clauses : " These ye shall eat of 
 all that are in the waters : all that have fins and sc.iles shall ye eat : and 
 whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat ; it is unclean unto you." 
 The modern Hebrews heed very little the edible interdicts of their progenitors. 
 They are, in England at least, great consumers, and tlio very best cooks of fish 
 without scales— of plaice, soles, turbot, cod, barbel, tench, &c. If the sumj)- 
 tuary laws of Moses were observed by them, the economic luxuries of the fried- 
 fish shops would be lost to myriads of Jews and Gentiles. — Ed. 
 
26 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I have almost lost myself, wliicli I confess 
 I may easily do in this philosophical discourse ; I met with 
 most of it very lately, and I hope, happily, in a conference 
 with a most learned physician, Dr. Wharton,'"' a dear friend, 
 that loves both me and my art of angling. But, however, 
 I will wade no deeper in these mysterious arguments, but 
 pass to such observations as I can manage with more pleasure, 
 and less fear of running into error. But I must not yet 
 forsake the waters, by whose help we have so many known 
 advantages. 
 
 And Urst, to pass by the miraculous cures of our known 
 baths, how advantageous is the sea for our daily traffic, 
 without which we could not now subsist ! How does it not. 
 only furnish us with food and physic for the bodies, but with 
 such observations for the mind as ingenious persons would 
 not want ! 
 
 How ignorant had we been of the beauty of Florence, of 
 the monuments, urns, and rarities that yet remain in and 
 near unto old and new E,ome, so many as it is said will take 
 up a year's time to view, and afford to each of them but a 
 convenient consideration ! And therefore it is not to be 
 wondered at, that so learned and devout a father as St. Jerome, 
 after his wish to have seen Christ in the flesh, and to have 
 heard St. Paul preach, makes his third wish, to have seen 
 Home in her glory ; and that glory is not yet all lost, for what 
 pleasure is it to see the monuments of Livy, the choicest of 
 the historians ; of TuUy, the best of orators ; and to see the 
 bay-trees that now grow out of the very tomb of Yirgil ! 
 These, to any that love learning, must be pleasing. But what 
 pleasure is it to a devout Christian to see there the humble 
 house in which St. Paul was content to dwell, and to view the 
 many rich statues that are made in honour of his memory ! 
 nay, to see the very place in which St. Petert and he lie 
 buried too:ether ! These are in and near to Ptome. And how 
 
 * Dr. Thomas "Wharton, an eminent physician and excellent anatomist, and 
 Gresham professor of physic. He lived in Aldersgate-street, London, and died 
 1673. 
 
 t The Protestants deny not only that St. Peter lies buried in the Vatican, as 
 the Romish writers assert, but that he ever was at Rome. See the Historia 
 Apostolica of Lud. Capellus. The sense of the Protestants on this point is ex- 
 pressed in the following epigram, alluding to the pranomen of Peter, Simony 
 and to the simony practised in that city — 
 
 " An Petrus fuerat Romffi sub judice lis est. 
 Simonem Romse nemo fuisse negat." — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 27 
 
 much more cloth it please the pious curiosity of a Christian to 
 see that place on which the blessed Saviour of the world was 
 pleased to humble himself, and to take our nature upon him,^ 
 and to converse with men : to see Mount Zion, Jerusalem, 
 and the very sepulchre of our Lord Jesus 1 How may it beget 
 and heighten the zeal of a Christian to see the devotions that 
 are daily paid to him at that place ! Gentlemen, lest I forget 
 myself I will stop here and remember yon, that but for my 
 element of water, the inhabitants of this poor island must 
 remain ignorant that such things ever were, or that any of 
 them have yet a being. 
 
 Gentlemen, I might both enlarge and lose myself in such 
 like arguments ; I might tell you that Almighty God is said 
 to have spoken to a fish but never to a beast ; that he hath 
 made a whale a ship to carry, and set his prophet Jonah safe 
 on the appointed shore. Of these I might speak, but I must 
 in manners break off, for I see Theobald's house. I cry your 
 mercy for being so long, and thank you for your patience. 
 
 Aug. Sir, my pardon is easily granted you : I except against 
 nothing that you have said ; nevertheless I must part with 
 you at this park- wall, for which I am very sorry ; but I assure 
 you, Mr. Piscator, I now part with you full of good thoughts, 
 not only of yourself, but your recreation. And so, gentlemen, 
 God keep you both. 
 
 Pisc. Well now, Mr. Yenator, you shall neither want time 
 nor my attention to hear you enlarge your discourse concern- 
 ing hunting. 
 
 Yen. Not I, sir : I remember you said that angling itself 
 was of great antiquity and a perfect art, and an art not easily 
 attained to ; and you have so won upon me in your former 
 discourse, that I am very desirous to hear what you can say 
 farther concerning those particulars. 
 
 Pisc. Sir, I did say so : and I doubt not but if you and I 
 did converse together but a few hours, to leave you possessed 
 with the same high and happy thoughts that now possess me 
 of it ; not only of the antiquity of angling, but that it deserves 
 commendations ; and that it is an art, and an art worthy the -j^ — 
 knowledge and practice of a wise man. 
 
 Yen. Pray, sir, speak of them what you think fit, for wo 
 have yet five miles to the Thatched House ; during which 
 walk, I dare promise you my patience and diligent attention 
 shall not be wanting. And if you shall make that to appear 
 which you have vmdertaken — first that it is an art, and an 
 
28 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 art worth the learning, I shall heg that I may attend you a 
 day or two a-hshing, and that I may become your scholar 
 and be instructed in the art itself which you so much 
 magnify. 
 
 Pisc. O sir, doubt not that angling is an art. Is it not an 
 art to deceive a trout with an artificial iiy ? a trout ! that is 
 more sharp- siglited than any hawk you have named, and 
 more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin 
 is bold ;*"* and yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to- 
 morrow for a friend's breakfast ; — doubt not, therefore, sir, but 
 that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning. The 
 [question is rather, whether you be capable of learning it ? 
 Ifor angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so : 
 t j! mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be height- 
 ened by discourse and practice : but he that hopes to be a 
 good angler, must not only bring an inquiring, searching, 
 observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope, 
 and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself ; but 
 ' having once got and practised it, then doubt not but angling 
 will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be like 
 virtue, a reward to itself 
 
 Ven. Sir, I am now become so full of expectation, that I 
 long much to have you proceed; and in the order you 
 propose. 
 
 Pisc. Then first, for the antiquity of angling, of which I 
 shall not say much, but only this ; some say it is as ancient 
 as Deucalion's flood : others, that Belus, wdio was the first in- 
 ventor of godly and virtuous recreations, was the first in- 
 ventor of angling ; and some others say, for former times 
 have had their disquisitions about the antiquity of it, that 
 Seth, one of the sons of Adam, taught it to his sons, and 
 that by them, it was derived to posterity : others say, that he 
 left it engraven on those pillars which he erected, and trusted 
 to preserve the knowledge of the mathematics, music, and 
 the rest of that precious knowdedge and those useful arts 
 which by God's appointment or allowance and his noble 
 industry, were thereby preserved from perishing in Noah's 
 flood.t 
 
 "* "VValton is evidently thinking of Auceps, the falconer so named, who 
 parted company as theyneared Tlieobald's House, otherwise lieAvould not have 
 said to Venator, the hunter with hounds and not with hawks, " your merlin." 
 It may be taken in another sense. — Ed. 
 
 t Those that say this are very safe in their assertion, for there is no remain- 
 ing evidence to contradict it. It may, however, be observed that the same has 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 29 
 
 These, Sir, have been the opinions of several men that 
 have possibly endeavoured to make angling more ancient 
 than is needful, or may well be warranted ; but for my part, 
 I shall content myself in telling you, that angling is much 
 more ancient than the Incarnation of our Saviour ; for in 
 the prophet Amos'" mention is made of fish-hooks ; and in 
 the book of Job, which was long before the days of Amos, 
 for that book is said to be writ by Moses, mention is made 
 also of fish-hooks, which must imply anglers in those times. 
 
 But, my worthy friend, as I would rather prove myself a 
 gentleman, by being learned and humble, valiant and inoffen- 
 sive, virtuous and communicable, than by any fond ostentation 
 of riches ; or, wanting those virtues myself, boast that these 
 were in my ancestors (and yet I grant that where a noble and 
 ancient descent, and such merit meet in any man, it is a 
 double dignification of that person) ; so if this antiquity of 
 angling, which for my part I have not forced, shall, like an 
 ancient family, be either an honour or an ornament to this 
 virtuous art which I profess to love and practise, I shall be 
 the gladder that I made an accidental mention of the anti- 
 quity of it, of which I shall say no more, but proceed to that 
 just commendation which I think it deserves. 
 
 And for that, 1 shall fcell you, that in ancient times a de- 
 bate hath arisen, and it remains yet unresolved : whether the 
 happiness of man in this world, doth consist more in contem- 
 plation or action ^ 
 
 Concerning which some have endeavoured to maintain 
 their opinion of the first ; by saying, that the nearer we 
 mortals come to God by way of imitation, the more happy 
 
 been said in favour of many other arts ; and, if I mistake not, of the hermetic 
 science and freemasonry : concerning the former whereof Ashmole has the con- 
 fidence to affirm, that by means of it Adam and the fathers before the flood, as 
 also Abraham, Moses and Solomon, wrought many wonders. See the Prole- 
 gomena to liis Thmtrum Chemiciim Britannkum, in which there is more such 
 nonsense and absurdity. — If. 
 
 *^ In the book of Amos, iv. 2, Ave find — " The Lord God hath sworn by His 
 holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that He will take you away 
 with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks." In Jeremiah xvi. 16, are 
 these words : "Behold I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they 
 shall fish them ; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt 
 them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the 
 rocks. Finally, in Habakkuk i. 15 it is written : " They take up all of them 
 with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag," 
 etc. Angling and hunting are unquestionably the most primitive of field 
 sports, isecessity as well as pleasure led to tlic pursuit of bird, beast, and fish. 
 —Ed. 
 
so THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Vie are. And they say that God enjoys himself only, by 
 ix contemplation of his own infiniteness, eternity, power, and 
 goodness, and the like. And upon this ground, many clois- 
 teral men of great learning and devotion, prefer contempla- 
 tion before action. And many of the fathers seem to approve 
 this opinion, as may appear in their commentaries upon the 
 words of our Saviour to Martha, Luke x. 41, 42. 
 
 And on the contrary, there want not men of equal autho- 
 rity and credit, that prefer action to be the more excellent ; 
 as namely, experiments in physic, and the application of it 
 both for the ease and prolongation of man's life ; by which 
 ^ach man is enabled to act and do good to others, either to 
 serve his country, or do good to particular persons. And 
 _they say also that action is doctrinal, and teaches both art 
 and virtue, and is a maintainor of human society ; and for 
 these, and other like reasons, to be preferred before con- 
 templation. 
 
 Concerning which two opinions, I shall forbear to add a 
 third, by declaring my own ; and rest myself contented in 
 telling you, my very worthy friend, that both these meet 
 together, and do not properly belong to the most honest, 
 ingenious, quiet, and harmless art of angling. 
 
 And iirst, I shall tell you what some have observed, and 
 f I have found it to be a real truth, that the very sitting by the 
 river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for con- 
 templation, but will invite an angler to it : and this seems to 
 be maintained by the learned Peter Du Moulin,'^ who in his 
 discourse of the fulfilling of prophecies, observes, that when 
 God intended to reveal any future events or high notions to 
 his prophets, he then carried them either to the deserts or 
 the sea-shore, that having so separated them from amidst the 
 press of people and business, and the cares of the world, he 
 might settle their minds in a quiet repose, and there ma.ke 
 them fit for revelation. 
 
 And this seems also to be intimated by the Children of 
 Israel (Psal. cxxxvii.),t who having in a sad conditionbanished 
 iill mirth and music from their pensive hearts, and having 
 hung up their then mute harps upon the willow-trees grow- 
 
 * An ancient prebendary of Canterbury, and author of several pieces in the 
 llomish controversy. — H. 
 
 t " By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we 
 remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst 
 thereof." (Psalm cxxxvii. 1,2.) 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 31 
 
 ing by the rivers of Babylon, sat down upon tliese banks 
 bemoaning the ruins of Sion, and contemplating their own 
 sad condition. 
 
 And an ingenious Spaniard says, that "rivers and the 
 inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men 
 to contemplate and fools to pass by without consideration." 
 And though I will not rank myself in the number of the first, 
 yet give me leave to free myself from the last, by offering to 
 you a short contemplation, first of rivers and then of fish ; 
 concerning which I doubt not but to give you many observa- 
 tions that will appear very considerable : I am sure they have 
 appeared so to me, and made many an hour to pass away 
 more pleasantly, as I have sat quietly on a flowery bank by a 
 calm river, and contemplated what I shall now relate to you. ' 
 
 And first, concerning rivers : there be so many wonders 
 reported and written of them, and of the several creatures 
 that be bred and live in them ; and those by authors of so 
 good credit, that we need not to deny them an historical 
 faith. 
 
 As namely of a river in Epirus, that puts out any lighted \ 
 torch, and kindles any torch that was not lighted. Some ) 
 waters being drank cause madness, some drunkenness, and j 
 some laughter to death. The river Selarus in a few hours 
 turns a rod or wand to stone; and our Camden mentions the 
 like in England, and the like in Lochmere in Ireland. There- 
 is also a river in Arabia, of which all the sheej) that drink 
 thereof have their wool turned into a vermilion colour. And 
 one of no less credit than Aristotle, tells us of a merry river, 
 the river Elusina, that dances at the noise of music, for with 
 music it bubbles, dances, and grows sandy, and so continues 
 till the music ceases, but then it presently returns to its 
 wonted calmness and clearness. And Camden tells us of a 
 well near to Kirby in Westmoreland, that ebbs and flows 
 several times every day : and he tells us of a river in Surrey, 
 it is called Mole, that after it has run several miles, being 
 opposed by hills, finds or makes itself a way under ground, 
 and breaks out again so far off, that the inhabitants there- 
 about boast, as the Spaniards do of their river Anus, that 
 they feed divers flocks of sheep upon a bridge. And lastly, 
 for I would not tire your patience, one of no less authority 
 than Josephus, that learned Jew, tells us of a river in Judea 
 that runs swiftly all the six days of the week, and stands 
 still and rests all their sabbath. 
 
32 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you 
 some tilings of the monsters, or fish, call them what you will, 
 that they breed and feed in them. Pliny, the philosopher, 
 says, in the third chapter of his ninth book, that in the Indian 
 .Sea, the fish called halcena or whirlpool, is so long and broad 
 as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of 
 ground ; and of other fish of two hundred cubits long ; and 
 that, in the river Ganges, there be eels of thirty feet long. 
 He says there, that these monsters appear in the sea only 
 when temjDestuous winds oppose the torrents of water falling 
 from the rocks into it, and so turning what lay at the bottom 
 to be seen on the water's top. And he says, that the people 
 of Cadara, an island near this place, make the timber for their 
 houses of those fish-bones. He there tells us, that there are 
 sometimes a thousand of these great eels found wrapt or 
 interwoven together. He tells us there, that it appears that 
 dolphins love music, and will come when called for, by some 
 men or boys that know, and use to feed them; and that they 
 can swim as swift as an arrow can be shot out of a bow; and 
 much of this is spoken concerning the dolphin, and other fish, 
 as may be found also in the learned Dr. Casaubon's " Dis- 
 course of Credulity and Incredulity," printed by him about 
 the year 1670.'"' 
 
 I know, we islanders are averse to the belief of these 
 wonders ; but there be so many strange creatures to be now 
 seen, many collected by John Tradescant,t and others added 
 
 * Xotliing can testify more strongly tlie credulity of AValton, than the ridi- 
 culous statements made in this paragrapli and that ^vhich precedes it, touching 
 the character of rivers and the alleged Animalia they produce. The modern 
 reader will not place the slighest " historical faith" in them. — Ed. 
 
 t There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants — grandfather, father, and 
 son; the son is the person here meant; the two former were gardeners to 
 Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to King Charles I. They were all great 
 botanists, and collectors of natural and other curiosities, and dwelt at South 
 Lambeth in Surrey; and, dying there, were buried in Lambeth churchyard. 
 My. Ashmole contracted an acquaintance with the last of them, and together 
 with his wife boarded at his house for a summer, during which Ashmole agreed 
 for the purchase of Tradescant's collection, and the same was conveyed to him 
 by a deed of gift from Tradescant and his wife. Tradescant soon after died, 
 and Ashmole was obliged to file a bill in the Court of Chancery for the delivery 
 of the curiosities, and succeeded in his suit. Mrs. Tradescant, shortly after the 
 pronouncing the decree, was found drowned in her pond. This collection, Avith 
 what additions he afterwards made to it, Mr. Ashmole gave to the University of 
 Oxford, and so became the founder of the Ashmolean Museum. A monument 
 for all the three Tradescants, very curiously ornamented with sculptures, is to 
 be seen in Lambeth churchyard. The Tradescants were the first collectors of 
 natural curiosities in this kingdom, and Ashmole and Sir ILans Sloane were 
 the second. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 33 
 
 by my friend Elias Aslirnole, Esq., who now keeps them 
 carefully and methodically at his house near to Lambeth 
 near London, as may get some belief of some of the other 
 wonders I mentioned. I will tell you some of the wonders 
 that you may now see, and .not till then believe, unless you 
 think fit. 
 
 You may see the hog-fish, the dog-fish, the dolphin, the 
 coney-fish, the parrot-fish, the shark, the poison-fish, sword-fish, 
 and not only other incredible fish, but you may there see the 
 salamander, several sorts of barnacles, and Solan geese, the 
 bird of Paradise, such sorts of snakes, and such birds'-nests, 
 and of so various forms, and so wonderfully made, as may 
 beget wonder and amusement in any beholder : and so many 
 hundred of other rarities in that collection, as will make the 
 other wonders I spake of the less incredible ; for you may 
 note, that the waters are nature's store-house, in which she 
 locks up her wonders. 
 
 But, sir, lest this discourse may seem tedious, I shall give 
 it a sweet conclusion out of that holy poet Mr. George 
 Herbert his divine " Contemplation on God's Providence." 
 
 Lord, who hath praise enough ; nay, who hath any ? 
 
 None can express thy works but he that knows them 
 And none can know thy works, they are so many, 
 
 And so complete, but only he that owes them. 
 
 We all acknowledge both thy power and love 
 
 To be exact, transcendent, and divine ; 
 Who dost so strongly and so sweetly move. 
 
 Whilst all things have their end, yet none but thine. 
 
 Wherefore, most sacred Spirit, I here present, 
 For me, and all my fellows, praise to thee ; 
 
 And just it is that I should pay the rent, 
 Because the benefit accrues to me. 
 
 And as concerning fish, in that psalm (Psalm civ.), wherein, 
 for height of poetry and wonders, the prophet David seems 
 even to exceed himself; how doth he there express himself in 
 choice metaphors, even to the amazement of a contemplative 
 reader, concerning the sea, the rivers, and the fish therein 
 contained ! And the great naturalist, Pliny, says, " that 
 nature's great and wonderful power is more demonstrated in 
 the sea than on the land." And this may appear by the 
 numerous and various creatures inhabiting both in and about 
 
34 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 that element ; as to the readers of Gesner,* Kondeletius,+ 
 Pliny, Au.soniiiSjJ Aristotle, and others, may be demonstrated. 
 But I will sweeten this discourse also out of a contemplation 
 in divine Du Bartas,§ (in the fifth day) who says : — 
 
 God quicken' d in the sea, and in the rivers, 
 
 So many fishes of so many features, 
 
 That in the waters we may see all creatures, 
 
 Even all that on the earth are to be found. 
 
 As if tiie world were in deep waters drown' d. 
 
 For seas — as well as skies — have sun, moon, stars ; 
 
 As well as air — swallows, rooks, and stares ; 
 
 As well as earth — vines, roses, nettles, melons. 
 
 Mushrooms, pinks, gilliflov/era, and many millions 
 
 Of other plants, more rare, more strange than these, 
 
 As very fishes, living in the seas ; 
 
 As also rams, calves, horses, hares, and hogs, 
 
 Wolves, urchins, lions, elephants, and dogs ; 
 
 Yea, men and maids ; and, which I most admire, 
 
 The mitred bishop and the cov/led friar ; 
 
 Of which, examples, but a few years since, 
 
 Were shown the Norway and Polonian Prince, 
 
 These seem to be wonders, but have had so many confirm- 
 ations from men of learning and credit, that 3^ou need not 
 doubt them ; nor are the number, nor the various shapes of 
 fishes, more strange or more fit for contemplation, than their 
 difierent natures, inclinations, and actions ; concerning which 
 I shall beg your patient ear a little longer. 
 
 The cuttle-fish will cast a long gut out of her throat, 
 which, like as an angler doth his line, she sendeth forth and 
 pulleth in again at her pleasure, according as she sees some 
 little fish come near to her ; and the cuttle-fish, being then 
 hid in the gravel, lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end 
 
 * Conrad Gesner, an eminent physician and naturalist, was bom at Zurich, 
 in 1516. IJis skill in botany and natural liistory was such as procured him 
 the appellation of the Pliny of Germany ; and Beza, wlio knew him, scruples 
 not to assert, that he concentred in himself the learning of Fliny and Varro. 
 He died in 1565. 
 
 t Guillaume Kondelet, an eminent physician, born at Montpelier, in Lan- 
 guedoc, in 1507. He wrote several books, and a treatise De Piscibus Marinis, 
 where all that Walton lias taken from liim is to be found. He died very poor, 
 of a surfeit occasioned by eating of figs to excess, in ISfiG. 
 
 % Decius Ausonius, a native of Bordeaux, was a Latin poet, consul of Home, 
 and preceptor to the Emperor Gratian. He died about 390. 
 
 § Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur de Bartas, was a poet of great reputation in 
 Walton's time. He wrote, in French, a poem called "Divine Weeks and 
 Works," from whence the passage in the text and many others cited in this 
 work are extracted. This, with his other delightful works, was translated into 
 English by Joshua Sylvester. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 35 
 
 of it^ at which time she bj little and little draws the smaller 
 fish so near to her, that she may leap upon her, and then 
 catches and devours her : and for this reason some have 
 called this fish the sea-angler. 
 
 And there is a fish called a hermit, that at a certain age 
 gets into a dead fish's shell, and like a hermit dwells there 
 alone, studying the wind and weather, and so turns her shell, 
 that she makes it defend her from the injuries that they 
 would bring upon her. 
 
 There is also a fish called, by ^lian, in his ninth book of 
 Living Creatures, chap. 16, the Adonis, or darling of the sea; 
 so called because it is a loving and innocent fish, a fish that 
 hurts nothing that hath life, and is at peace with all the 
 numerous inhabitants of that vast watery element : and truly 
 I think most anglers are so disposed to most of mankind. 
 
 And there are also lustful and chaste fishes, of which I 
 shall give you examples. 
 
 And first Du Bartas says of a fish called the «argus ; which 
 because none can express it better than he does, I shall give 
 you in his own words ; supposing it shall not have the less 
 credit for being in verse ; for he hath gathered this and other 
 observations out of authors that have been great and indus- 
 trious searchers into the secrets of nature. 
 
 The adulterous sargus doth not only change 
 
 Wives every day, in the deep streams, but, strange, 
 
 As if the honey of sea-love delight 
 
 Could not suffice his raging appetite, 
 
 Goes courting she -goats on the grassy shore, 
 
 Homing their husbands that had horns before. 
 
 And the same author writes concerning the canthar us that 
 which you shall also hear in his own words ! — 
 
 But, contrary, the constant cantharus 
 Is ever constant to his faithful spouse ; 
 In nuptial duties spending his chaste life ; 
 Never loves any but his own dear \nfe. 
 
 Sir, but a little longer, and I have done. 
 
 Yen. Sir, take what liberty you think fit, for your discourse 
 seems to be music, and charms me to an attention. 
 
 Pisc. Why then, sir, I will take a liberty to tell, or rather 
 to remember you what is said of turtle-doves : first, that they 
 silently plight their troth, and marry; and that then the 
 survivor scorns, as the Thracian women are said to do, to 
 outlive his or her mate, and this is taken for a truth; and if 
 
 c2 
 
86 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 the survivor shall ever couple with another, then not only the 
 living but the dead, be it either the he or the she, is denied 
 the name and honour of a true turtle-dove. 
 
 And to parallel this land-rarity, and teach mankind moral 
 faithfulness, and to condemn those that talk of religion, and 
 yet come short of the moral faith of fish and fowl ; men that 
 violate the law affirmed by St. Paul, Kom. ii. 14, 15, to be 
 writ in their liearts, and which he says shall at the last day 
 condemn and leave them without excuse ; I pray hearken to 
 what Du Bartas sings, for the hearing of such conjugal fliith- 
 fulness v/ill be music to all chaste ears, and therefore I pray 
 hearken to what Du Bartas sings of the mullet. 
 
 But for chaste love the Mullet hath no peer ; 
 For if the fisher hath surprised her pheer, 
 As mad with woe to shore she followeth, 
 Prest to consort him both in life and death.* 
 
 On the contrary, what shall I say of the house-cock, which 
 treads any hen, and then, contrary to the swan, the partridge, 
 and pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed or to cherish his 
 own brood, but is senseless, though they ])erish. 
 
 And it is considerable that the hen, which, because she also 
 takes any cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be 
 her own, hath by a moral impression her care and affection 
 to her own brood more than doubled, even to such a height 
 that our Saviour, in expressing his love to Jerusalem, Matt, 
 xxiii. 37, quotes her for an example of tender affection ; as 
 his Father had done Job for a pattern of patience. 
 
 And to parallel this cock, there be divers fishes that cast 
 their spawn on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered 
 and exposed to become a prey and be devoured by vermin, or 
 other fishes; but other fishes, as namely the barbel, take such 
 care for the preservation of their seed, that unlike to the cock 
 ov the cuckoo, they mutually labour, both the spawner and 
 the melter, to cover the spawn with sand or watch it,t or hide 
 
 * AH that Walton writes about the habits of fish, from the paragraph begin- 
 ning, " Tlie cuttle-fish," down to this point, lias no foundation in fact. It 
 deserves, however, the compliment paid to it by Venator — " Your discourse 
 seems to be music, and charms me to an attention." — Ed. 
 
 t No river-fish ever v,'atchcs its spawn or ova after deposition. When the 
 ova are deposited by the female, and impregnated by the male fish, and covered 
 in by a superstructure of any substance, they are abandoned by the parents, 
 and left to be vivified by the chemical action of water, sun, and atmosphere. 
 —Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 37 
 
 it in some secret place, unfrequented by vermin or any fisli 
 but themselves. 
 
 Sir, these examples may to you and others seem strange, 
 but they are testified, some by Aristotle, some by Pliny, some 
 by Gesner, and by many others of credit ; and are believed 
 and known by divers both of wisdom and experience, to be a ' 
 truth ; and indeed are, as I said at the beginning, fit for the 
 contemplation of a most serious and a most pious n^an. And 
 doubtless this made the prophet David say, '' They that 
 occupy themselves in deep waters see the wonderful works of 
 God :" indeed such wonders and pleasures too, as the land 
 affords not. 
 
 And that they be fit for the contemplation of the most 
 prudent and pious and peaceable men, seems to be testified 
 by the practice of so many devout and contemplative men, as 
 the patriarchs and prophets of old ; and of the apostles of our 
 Saviour in our latter times, of which twelve, we are sure he 
 chose four that were simple fishermen, whom he inspired and 
 sent to publish his blessed will to the Gentiles ; and inspired 
 them also with a power to speak all languages, and by their 
 powerful eloquence to beget faith in the unbelieving Jews ; 
 and themselves to suffer for that Saviour whom their fore- 
 fathers and they had crucified ; and, in their sufferings, to 
 preach freedom from the encumbrances of the law, and a new 
 way to everlasting life : this was the employment of these 
 happy fishermen. Concerning which choice some have made 
 these observations. 
 
 First, That he never reproved these for their employment 
 or calling as he did scribes and the money-changers. And 
 secondly, he found that the hearts of such men by nature 
 were fitted for contemplation and quietness ; men of mild, 
 and sweet, and peaceable spirits, as indeed most anglers are : 
 these men our blessed Saviour, who is observed to love to 
 plant grace in good natures, though indeed nothing be too 
 hard for him; yet these men he chose to call from their irre- 
 provable employment of fishing, and gave them grace to be 
 his disciples, and to follow him and do wonders. I say four 
 of twelve. 
 
 And it is observable, that it was our Saviour's will, that 
 these our four fishermen should have a priority of nomination 
 in the catalogue of his twelve apostles. Matt. x. 2. Acts i. 1 3 ; 
 as namely, first, St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. 
 John, and then the rest in their order. 
 
SB THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 And it is yet more observable, that when our blessed 
 Saviour went up into the mount, when he left the rest of his 
 disciples and chose odIj three to bear him company at his 
 transfiguration, that those three were all fishermen. And it 
 is to be believed, that all the other apostles, after they betook 
 themselves to follow Christ, betook themselves to be fisher- 
 men too ; for it is certain, that the greater number of them 
 were found together fisliing by Jesus after his Eesurrection, 
 as it is recorded in the 21st chapter of St. John's Gospel, ver. 
 3 and 4. 
 
 And since I have your promise to hear me with patience, I 
 will take the liberty to look back upon an observation that hath 
 been made by an ingenious and learned man, who observes, 
 that God hath been pleased to allow those, whom he himself 
 hath appointed to write his holy will in holy writ, yet, to ex- 
 press his will in such metaphors as their former affections or 
 practice had inclined them to; and he brings Solomon for an 
 example, who before his conversion was remarkably carnally 
 amorous ; and after, by God's appointment, wrote that 
 spiritual dialogue, or holy amorous love-song, the Canticles, 
 betwixt God and his church ; in whicli he says, his beloved 
 had eyes like the fish-pools of Heshbon. 
 
 And if this hold in reason, as I see none to the contrary, 
 then it may be probably concluded, that Moses, who I told 
 you before writ the book of Job, and the prophet Amos, who 
 was a shepherd, were both anglers ; for you shall, in all the 
 Old Testament find fish-hooks, I think, but twice mentioned : 
 namely, by meek Moses, the friend of God, and by the humble 
 prophet Amos. Concerning which last, namely, the prophet 
 Amos, I shall make but this observation ; that he that shall 
 read the humble, lowly, plain style of that prophet, and com- 
 pare it with the high, glorious, eloquent style of the prophet 
 Isaiah (though they both be equally true), may easily believe 
 Amos to be, not only a shepherd, but a good-natured, pl'din 
 fisherman. Whicli I do the rather believe, by comparing 
 the affectionate, loving, lowl}^, liumble, epistles of St. Peter, 
 St, James, and St. John, whom we know were all fishers, 
 with the glorious language and high metaphors of St. Paul, 
 whom we may believe was not. 
 
 And for the lawfulness of fishing : it may very well be 
 maintained by our Saviour's bidding St. Peter cast his hook 
 into the water and catch a fish, for money to pay tribute to 
 Csesar. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 39 
 
 And let me tell you that angling is of high esteem and 
 much use in other nations. He that reads the voyages of 
 Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, "'^^ shall find that there he declares 
 to have found a king and several priests a-fishing. 
 
 And he that reads Pliitarch shall find that angling was not 
 <;ontemptible in the days of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, and 
 that they, in the midst of their wonderful glory, used angling 
 as a principal recreation. t And let me tell you, that in the 
 Scripture angling is always taken in the best sense, and that 
 
 * A traveller so noted for his mendacity, that to call any nan-ator of travels 
 a " Mendez Pinto," is an insult. — Ed. 
 
 t I must here so far differ from my author, as to say, that if angling was 
 not contemptible in the days of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, that illustrious 
 prostitute endeavoured to make it so. The fact related by Plutarch is the 
 following : — 
 
 " It would be very tedious and tnfling to recount all his follies ; but his fish- 
 ing must not be forgot. He went out one day to angle with Cleopatra ; and 
 being so unfortunate as to catch nothing in the presence of his mistress, he was 
 very much vexed, and gave secret orders to the fishermen to dive under water, 
 and put fishes that had been fresh taken upon his hook. After he had drawn 
 up two or three, Cleopatra perceived the trick ; she pretended, however, to be 
 surprised at his good fortune and dexterity, told it to all her friends, and 
 invited them to come and see him fish the next day. Accordingly, a very 
 large company went out in the fishing vessels ; and as soon as Antony had let 
 down his line, she commanded one of her servants to be beforehand with An- 
 tony's, and, diving into the water, to fix upon his hook a salted fish, one of 
 those which were brought from the Euxine Sea." 
 
 The story here told affords matter of serious reflection. Behold here two 
 persons of the highest rank, who liad exhausted all the sources of sensual de- 
 light — their appetites palled, and every gratification rendered tasteless — 
 stooping to partake of the recreations of the meaner sort ; and of tyrants and 
 persecutors of their fellow-creatures, to become the deceivers of silly fish and 
 of each otlier. Doubtless we may suppose, that long before the tragical end 
 which they severally made of a profligate and wicked life, they were grown 
 tired and sick of the world, and had frequent occasion to exclaim — and that 
 with greater reason than their predecessor in worldly glory — that all the pomp 
 and splendour of dominion, all the power and authority resulting from regal 
 grandeur, all ambitious enterprises, all merely human projects, pursuits, and 
 pleasures, without a tranquil and composed mind, such as God vouchsafes only 
 to the meek and humble, are vanity and vexation of spirit. — 11. 
 
 [Shakspeare, no doubt, read the above passage from Plutarch ; for in his play 
 of Anthony and Cleopatra we find the following verses : — 
 
 " Cleopatra. — Give me mine angle. We'll to the river ; there, 
 
 My music playing far off, I will betray 
 
 Tawny-finned fishes ; ray bended hook shall pierce 
 
 Their slimy jaws ; and as I draw them up, 
 
 I'll think them every one an Antony, 
 
 And say, ' Ah, ha ! you're caught.' 
 Cluirmian — 'Twas merry, when 
 
 You wager'd on your angling ; when your diver 
 
 Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he 
 
 With fervency drew up." Act II., Scene 5.] 
 
40 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 though hunting may be sometimes so taken, yet it is but 
 seldom to be so understood. And let me add this more, he 
 that views the ancient ecclesiastical canons, shall find hunting 
 to be forbidden to churchmen, as being a turbulent, toilsome, 
 perplexing recreation ; and shall find angling allowed to 
 clergymen, as being a harmless recreation — a recreation that 
 invites them to contemplation and quietness. 
 
 I might here enlarge myself by telling you what com- 
 mendations our learned Perkins bestows on angling : and how 
 dear a lover, and great a practiser of it our learned Doctor 
 Whittaker was, as indeed many others of great learning have 
 been. But I will content myself with two memorable men,, 
 that lived near to our own time, whom I also take to have 
 been ornaments to the art of angling. 
 
 The first, is Doctor Nowel, sometime Dean of the Cathedral 
 Church of St. Paul's in London, where his monument stands 
 yet undefaced : a man that in the reformation of Queen 
 Elizabeth, not that of Henry YIII., was so noted for his 
 meek spirit, deep learning, prudence, and piety, that the then 
 Parliament and Convocation both, chose, enjoined, and trusted 
 him to be the man to make a catechism for public use, such 
 a one as should stand as a rule for faith and manners to 
 their posterity. And the good old man, though he was very 
 learned, yet knowing that God leads us not to Heaven by 
 many nor by hard questions, like an honest angler, made that 
 good, plain, unperplexed catechism, which is printed with our 
 good old service-book.* I say, this good old man was a dear 
 lover and constant practiser of angling, as any age can produce : 
 and his custom was to spend, besides his fixed hours of prayer 
 (those hours which, by command of the church, were enjoined 
 the clergy, and voluntarily dedicated to devotion by many 
 primitive Christians) ; I say, beside those hours, this good 
 man was observed to spend a tenth part of his time in angling ; 
 and also, for I have conversed with those which have conversed 
 with him, to bestow a tenth part of his revenue, and usually 
 all his fish, amongst the poor that inhabited near to those 
 rivers in which it was caught ; saying often, " that charity 
 gave life to religion :" and, at his return to his house, would 
 praise God he had spent that day free from worldly trouble ;. 
 
 * The Catechism bound up with the Book of Common Prayer, is not that 
 compiled by Dr. Nowel. He drew up at the request of Mr. Secretary Cecil 
 (temp. Eliz.), a larger Catechism, which was sanctioned by Convocation, and. 
 not by Tarliament, in 1562. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 41 
 
 both harmlessly, and in recreation that became a churchman. 
 And this good man was well content, if not desirous, that 
 posterity should know he was an angler; as may appear by his 
 picture, now to be seen, and carefully kept, in Brazen-nose 
 College ; to which he was a liberal benefactor. In which 
 picture he was drawn, leaning on a desk, with his Bible before 
 him, and on one hand of him his lines, hooks, and other tack- 
 ling lying in a round ; and on his other hand are his angle- 
 rods of several sorts: and by them this is written, ^^ That he 
 died 13 Feb. 1601, being aged 95 years, 44 of which he had 
 been Dean of St. Paul's Church ; and that his age had neither 
 impaired his hearing, nor dimmed his eyes, nor weakened his 
 memory, nor made any of the faculties of his mind weak or 
 useless." 'Tis said, that angling and temperance^' were great 
 causes of these blessings, and I wish the like to all that 
 imitate him, and love the memory of so good a man. 
 
 My next and last example, shall be that under-valuer of 
 money, the late provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wottont — 
 a man with whom I have often fished and conversed, a man 
 whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and 
 whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his 
 company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind : this 
 man, whose very approbation of angling were sufficient to 
 convince any modest censurer of it, this man was also a most 
 dear lover, and a frequent practiser of the art of angling ; of* 
 which he would say, " 'Twas an employment for his idle time, 
 which was then not idly spent :" for angling was, "after tedious 
 study, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of 
 sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, 
 a procurer of contented ness :" and '^ that it begat habits of 
 peace and patience in those that professed and practised it." 
 Indeed, my friend, you will find angling to be like the virtue 
 of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a world of 
 
 * It would appear, that though reputed temperate, he was by no means a 
 teetotaller ; for Sir J. Hawkins says, " that Fuller, in his ' Worthies,' Lanca- 
 sliire, p. 115, has thought it worth recording of this pious and learned divine, 
 and that in language so very quaint as to be but just intelligible, that he was 
 accustomed to fish in the Thames ; and Iiaving one day left his bottle of ale in 
 the grass, on the bank of the river, he found it some days after, no bottle, but a 
 gun, such the sound at the opening thereof And hence, with what degree of 
 sagacity, let the reader determine, he seems to derive the original of bottled ale 
 in England." 
 
 t See his Life by Walton, in First Part of " Universal Library," section 
 •' Biography," published by Messrs. Ingram, Cooke, and Co., 227, Strand, 1853. 
 
42 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 other blessings attending upon it. Sir, this was the saying 
 of that learned man. 
 
 And I do easily believe, that peace and patience, and a 
 calra content, did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry 
 Wotton ; because I know that when he was beyond seventy 
 years of age, he made this description of a part of the present 
 pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly in a summer's 
 evening, on a bank a-fishing. It is a description of the spring ; 
 which because it glided as soft and sweetly from his pen, as 
 that river does at this time, by which it was then made, I 
 shall repeat it unto you : — 
 
 This day dame Nature seem'd in love ; 
 
 The lusty sap began to move ; 
 
 Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines ; 
 
 And birds had drawn their valentines. 
 
 The jealous trout, that low did lie, 
 
 Hose at a well-dissembled fly ; 
 
 There stood my friend, with patient skill, 
 
 Attending of his trembling quill ; 
 
 Already were the eaves possessed 
 
 With the swift pilgrim's daubed nest ; 
 
 The groves already did rejoice 
 
 In Philomel's triumphing voice, 
 
 The showers were short, the weather mild, 
 
 The morning fresh, the evening smiled. 
 
 Joan takes her neat-rubbed pail, and now 
 She trips to milk the sand-red cow ; 
 Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain, 
 Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. 
 The fields and gardens were beset 
 With tulip, crocus, violet ; 
 And now, though late, the modest rose 
 Did more than half a blush disclose. 
 
 Thus all looks gay and full of cheer. 
 
 To welcome the new-liveried year. 
 
 These were the thoughts that then possessed the undis- 
 iiurbed mind of Sir Henry Wotton. Will you hear the wish 
 of another angler, and the commendation of his happy life, 
 which he also sings in verse ; — viz., Jo. Davors, Esq. : — 
 
 Let me live harmlessly ; and near the brink 
 
 Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place, 
 Where I may see my quill or cork down sink 
 
 With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace ; 
 And on the world and my Creator think : 
 
 Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace,. 
 And others spend their time in base excess 
 Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness. 
 
TPIE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 43 
 
 Let them that list, these pastiiues still pursue, 
 
 And on such pleasing? fancies feed their fill ; 
 So I the fields and meadows green may view, 
 
 And daily by fresh rivers walk at will, 
 Among the daisies and the violets blue, 
 
 Red hyacinth and yellow daiFodil, 
 Purple narcissus like the morning rays, 
 Pale gander-grass, and azure culverkeys. 
 
 I c(mnt it higher pleasure to behold 
 
 The stately compass of the lofty sky ; 
 And in the midst thereof, like burning gold, 
 
 The flaming chariot of the world's great e3'e ; 
 The watery clouds that, in the air up-roU'd, 
 
 With sundry kinds of painted colours fly ; 
 And fair Aurora, lifting up her head. 
 Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed. 
 
 The hills and mountains raised from the plains, 
 
 The plains extended level with the ground ; 
 The grounds divided into sundry veins. 
 
 The veins enclosd with rivers running round ; 
 These rivers making way through nature's chains 
 
 Vfith headlong course into the sea profound ; 
 The raging sea, beneath the valleys low, 
 AVhere lakes and rills and rivulets do flow. 
 
 The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, 
 
 Adorn'd with leaves and branches fresh and green. 
 
 In whose cool bowers the birds, with many a song, 
 Do welcome Avith their choir the summer's queen ; 
 
 The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among 
 Are intermix'd, with verdant grass between ; 
 
 The silver-scaled fish that softly swim 
 
 Within the SM-eet brook's crystal watery stream. 
 
 All these, and many more of His creation 
 
 That made the heavens, the angler oft doth see ; 
 
 Taking therein no little delectation, 
 
 To think how strange, how wonderful they be ! 
 
 Framing thereof an inward contemplation 
 To set his heart from other fancies free ; 
 
 And whilst he looks on these with joj^ful eye, 
 
 His mind is wrapt above the starry sky. 
 
 Sir, I am glad my memory lias not lost these last verses, 
 because tliey are somewhat more pleasant and more suitable 
 to May- day than my harsh discourse. And I am glad your 
 patience hath held out so long, as to hear them and me ; for 
 both together have brought us within the sight of the Thatched 
 House. And I must be your debtor, if you think it worth 
 your attention, for the rest of my promised discourse, till 
 some other opportunity, and a like time of leisure. 
 
44 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 Yen. Sir, you have angled me on with much pleasure to 
 the Thatched House ; and I now find your words true, "that 
 good company makes the way seem short ;" for trust me, sir, 
 I thought we had wanted three miles of this house, till you 
 shewed it me. But now we are at it, we'll turn into it, and 
 refresh ourselves with a cup of drink, and a little rest. 
 
 Pisc. Most gladly, sir, and we'll drink a civil cup to all the 
 otter-hunters that are to meet you to-morrow. 
 
 Yen. That we will, sir, and to all the lovers of angling, of 
 which number I am now willing to be one myself : for, by the 
 help of your good discourse and company, I have put on new 
 thoughts both of the art of angling, and of all that profess it : 
 and if you will but meet me to-morrow, at the time and place 
 appointed, and bestow one day with me and my friends in. 
 hunting the otter, I will dedicate the next two days to wait 
 upon you, and we two will for that time do nothing but angle, 
 and talk of fisli and fishing. 
 
 Pisc. 'Tis a match, sir ; I'll not fail you, God willing, to be 
 at Am well-hill to-morrow morning before sun-rising. 
 
 [Note. — With tlie first chapter, the first day, passed in peripatetic 
 conversation, ends. It contains nothing practical, but is chiefly occupied 
 in the praise of hawking by Auceps, of hunting by Venator, and of angling 
 by Piscator — " Old Izaak " himself. Of course he has the best of the 
 dissertations, and makes of Venator a steady pupil. Auceps the falconer, 
 seems too wild a fellow to settle down to the quiet amusement of 
 angling. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS OF THE OTTER AND CHUB. 
 
 Ven. My friend Piscator, you have kept time with my 
 thoughts, for the sun is just rising, and I myself just now 
 come to this place, and the dogs have just now put down an 
 otter. Look down at the bottom of the hill there in that 
 meadow, checquered with water-lilies and lady-smocks; there 
 you may see what work they make : look ! look ! you may 
 see all busy, men and dogs, dogs and men all busy. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 45 
 
 Pisc. Sir, I am right glad to meet you, and glad to have 
 so fair an entrance into this day's sport, and glad to see so 
 many dogs and more men all in pursuit of the otter. Let us 
 ■compliment no longer, but join nnto them. Come, honest 
 Venator, let iis be gone, let us make haste ; I long to be 
 doing ; no reasonable hedge or ditch shall hold me. 
 
 Ven. Gentleman-huntsman, where found you this otter ? 
 
 Hunt. Marry, sir, we found her a mile from this place, 
 a-fishing. She has this morning eaten the greatest part of 
 this trout ; she has only left this much of it as you see, and 
 was fishing for more ; when we came we found her just at it; 
 but we were here very early, we were here an hour before 
 sunrise, and have given her no rest since we came ; sure, she 
 will hardly escape all these dogs and men. I am to have the 
 skin, if we kill her. 
 
 Ven. Whj'", sir, what is the skin worth 1 
 
 Hunt. It is worth ten shillings to make gloves ; the gloves 
 of an otter are the best fortification for your hands that can 
 be thought on against wet weather. 
 
 Pisc. I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant 
 question ; do you hunt a beast or a fish ? 
 
 Hunt. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you ; I leave 
 it to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have 
 made vows never to eat flesh. But I have heard the ques- 
 tion hath been debated among many great clerks, and they 
 seem to differ about it ; yet most agree that her tail is fish ; 
 and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will 
 walk upon land ; for an otter does so, sometimes, five or six 
 or ten miles in a night, to catch for her young ones, or to 
 glut herself with fish. And I can tell you that pigeons will 
 fly forty miles for a breakfast ; but, sir, I am sure the otter 
 devours much fish, and kills and spoils much more than he 
 eats. And I can tell you that this dog-fisher, for so the 
 Latins call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred yards 
 from him : Gesner says much farther ; and that his stones 
 are good against the falling sickness ; and that there is an 
 herb, benione, which being hung in a linen cloth, near a fish 
 pond, or any haunt that lie uses, makes him to avoid the 
 place ; which proves he smells both by water and land ; and 
 I can tell you there is brave hunting this water-dog in Corn- 
 wall, where there have been so many, that our learned 
 Camden says, there is a river called Ottersey, which was so 
 
46 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 named, by reason of the abundance of otters tliat bred aud 
 fed in it.* 
 
 And thus niucli for my knowledge of the otter, which you 
 may now see above water at vent, and the dogs close with 
 him ; I now see he will not last long, follow therefore my 
 masters, follow, for Sweetlips was like to have him at this 
 last vent.t 
 
 Ven. Oh me ! all the horse are got over the river, what 
 shall we do now ? Shall we follow them over the water? 
 
 Hunt. No, sir, no, be not so eager ; stay a little and follow 
 me, for both they and the dogs will be suddenly on this side 
 again I warrant you ; and the otter too, it may be : now have 
 at him with Kilbuck, for he vents again. 
 
 Yen. Marry so he does, for look he vents in that corner. 
 Now, now Ptingwood has him : now he's gone again, and has 
 bit the poor dog. Now Sweetlips lias her ; hold her. Sweet- 
 lips ! now all the dogs have her, some above and some under 
 water ; but now, now she's tired, and past losing : come bring 
 her to me, Sweetlips. Look, 'tis a bitch otter, and she has 
 lately whelped, let's go to the place where she was put down, 
 and not far from it you will find all her young ones, I dare 
 warrant you, and kill them all too. 
 
 Hunt. Come, gentlemen, come all, let's go to the place 
 where we put down the otter. Look you, hereabout it was 
 that she kennelled ; look you, here it was indeed, for here's 
 her young ones, no less than five ; come, let's kill them all. 
 
 Pisc. No, I pray, sir, save me one, and I'll try if I can 
 make her tame, as I know an ingenious gentleman in Leicester- 
 shire, Mr. Nicholas Seagrave, has done ; who hath not only 
 
 * The reader need hardly be told, that neither the tail nor any other part of 
 the otter is " fish." The otter will live upon land, and can be trained to hunt 
 and catch fish for its master. Fish is not its only food ; and it has been guilty 
 of nocturnal attacks on hen-roosts, rabbit-hutches, &c. It seldom or never eats 
 the whole of a fish. What is called the " otter's bite," or honne hoiiclhe, is that 
 part of the fish between the poll or neck and dorsal fin. The tail part of a fish 
 is not succulent enough for the palate of this gourmtt. There is no animal of 
 its size that has stronger jaws and teeth than the otter ; and in its contests 
 "with dogs, it seldom fails to fracture, by biting through one or two of their 
 fore-legs. No dog can bite through the body-skin (so tliickly covered is it with 
 impenetrable fur) of the otter. The otter-hound that knows his business, seizes 
 his quarry by the head, and by crushing it comes off victorious. — Ed. 
 
 •} i. e. view. The otter "vents" when he shows Iiis head above water for the 
 purpose of respiration {venting, " taking in wind") after having been swimming 
 under water to escape his pursuers. — Kd. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEll. 4T 
 
 made lier tame, but to catch fish, and do many other things 
 of much pleasure. 
 
 HuiST. Take one with all my heart, but let us kill the rest. 
 And now let's go to an honest ale-house, where we may hav 
 a cup of good barley-wine, and sing *' Old Hose," and all of 
 us rejoice together. 
 
 Ven. Come, my friend Piscator, let me invite you along 
 with us ; I'll bear your charges this night, and you shall bear 
 mine to-morrow j for my intention is to accompany you a day 
 or tv/o in hshing. 
 
 Pisc. Sir, your request is granted, and I shall be right 
 glad both to exchange such a courtesy, and also to enjoy youi^ 
 company. 
 
 Yen. Well, now let's go to your sport of angling. 
 
 Pisc. Let's be going with all my heart. God keep you all, 
 gentlemen, and send you meet this day with another bitch- 
 otter, and kill her merrily, and all her young ones too. 
 
 Yen. Now, Piscator, where will you begin to fish ? 
 
 Pisc. We are not yet come to a likely place, I must walk 
 a mile further yet before I begin. 
 
 Yen. Well then, I pray, as we walk tell me freely, how do 
 you like your lodging, and mine host, and the company ? Is 
 not mine host a witty man ? 
 
 Pisc. Sir, I will tell you presently what I think of your 
 host : but first, I will tell you, I am glad these otters were 
 killed ; but I am sorry there are no more otter-killers ; for I 
 know that the want of otter-killers, and the not keeping the 
 fence-months for the jDreservation of fish, will, in time, prove 
 the destruction of all rivers. And those very few that are 
 left, that make conscience of the laws of the nation, and of 
 keeping days of abstinence, will be forced to eat flesh, or 
 suffer more inconveniences than are yet foreseen. 
 
 Yen. Why, sir, what be those that you call the fence- 
 months 1 
 
 Pisc. Sir, they be principally three, namely, March, April, 
 and May; for these be the usual months that salmon come 
 out of the sea to spawn in most fresh rivers."' And their fry 
 
 * Walton is again wrong in his natural history. No salmon spawn in April 
 and May ; a very small number of late fish spa^vn in Marcli. Early salmon 
 spawn in September ; but the general spawning season is from the middle of 
 
48 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 would, about a certain time, return back to the salt water, if 
 they were not hindered by weirs and unlawful gins, which 
 the greedy fishermen set, and so destroy them by thousands ; 
 as they would, being so taught by nature, change the fresh 
 for salt water. He that shall view the wise statutes, made 
 in the 13th of Edward I., and the like in Eichard II., may 
 see several provisions made against the destruction of fish ; 
 and though I profess no knowledge of the law, yet I am 
 sure the regulation of these defects might be easily mended. 
 But I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, 
 ''that which is everybody's business is nobody's business." 
 If it were otherwise, there could not be so many nets and 
 fish, that are under the statute size, sold daily amongst us ; 
 and of which the conservators of the waters should be 
 ashamed. 
 
 But, above all, the taking fish in spawning-time may be 
 said to be against nature ; it is like the taking the dam on the 
 nest when she hatches her young : a sin so against nature 
 that Almighty God hath in the Levitical law made a law 
 against it (Deut. xii. 6, 7). 
 
 But the poor fish have enemies enough besides such un- 
 natural fishermen, as namely, the otters that I spake of, the 
 cormorant, the bittern, the osprey, the sea-gull, the heron, 
 the king-fisher, the gorara, the puet, the swan, goose, ducks, 
 and the craber, which some call the water-rat : against all 
 which any honest man might make a just quarrel, but I will 
 not, I will leave them to be quarrelled with, and killed by 
 others ; for I am not of a cruel nature, I love to kill nothing 
 but fish. 
 
 And now to your question concerning your host ; to speak 
 truly, he is not to me a good companion ; for most of his 
 conceits were either Scripture-jests, or lascivious jests, for 
 
 November to the middle of December. The fry, when a year old, go to sea in 
 April and May, and no doubt are destroyed now, as well as in Walton's time, 
 by " unlawful gins" and " greedy fisliermeu." The fence-months for salmon in 
 Scotland and Ireland are September, October, November, December, January, 
 with exceptions in some of the Irish rivers. The fence-months in England and 
 Wales are regulated by magisterial decrees, rather than by parliamentary 
 edicts. They differ, therefore, in different rivers. In some rivers in Wales, 
 salmon are allowed to be caught until the third week in December. March, 
 April, and May ought to be made fence-mouths for several of our river-fish, 
 particularly for pike and grayling, which spawn in March and April, and are 
 not in condition until the tbllowing autumn months. For the habits, &c., of 
 the salmon, sec my remarks at the end of chap. vii. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 49 
 
 "whicli I count no man wittj, for the devil will help a man 
 that way inclined, to the first ; and his own corrupt nature, 
 which he always carries with him, to the latter ; but a com- 
 panion that feasts the company with wit and mirth, and 
 leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is 
 the man ; and indeed such a man should have his charges 
 borne, and to such company I hope to bring you this night ; 
 for at Trout-hall, not far from this place, where I purpose to 
 lodge to-night, there is usually an angler that proves good 
 company : and let me tell you, good company and good dis- 
 course are the very sinews of virtue : but for such discourse 
 as we heard last night, it infects others ; the very boys will 
 learn to talk and swear, as they heard mine host," and an- 
 other of the company that shall be nameless ; — I am sorry 
 the other is a gentleman ; for less religion will not save their 
 souls than a beggar's : I think more will be required at the 
 last great day. Well ! you know what example is able to 
 do ; and I know what the poet says in the like case, — 
 which is worthy to be noted by all parents and people of 
 civility : 
 
 many a one 
 
 Owes to his country his religion ; 
 And in another would as strongly grow, 
 Had but his nurse or mother taught him so. 
 
 This is reason put into verse, and worthy the consideration 
 of a wise man. But of this no more ; for though I love 
 civility, yet I hate severe censures. I'll to my own art ; and 
 I doubt not but at yonder tree I shall catch a chub : and 
 then we'll turn to an honest cleanly hostess, that I know right 
 well ; rest ourselves there ; and dress it for our dinner. 
 
 Yen. Oh, sir ! a chub is the worst fish that swims ; I 
 hoped for a trout to my dinner. 
 
 Pisc. Trust me, sir, there is not a likely place for a trout 
 hereabout : and we staid so long to take leave of your hunts- 
 men this morning, that the sun is got so high, and shines so 
 clear, that I will not undertake the catching of a trout till 
 evening. And though a chub be, by you and many others, 
 reckoned the worst of fish ; yet you shall see I'll make it a 
 good fish by dressing it. 
 
 Yen. Why, how will you dress him *? 
 
 ' * Of the Thatched House, at Hoddesden, where Piscator passed the first 
 night. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pi sc. I'll tell you by and by, when I liave caught him. 
 Looic you here, sir, do you see 1 (but you must stand very 
 close), there lie upon the top of the water, in this very hole, 
 twenty chubs. I'll catch only one, and that shall be the 
 biggest of them all ; and that I will do so, I'll hold you 
 twenty to one, and you shall see it done. 
 
 Ven. Ay, marry, sir, now you talk like an artist, and I'll 
 ^' say you are one, when I shall see you perform what you say 
 you can do ; but I yet doubt it. 
 
 Pisc. You shall not doubt it long, for you shall see me do 
 it presently : look, the biggest of these chubs has had some 
 bruise iipon his tail by a pike, or some other accident, and 
 that looks like a white spot ; that very chub I mean to put 
 into your hands presently ; sit you but down in the shade, 
 and stay but a little while, and I'll warrant you I'll bring him 
 to you. 
 
 Ven. I'll sit down, and hope well, because you seem to be 
 so confident. 
 
 Pisc. Look you, sir, there is a trial of my skill,* there he 
 is, that very chub that I showed you with the white spot on 
 his tail : and I'll be as certain to make him a good dish of 
 meat, as I was to catch him. I'll now lead you to an honest 
 ale-house where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the 
 windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall ; there my 
 hostess, which, I may tell you, is both cleanly and handsome, 
 and civil, hath dressed many a one for me, and shall now dress 
 it after my fashion, and I warrant it good meat. 
 
 * Walton does not explain the particulars of his trial of skill. Evidently, 
 the clmb was caught by dibbing or daping with a natural insect. See the 
 seventh paragraph of chap, iii., beginning, " Go to the same hole," etc. See 
 also my remarks at the end of chap. iii. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 51 
 
 Yen. Come, sir, with all my Iieart, for I begin to be 
 hungry, and long to be at it, and indeed to rest myself too ; 
 for though I have walked but four miles this morning, yet I 
 begin to be weary ; yesterday's hunting hangs still upon me. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, you shall quickly be at rest, for yonder is 
 the house I mean to bring you to. 
 
 Come, Hostess, how do you do ? Will you lirst give me a 
 cup of your best drink, and then dress this chub as you 
 dressed my last, when I and my friend were here about eight 
 or ten days ago 1 But you must do me one courtesy, it must 
 be done instantly. 
 
 Hostess. I will do it, Mr. Piscator, and with all the speed 
 I can. 
 
 Pisc. Now, sir, has not my hostess made haste 1 and does 
 not the fish look lovely? 
 
 Yen. Both, upon my word, sir, and therefore let's say 
 grace, and fall to eating of it. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, how do you like it ? 
 
 Yen. Trust me, 'tis as good meat as I ever tasted : now 
 let me thank you for it, drink to you, and beg a courtesy of 
 you ; but it must not be denied me. 
 
 Pisc. What is it, I pray, sir ? You a^^e so modest, that 
 methinks I may promise to grant it before it is asked. 
 
 SIR HICNIVY WOTTON 
 
 d2 
 
52 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Yen. Why, sir, it is, that from henceforth you would 
 allow me to call you Master, and that really I may be your 
 scholar ; for you are such a companion, and have so quickly 
 caught, and so excellently cooked this fish, as makes me 
 ambitious to be your scholar. 
 
 Pisc. Give me your hand ; from this time forward I will 
 be your master, and teach you as much of this art as I am 
 able ; and will, as you desire me, tell you somewhat of the 
 nature of most of the fish that we are to angle for j and I 
 am sure I both can and will tell you more than any common 
 Angler yet knows. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW TO FISH FOR, AND TO DEESS, THE CHAVENDER, OR CHUB. 
 
 [^I;trti Bay.] 
 
 Pisc. 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 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 53 
 
 him is not firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem 
 him so mean as to call him un vilain; 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 ofi" 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 is 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 exceeding small, or bruised into 
 the butter. Tlie 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 com- 
 mended so much. But note again, that if this cliub that you 
 ate of, had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been, v/orth 
 a rush. And remember that his throat be washed very clean, 
 
54 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 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 fearfulest 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 uj) to the 
 top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow aflrights 
 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 
 
 * The edible properties of the chub are very lightly prized. That celebrated 
 cuisinier, Alexis Soyer, says, in his " Modern Housewife," p. 160 — " Cliub I do 
 not think much of, but it no doubt depends on the river where taken ; those 
 caught in the winter are best. They may be cooked like carp." M. Soyer 
 gives an excellent recipe for cooking the latter fish. " JJaked Carp. — Procure 
 a good-sized carp, stuff it like the pike (with veal stuflang, adding a few fillets of 
 anchovies and chopped lemon-peel), then put it into a baking-dish, with two 
 onions, one carrot, one turnip, one head of celery, and a good bouquet of parsley, 
 thyme, and bay-leaf ; moisten with two glasses of port wine, half a pint of 
 water, salt, pepper, and oil, and put it in a moderate oven about two liours to 
 bake ; try if done with a knife, which is the case if the flesh leave tlie bone 
 easily; dress upon a dish without a napkin; then have ready the following 
 sauce : mince a large Spanish onion with two common ones, and put them into 
 a stew-pan with three spoonfuls of salad oil, saute rather a yellow colour, add 
 two glasses of port wine and one spoonful of flour, mix all well together, add 
 a pint of broth (reserved from some soup), or water, with half an ounce of glaze, 
 or half a gill of brown gravy ; boil it up, drain the stock the carp was cooked 
 in from the vegetables, which also add to the sauce : boil well at the corner of 
 the stove, skim, and when rather thick, add a teaspoonful of Harvey sauce, one 
 of essence of anchovies, and a little Cayenne pepper, pour all the liquor drained 
 from the fish out of your dish, sauce over, and serve." The above is a capital 
 way of cooking coarse river-fish, chub, bream, tench, and barbel, and even very 
 large roach. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 55 
 
 snail moves, to that cliub 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. 
 
 Ven. Truly, my loving master, you have offered me as fair\ 
 as I could wish. I'll go, and observe your directions. I 
 
 Look you, master, what I have done, that which joys my( 
 heart, — caught just such another chub as yours was. 
 
 Pisc. 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. 
 
 Yen*. But, master, what if I could not have found a grass- 
 hopper ? 
 
 Pisc. Then I may tell you, that a black snail, with his 
 belly slit to show his white, or a piece of soft cheese,t 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 imder 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 grass- 
 hopper, 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 
 
 * Leather-mouthed fish are those possessing tough palates ; they are gene- 
 rally of the carp tribe. The barbel is a good example. Tender- mouthed fish 
 are mostly of the salmon tribe, with crisp and tender palates. The latter fish 
 when hooked, must be played with a delicate hand, lest the hook-hold tear 
 away ; the former may be played roughly without any such danger. — Ed. 
 
 t In fishing with cheese, snails, or worms, you must not angle at the top or 
 snrface of the water, but at the bottom, with leaded line and middle-sized float. 
 —Ed. 
 
56 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 this manner you may fish for him with almost any kind of 
 live fly, but especially with a grasshopper. 
 
 Yen. But before you go further, I pray, good master, what 
 mean you by a leather-mouthed fish ? 
 
 Pisc. 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, or 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. 
 
 Yen. I thank you, good master, for this observation ; but 
 now, what shall be done with my chub or cheven that I have 
 caught *? 
 
 Pisc. 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 ofier 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 lirtle 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, 
 
 * In the Thames, above Richmond, the best way of using the grasshopper 
 for chub, is to fish with it as with an artificial fly ; the first joints of the legs 
 must be pinched oflf ; and in this way, when the weed is rotten, which is seldom 
 till September, the largest dace are taken. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 57 
 
 especially if he be baked), of cheese and turpentine. He will 
 bite also at a minnow, or penk, 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 w^ell 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," Lib. 3, 
 Cap. 17, 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 stayed too long from giving you some observa- 
 tions of the trout, and how to fish for him, which shall take 
 up the next of my spare time. 
 
 [Note on CHUB-FisiiiNa. — The scientific name of this well-known 
 fish is Cyprinus cejplialus, which means, the big-headed carp. Although 
 Blaine, in his celebrated " Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports," describes its 
 colour thus, — "silvery bluish carp, with olivaceous back," — I should 
 rather call it the golden olive carp. The scales on its sides have cer- 
 tainly more of a yellow or golden hue, than of a bright or silvery one. 
 The following description from the author just cited, is on the whole 
 good : — " It much resembles the carp, but is of a longer form ; the body 
 
 * Piscator gives in this paragraph some very good advice touching angling 
 for chub. AValton understood the matter well, and was no doubt a great adept 
 in the art of fishing for chub and barbel. However, chub very rarely indeed 
 take the minnow, or any other sort of fish-bait. Lob-worms, gentles, prepared 
 cheese, honey-paste, insects, natural and artificial, are the best baits for them. 
 Study my directions at the end of this chapter. — Ed. 
 
58 THE COMPLETE AIs^GLER. 
 
 is oblong, rather round, and of a pretty equal thickness in the 
 greater part of the slope ; the scales are large, the irides silvery ; the 
 cheeks of the same colour; the head and back of a deep dusky 
 green ; the sides silvery, but in the summer yellov/ ; the belly white ; 
 the pectoral fins of a pale yellow; the ventral and anal fins red; the tail 
 forked, of a brownish hue, but tinged with blue at the end ; and the 
 chub is altogether a handsome fish/' So it is, a very handsome fish 
 when in full season and fresh caught. Authors differ as to the period 
 of the year at which this fish is in best condition. It spawns in April, 
 and Blaine says it soon recovers its condition. Daniel says it is not in 
 prime condition until December. I am inclined to agree with the latter 
 authority. I have found chub in tolerable condition in the Thames in 
 July, but in the very same month I have caught the fish miserably 
 .emaciated in the Trent. There is no general rule for the colour or 
 condition of fresh-water fish. Each depends on the river in which fish 
 are bred, and on the atmospheric influence of particular seasons. Chub 
 generally prefer still waters, weedy, and over-hung with bushes. In 
 truth, the fish is a pond one, and in ponds fed with a slight dash of 
 running water, provided they are weedy, and so give a harbour for the 
 breed of insects, they thrive well. To bring them to a large size, they 
 should be fed with worms, larva?, grubs, horse -gentles, grains, pieces of 
 soft cheese, prepared greaves, and even raw beef cut into threads the 
 size of dew-worms. I have frequently caught chub in streams ; for 
 instance, in the Trent at Sawley bridge, and in the Thames at Sunbury. 
 Daniel says — " The haunts of the Chub are in rivers whose bottoms 
 are of sand or clay, or which are bounded by clayey banks ; particularly 
 in deep holes, shaded by trees, weeds, etc." The late Mr. Blaine writes, 
 " They are sometimes to be met with in rocky rivers, but such are 
 always found to have some deeps with soft bottoms of their own, or are 
 found to communicate with waters which have. In fact, chub thrive only 
 in such rivers as present a diversity of rocky and strong gravelly currents, 
 widening occasionally into large and deep pools, where sand and ooze 
 accumulate. It is here they flourish ; and such situations they choose as 
 their winter hiding-places. In chub rivers, such pools are never without 
 them at any season, which has given rise to the angler's adage, * Once a 
 chub-hole always a chub -hole.' In summer, river chub shelter them-" 
 selves from the heat, more particularly in such deeps and pools as are 
 overhung with foliage or trees. In stagnant or open waters they hide 
 themselves under aquatic plants.'' The reader knows, I hope, now the 
 most likely spots wherein to find chub. I must now tell him the best 
 modern ways to angle for this fish. At the bottom it takes gentles, 
 well-scoured large worms, prepared cheese, and bullock's pith or brains. 
 The two latter baits are generally used in winter. At the middle and 
 surface of the water, the chub takes grasshoppers, cockchafers, and flies, 
 artificial and natural. In my opinion chub are best caught by fishing 
 for them at the top of the water, either with artificial or living flies. 
 To be successful with the former in deep water, it should be ruffled by 
 the wind of a gloomy day ; but in the swift streams of rivers, wind is 
 not necessary. The best flies are large red, brown, and (in bright days) 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 59 
 
 black palmers. Winging them is sometimes an improvement. In using 
 natural flies, moths, small butterflies, brown beetles, coclvchafers, the 
 May -fly, or housefly, it is necessary to have recourse to that branch of 
 the angling art, called dibbing, dipping, or daping, which is practised 
 thus : — If you (I write as if I were speaking to my reader) are about to 
 angle in a river, the banks of which are wooded, a shortish (ten feet 
 or so) rod must be used. A winch, a winch-line, and a gut casting line, 
 will be required. Having baited the hook, viz., put on it the live insect 
 as delicately as may be, by inserting delicately the point of the hook in 
 its back, you must tv/irl all that part of the line beyond the rod around 
 it just as coachmen do their whips before hanging them up. This done, 
 pass the point of the rod through any bushes, or beneath any trees, that 
 may grow on the rivet's bank, and theti untwirling the line, the bait, 
 with proper managemetifc^ will fall gently and natttralJy oU the surface of 
 the water, and be taken not only by any chut)> bttt by any trout, roach, 
 or dace, that may happen to see it. When trees do not intervene, this 
 method of dibbing is not necessary ; but where they do, it is absolutely 
 necessary, and is a most killing, or rather captivating practice. No 
 obstructions being in the way, the line on the winch must be of stout 
 floss silk, and will form then what is technically called the " blow-line." 
 To this, add about a yard and a half of fine gut, to the end of which 
 attach the hook link. Now put on your insect, and standing with the 
 wind to your back, let out as much of the " blow-line " as is required, 
 and letting go the insect-bait, which you must hold delicately between 
 the fore finger and thumb of the left hand, it will be carried the requisite 
 distance on to the water. The principles of dibbing are involved in the 
 two processes I have briefly explained. In bush dibbing I said a short 
 rod was required ; in dibbing with the floss-silk line a rod of twelve feet 
 in length must be used. Wherever there are wide leaves on the surface 
 of the water, it would be well to direct the bait on to each one of them 
 in succession, and then to roll it off* on to the water. As chub, at mid- 
 day, in warm weather, lie concealed under such leaves, they will in nine 
 cases out of ten take any insect that drops oft' them. Walton mentions, 
 and with good reason, the extreme shyness of this fish. If it see the 
 angler, it will never take his bait, be it ever so tempting. He must, 
 therefore, keep as far away from the river as possible, and never fish with 
 the sun to his back. It is a general rule in angling, that the angler 
 whilst at his recreation, must look the sun in the face. There will then 
 be no shadow of rod or fisherman in the water. — Ed.J 
 
60 
 
 OLD liTE HOUS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS OF THE NATURE AND BREEDING OF THE TROUT, AND 
 HOW TO FISH FOR HIM ; AND THE MILKMAID'S SONG. 
 
 [^i^irlf Bap.] 
 
 The Trout is a fish higlily valued both in this and foreign 
 nations : he may be justly said, as the old poet said of wine, 
 and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish : a fish 
 that is so like the buck that he also has his seasons ; for it is 
 observed, that he comes in and goes out of season with the 
 stag and buck ; Gesner says, his name is of a German off- 
 spring, and says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in 
 the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel ; and that he 
 may justly contend with all fresh-water fish, as the Mullet 
 may with all sea-fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste, 
 and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have 
 allowed precedency to him. 
 
 And before I go further in my discourse, let me tell you, 
 that you are to observe, that as there bo some barren does, 
 that are good in summer, so there be some barren trouts that 
 are good in winter ; but there are not many that are so, for 
 usually they be in their perfection in the month of May, and 
 decline with the buck. jS^ow you are to take notice, that in 
 several countries, as in Germany and in other parts, compared 
 to ours, fish differ much in their bigness and shape, and other 
 ways, and so do trouts ; it is well known that in the Lake 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 61 
 
 Lemau, the Lake of Geneva, there are trouts taken of three 
 cubits long, as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of good credit; 
 and Mercator'" says, the trouts that are taken in the Lake of 
 Geneva, are a great part of the merchandize of that famous 
 city. And you are further to know, that there be certain 
 waters, that breed trouts remarkable both for their number 
 and smallness. I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds 
 them to a number incredible, and you may take them twenty 
 or forty in an hour, but none greater than about the size of a 
 gudgeon : there are also in divers rivers, especially that relate 
 to, or be near to the sea, as Winchester, or the Thames about 
 Windsor, a little trout called samlet, or skegger trout (in both 
 which places I have caught twenty or forty at a standing), 
 that will bite as fast and as freely as minnows : these be by 
 some taken to be young salmon ; but in those waters they 
 never grow to be bigger than a h erring. t 
 
 There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a trout called 
 there a Eordidge trout, a trout that bears the name of the 
 town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest 
 of fish ; many of them near the bigness of a salmon, but 
 known by their different colour; and in their best season they 
 cut very white ; and none of these have been known to be- 
 caught with an angle, unless it were one that was caught by 
 Sir George Hastings, an excellent angler, and now with God ; 
 and he hath told me, he thought tltat trout bit not for hunger 
 
 * Gerard Mercator, of Ruremond in Flanders, a man of so intense applica- 
 tion to mathematical studies, that he ne^^^lected the necessary refreshments of 
 nature. He engraved with his own hand, and coloured the maps to his greo- 
 graphical writings. He wrote several books of theology; and died 1594. — H. 
 
 t The skegger here alluded to is no doubt tlie young salmon in its first year 
 before it has paid its first visit to the sea. As salmon has disappeared from 
 the Thames, so have skeggers, or salmon fry. The Lake of Geneva still pro- 
 duces very large trout, which are frequently cooked on tlie spot, and sent 
 express to Paris. Still, I do not think that any of them now grow to the 
 length of" three cubits." They are not unfrequently caught weighing twenty- 
 four or thirty pounds. Trout every bit as large are caught in some of the loughs 
 and lochs of Ireland and Scotland. 'Jhe smallest species of trout is now called 
 " the parr," and very likely that is the fish to which Walton alludes in this 
 passage, — '• I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds them to a number incre- 
 dible, and you may take them twenty or forty in tlie hour, but none greater 
 than about the size of a gudgeon," When Walton mentions " barren trouts. 
 that are good in winter," he falls into a common error. The barren trout are 
 really male trout, which have shed tlieir milt over the ova of the female fish in 
 the early spawning months, August and September. The male fish very rapidly 
 recovers from the exhausting process of procreation. Not so the female , which, 
 if a large fish, is not fully convalescent until the IMay next following her 
 accouchement. — Ed. 
 
62 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 but wantonness; and it is rather to be believed, because both 
 lie, then, and many others before him, have been curious to 
 search into their bellies, what the food was by which they 
 lived ; and have found out nothing by which they might 
 satisfy their curiosity. 
 
 Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported 
 by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some fish, have no 
 mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness 
 of their gills, man knows not how : and this may be believed, 
 if we consider that when tlie raven hath hatched her eggs, 
 she takes no farther care, but leaves her young ones to the 
 care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, " to 
 feed the young ravens that call upon him." And they be 
 kept alive, and fed by dew, or worms that breed in their nests, 
 or some other ways that we mortals know not ; and this may 
 be believed of the Fordidge trout, which, as it is said of the 
 Stork (Jerem. viii. 7), that, "he knows his season," so he 
 knows his times, I think almost his day of coming into that 
 river out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine 
 months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. 
 And you are to note that those townsmen are very punctual 
 in observing the time of beginning to fish for them; and 
 boast much that their river afifords a trout, that exceeds all 
 others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish ; as 
 namely, a Shelsey cockle, a Chichester lobster, an Arundel 
 mullet, and an Amerly trout. 
 
 And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge trout : 
 you are to know that this trout is thought to eat nothing in 
 the fresh v/ater,""" and it may be better believed, because it is 
 w^ell known that swallows, and bats, and wagtails, which are 
 called half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six 
 months in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a 
 better climate than this ; yet some of them that have been 
 left behind their fellows, have been found many thousands at 
 a time, in hollow trees, or clay caves ; where they have been 
 
 * There is no species of trout whatsoever that does not feed in fresh water. 
 The sea-trout (salmo trutta) and the bull-trout {salmo ferox), though they mi- 
 grate to sea, like the salmon, and for a time thrive and fatten therein, return 
 to their native rivers, and feed on small fish and insects; indeed, they are the 
 greatest destroyers of salmon-fry. There is no fish that has its mouth sewn up 
 as it were ; and what Walton says about grasshoppers and frogs having no 
 mouths is simply laughable. All that Walton says of the Fordidge, a river 
 near Canterbury, and of ravens, etc., is perfectly fabulous. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 observed to live and sleep out the whole winter without 
 meat ; and so Albertus observes, that there is one kind of 
 frog that hath her mouth naturally shut up about the end 
 of August, and that she lives so all the winter : and though 
 it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many among us 
 to be doubted. 
 
 And so much for these Fordidge trouts, which never afford 
 an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the 
 fresh water, by their meat formerly got in the sea (not unlike 
 the swallow or frog), or by the virtue of the fresh water 
 only ; or, as the birds of Paradise and the chamelion are said 
 to live, by the sun and the air. 
 
 There is also in jSTorthumberland a trout called a bull-trout, 
 of a much greater length and bigness than any in the southern 
 parts. And there are, in many rivers that relate to the sea, 
 salmon- trouts, as much different from others, both in shape 
 and in their spots, as we see sheep in some countries differ one 
 from another in their shape and bigness, and in the fineness 
 of their wooL And, certainly, as some pastures breed larger 
 sheep, so do some rivers, by reason of the ground over which 
 they run, breed larger trouts. 
 
 Now the next thing that I will commend to your consi- 
 deration is, that the trout is of a more sudden growth than 
 other fish. Concerning which, you are also to take notice, 
 that he lives not so long as the perch, and divers other fishes 
 do, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his " History of 
 Life and Death." 
 
 And now you are to take notice, that he is not like the 
 crocodile, which if he lives never so long, yet always thrives 
 till his death. And you are to know, that he will about, 
 esjDCcially before, the time of his spawning, get almost 
 miraculously through weirs and flood-gates against the 
 streams ; even through, such high and swift places as is al- 
 most incredible. Next, that the trout usually spawns about 
 October or November, but in some rivers a little sooner or 
 later : which is the more observable, because most other fish 
 spawn in the spring or summer, when the sun hath warmed 
 both the earth and the water, and made it fit for generation. 
 And you are to note that he continues many months out of 
 season ; for it may be observed of the trout, that he is like 
 the buck or the ox, that he will not be fat in many months, 
 though he go in the very same pasture that horses do, which 
 will be fat in one month : and so you may observe that most 
 
64 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 other fishes recover strength, and grow sooner fat and in sea- 
 son than the trout doth. 
 
 And next you are to note, that till the sun gets to such a 
 height as to warm the earth and the water, the trout is sick, 
 and lean, and lousy, and unwholesome : for you shall in winter 
 find him to have a big head, and then to be lank, and thin, 
 and lean : at which time many of them have sticking on them 
 sugs, or trout-lice, which is a kind of worm, in shape like a 
 clove or pin, with a big head, and sticks close to him and 
 sucks his moisture ; those, I think, the trout breeds himself, 
 and never thrives till he free himself from them, which is 
 when warm weather comes ; and then, as he grows stronger, 
 he gets from the dead, still water, into the sharp streams, and 
 the gravel, and there rubs ofi" these worms or lice ; and then, 
 as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter 
 streams, and there lies at the watch for any fly or minnow 
 that comes near to him ; and he especially loves the May-fly, 
 which is bred of the cod-worm or cadis ; and these make tlie 
 trout bold and lusty, and he is usually fatter and better meat at 
 that end of that month [May] than at any time of the year. 
 
 'Now you are to know that it is observed, that usually the 
 best trouts are either red or yellow ; though some (as the 
 Fordidge trout) be white and yet good ; but that is not usual : 
 and it is a note observable, that the female trout hath usually 
 a less head, and a deeper body than the male trout, and is 
 usually the better meat. And note, that a hog-back and a 
 little head to either trout, salmon, or any other fish, is a sign 
 that that fish is in season. 
 
 But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or 
 palm-trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some 
 trouts ]>e, in rivers, sooner in season : and as some hollies or 
 oaks are longer before they cast their leaves, so are some 
 trouts in rivers longer before they go out of season. 
 
 And you are to note, that there are several kinds of trouts : 
 but these several kinds are not considered but by very few 
 men ; for they go under the general name of trouts : just as 
 pigeons do, in most places ; though, it is certain, there are 
 tame and wild pigeons ; and of the tame, there be helmets 
 and runts, and carriers and cropers, and indeed too many to 
 name. Nay, the Koyal Society have found and published 
 lately, that there be thirty and three kinds of spiders; and yet 
 all, for aught I know, go under that one general name of 
 spider. And it is so with many kinds of fish, and of trouts 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 65 
 
 especially ; wliicli differ in their bigness and shape and spots 
 and colour. The great Kentish hens may be an instance, 
 compared to other hens. And, doubtless, there is a kind of 
 small trout, which will never thrive to be big ; that breeds 
 very many more than others do, that be of a larger size : 
 which you may rather believe, if you consider that the little 
 wren and titmouse will have twenty young ones at a time,''''^ 
 when usually the noble hawk, or the musical thrassel or black- 
 bird, exceed not four or five. 
 
 And now you shall see me try my skill to catch a trout ; and 
 at my next walking, either this evening or to-morrow morning, 
 I will give you direction how you yourself shall fish for him. 
 
 Ven. Trust me, master, I see now it is a harder matter to 
 catch a trout than a chub : for I have put on patience, and 
 followed you these two hours, and not seen a fish stir, neither 
 at your minnow nor your worm. 
 
 Pisc. Well, scholar, you must endure worse luck sometime, 
 or you will never make a good angler. But what say you 
 now? There is a trout now, and a good one too, if I can 
 but hold him, and two or three more turns will tire him. 
 1^0 w you see he lies still, and the sleight is, to land him ; 
 reach me that landing net ; so, sir, now he is mine own, 
 what say you now"? Is not this worth all my labour and 
 your patience 1 
 
 Yen. On my word, master, this is a gallant trout ; what 
 shall we do with him ] 
 
 Pisc. Marry, e'en eat him to supper ; we'll go to my 
 hostess, from whence we came ; she told me, as I was going 
 out of door, that my brother Peter, a good angler and a cheer- 
 ful companion, had sent word that he would lodge there to- 
 night, and bring a friend with him. My hostess has two beds, 
 and I know you and I may have the best ; we'll rejoice with 
 my brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or 
 make a catch, or find some harmless sport to content us and 
 pass away a little time,' without ofience to God or man. 
 
 Ven. a match, good master, let's go to that house; for the 
 linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I love to lie in. 
 a pair of sheets that smell so. Let's be going, good master, 
 for I am hungry again with fishing. 
 
 Pisc. Nay, stay a little, good scholar ; I caught my last 
 
 * If Walton had said half the number, he would have been right. The wren 
 will sometimes lay a dozen eggs, but cannot hatch the whole of them, — Ed. 
 
 E 
 
66 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 trout with a worm ; now I will put on a minnow, and try a 
 quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another ; and so 
 walk towards our lodging. Look you, scholar, thereabout we 
 shall have a bite presently or not at all. Have with you, sir ! 
 o' my word I have hold of him. Oh ! it is a great logger- 
 headed chub ; come hang him upon that willow twig, and let's 
 be going. But turn out of the way a little, good scholar 1 
 towards yonder high honey-suckle hedge; there we 11 sit and 
 sing, whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming 
 earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers 
 that adorn these verdant meadows. 
 
 Look ! under that broad beech tree I sat down, when I was 
 last this way a-fishing. And the birds in the adjoining grpve 
 seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead 
 voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that 
 primrose hill. There I sat viewing the silver streams glide 
 silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea; yet some- 
 times opposed by rugged roots and pebble -stones, which broke 
 their waves and turned them into foam. And sometimes I 
 beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs ; some leaping 
 securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in 
 the cheerful sun ; and saw others craving comfort from the 
 swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these 
 and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, 
 that I thought, as the poet hath happily expressed it, 
 
 '*I was for that time lifted above earth, 
 And possess'd joys not promised in my birth." 
 
 As I left this place, and entered into the next field, a second 
 pleasure entertained me : 'twas a handsome milkmaid, that 
 had not j^et attained so much age and wisdom as to load her 
 mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too 
 many men too often do : but she cast away all care, and sung 
 like a nightingale : her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for 
 it : it was that smooth song which was made by Kit Mario w, 
 now at least fifty years ago : and the milkmaid's mother 
 sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Ealeigh 
 in his younger days. 
 
 They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good, T think 
 much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in 
 this critical age. Look yonder ! on my word, yonder they 
 both be a-milking again. I will give her the chub, and per- 
 suade them to sing those two songs to us. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 67 
 
 God speed you, good woman ! I have been a-fishing, and 
 am going to Bleak Hall to my bed, and having caught more 
 fish than will sup myself and my friend, I will bestow this 
 upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. 
 
 MiLK-W. Marry, God requite you, sir, and we'll eat it 
 cheerfully ; and if you come this way a-fishing two mouths 
 ence. a grace of God, I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuiceia 
 a new-made haycock for it, and my Maudlin shall sing you one 
 of her best ballads ; for she and I both love all anglers, they 
 be such honest, civil, quiet men ; in the mean time will you 
 drink a draught of red cow's milk ? you shall have it freely 
 
 Pisc. 1^0, I thank you ; but, I pray, do us a courtesy that 
 shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we will 
 think ourselves still something in your debt; it is but to sing 
 us a song that was sung by your daughter when I last passed 
 over this meadow about eight or nine days since. 
 
 MiLK-W. What song was it, I pray? Was it "Come Shep- 
 herds, deck your heads ?" or, " As at noon Dulcina rested T 
 or, " Philida flouts me ?" or, " Chevy Chace T or, " Johnny 
 Armstrong T or, " Troy Town f 
 
 Pisc. No, it is none of those; it is a song that your daugh- 
 ter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it. 
 
 MiLK-W. O, I know it now. I learned the first part in 
 my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daugh- 
 ter ; and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but 
 two or three years ago, when the cares of the world began to 
 take hold of me : but you shall, God willing, hear them both, 
 and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, 
 Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentleman with a merry 
 heart, and I'll sing the second, when you have done. 
 
 Come live with me, and be my love, 
 And we will all the pleasures prove 
 That valleys, groves, or hills, or field, 
 Or woods and steepy mountains yield ; 
 
 Where we will sit upon the rocks, 
 And see the shepherds feed our flocks 
 By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals. 
 
 And I will make thee beds of roses, 
 And then a thousand fragrant posies, 
 A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
 Embroider' d all with leaves of myrtle ; 
 E 2 
 
68 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 A gown made of the finest wool 
 Wliicli from our pretty lambs we pull ; 
 Slippers lined choicely for the cold, 
 With buckles of the purest gold ; 
 
 A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 With coral clasps and amber studs : 
 And if these pleasures may thee move, 
 Come live with me, and be my love. 
 
 Thy silver dishes for my meat. 
 As precious as the gods do eat. 
 Shall, on an ivory table, be 
 Prepared each day for thee and me. 
 
 The shepherd swains shall dance and sing, 
 For thy delight, each May morning. 
 If these delights thy mind may move. 
 Then live with me, and be my love.* 
 
 Yen. Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly 
 sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause, 
 that our good Queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a 
 milkmaid all the month of May, because they are not troubled 
 with fears and cares, and sing sweetly all the day, and sleep 
 securely all the night : and without doubt, honest, innocent, 
 pretty Maudlin does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's 
 milkmaid's wish upon her, " That she may die in the spring, 
 and being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round 
 about her w^inding sheet."t 
 
 If all the world and love were young, 
 And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee, and be thy love. 
 
 But Time drives flocks from field to fold. 
 When rivers rage and rocks grow cold ; 
 Then Philomel becometh dumb, 
 And age complaius of care to come. 
 
 « Dr. Warburton, in his Notes on *' The jMerry Wives of Windsor," ascribes 
 this song to Shakspere. It is true, Sir Hugh Evans, in the third act of that, 
 play, sings four lines of it ; and it occurs in a collection of poems said to be 
 Shakspere's, printed by Tho. Cotes for John Benson, 12mo, 1640, with some 
 variations. On the contrary, it is to be found, with the name of Christopher 
 Marlow to it, in " England's Helicon ;" and Walton has just said it was made 
 by Kit Marlow : the reader will judge of these evidences as he pleases. 
 
 As to the song itself, though a beautiful one, it is not so purely pastoral as it 
 s generally thought to be ; buckles of gold, coral clasps, and amber studs — 
 Bilver dishes and ivory tables — are luxuries, and consist not with the parsimony 
 and simplicity of rural life and manners. 
 
 } Sir Thomas Overbury's "Character of a fair and happy Milk-maid,'* 
 printed with his poem entitled " The Wife," in 12mo, 1CG5. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 69 
 
 Tlie flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
 To wayward winter reckoning yields. 
 A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
 Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. 
 
 Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
 Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
 Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten ; 
 In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 
 
 Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
 All these in me no means can move 
 To come to thee and be thy love. 
 
 What should we talk of dainties, then, 
 Of better meat than's fit for men ? 
 These are but vain ; that's only good 
 Which God hath bless' d, and sent for food. 
 
 But could youth last and love still breed — 
 Had joys no date, or age no need — 
 Then those delights my mind might move 
 To live with thee, and be thy love. 
 
 Mother. Well ! I have done my song. But stay, honest 
 anglers ; for I will make Maudlin to sing you one short song 
 more. Maudlin ! sing that song that you sung last night, 
 when young Coridon the shepherd played so purely on his 
 oaten pipe to you and your cousin Betty. 
 
 Maud. I will, mother. 
 
 I married a wife of late, 
 
 The more's my unhappy fate ; 
 
 I married her for love. 
 
 As my fancy did me move, 
 And not for a worldly estate ; 
 
 But, Oh ! the green sickness 
 Soon changed her likeness. 
 And all her beauty did fail. 
 But 'tis not so 
 With those that go 
 Through frost and snow. 
 As all men know. 
 And carry the milking-pail. 
 
 Pisc. Well sung, good woman ; I thank you. I'll give you 
 another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg another 
 song of you. Come, scholar, let Maudlin alone ; do not you 
 offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess, 
 to call us to supper. How now ? Is my brother Peter come 1 
 
 Host. Yes, and a friend with him ; they are both glad to 
 hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and 
 long to be at supper, for they be very hungry. 
 
70 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 MORE DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH FOR, AND HOW TO MAKE FOR THE 
 
 TROUT AN ARTIFICIAL MINNOW AND FLIES ; WITH SOME 
 
 MERRIMENT. 
 
 [S:i)utr Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. Well met, brother Peter : I heard you and a friend 
 would lodge here to-night, and that hath made me to bring 
 my friend to lodge here too. My friend is one that would 
 fain be a brother of the angle ; he hath been an angler but 
 this day, aud I have taught him how to catch a chub by dap- 
 ing with a grasshopper, and the chub that he caught was a 
 lusty one of nineteen inches long. But pray, brother Peter, 
 who is your companion ? 
 
 Peter. Brother Piscator, my friend is an honest country- 
 man, and his name is Coridon, and he is a downright witty 
 companion, that met me hei-e purposely to be pleasant and 
 eat a trout, and I have not yet wetted my line since we met 
 together ; but I hope to fit him with a trout for his break- 
 fast, for I'll be early up. 
 
 Pisc. Nay, brother, you shall not stay so long : for, look 
 you, here is a trout will fill six reasonable bellies. 
 
 Come, hostess, dress it presently, and get us what other 
 meat the house will afford, and give us some of your best 
 barley-wine, the good liquor that our honest forefathers did 
 use to drink of; the drink which preserved their health, and 
 made them live so long, and do so many good deeds. 
 
 Peter. O' my word, this trout is perfect in season. Come 
 I thank you, and here is a hearty drauglit to you, and to all 
 the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be, and to my 
 young brother's good fortune to-morrow. I will furnish him 
 with a rod if you will furnish him with the rest of the tackling; 
 we will set him up and make him a fisher. And I will tell 
 him one thing for his encouragement, that his fortune hath 
 made him happy to be scholar to such a master ; a master 
 that knows as much, both of the nature and breeding of fish, 
 as any man ; and can also tell him as well how to catch and 
 cook them, from the minnow to the salmon, as any that I 
 ever met withal. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER 
 
 71 
 
 Pisc. Trust me, brother Peter, I find my scholar to be so 
 suitable to my own humour, which is, to be free and pleasant 
 and civilly merry, that my resolution is to hide nothing that 
 I know from him. Believe me, scholar, this is my resolu- 
 tion ; and so here's to you a hearty draught, and to all that 
 love us and the honest art of angling. 
 
 Yen. Trust me, good master, you shall not sow your seed 
 in barren ground ; for I hope to return you an increase an- 
 swerable to your hopes : but, however, you shall find me 
 obedient and thankful and serviceable to my best ability. 
 
 Pisc. 'Tis enough, honest scholar ! come, let's to supper. 
 Come, my friend Coridon, this trout looks lovely ; it was 
 twenty-two inches when it was taken ! and the belly of it 
 looked, some part of it, as yellow as a marigold, and part of \ 
 it as white as a lily ; and yet, methinks, it looks better in ^ 
 this good sauce. 
 
 Coridon. Indeed, honest friend, it looks well, and tastes 
 well : I thank you for it, and so doth my friend Peter, or 
 else he is to blame. 
 
 Peter. Yes, and so do I, we all thank you ; and when we 
 have supped, I will get my friend Coridon to sing you a song 
 for requital. 
 
 Cor. I will sing a song, if any body will sing another ; 
 else, to be plain with you, I will sing none : I am none of 
 those that sing for meat, but for company ; I say, " 'Tis 
 merry in hall, when men sing all."'^* 
 
 * Parody on the adage — 
 
 *' It's merry in the hall 
 When beards wag all" ; 
 
 i.e. when all are eating. — H. 
 
72 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately made 
 at my i-equest by Mr. William Basse, one that hath made the 
 choice songs of the Hunter in his Career, and of Tom of 
 Bedlam, and many others of note ; and this that I will sing, 
 is in praise of angling. 
 
 Cor. And then mine shall be, the praise of a countryman's 
 life : what will the rest sing of ? 
 
 Peter. I will promise you, I will sing another song in 
 praise of angling to-morrow night ; for we will not part till 
 then, but fish to-morrow, and sup together, and the next day 
 every man leave fishing, and fall to his business. 
 
 Vex. 'Tis a match ; and I will provide you a song or a catch 
 against then too, which shall give some addition of mirth to 
 the company ; for we will be civil, and as merry as beggars. 
 
 Pisc. 'Tis a match, my masters ; let's e'en say grace, and 
 
 turn to the fire, drink the other cup to wet our whistles, and 
 so sing away all sad thoughts. 
 
 Come on, my masters, who begins 1 I think it is best to 
 draw cuts, and avoid contention. 
 
 Peter. It is a match. Look, the shortest cut falls to Coridon. 
 
 Cor. Well, then, I will begin, for I hate contention. 
 
 CDoritfon's Song. 
 
 Oh, the sweet contentment 
 The countryman doth find ! 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie Ice, 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie lee. 
 That quiet contemplation 
 Possesseth all my mind ; 
 
 Then care away, 
 
 And wend along with me. 
 
 For courts are full of flattery, 
 As hath too oft been tried ; 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 The city full of wantonness, 
 And both are full of pride : 
 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 But, Oh ! the honest country man 
 Speaks truly from his heart ; 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 His pride is in his tillage, 
 His horses and his cart : 
 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 Our clothing is good sheepsk ius, 
 Gray russet for our wives ; 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie, loe, et • 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 73 
 
 'Tis warmth, and not gay clothing, 
 That doth prolong our lives : 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 The ploughman, though he labour hard, 
 Yet on the holiday, 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 No emperor so merrily 
 Doth pass his time away. 
 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 To recompense our tillage, 
 The heavens afford us showers ; 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 And for our sweet refreshments 
 The earth affords us bowers : 
 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 The cuckoo and the nightingale 
 Full merrily do sing. 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 And with their pleasant roundelays 
 Bid welcome to the spring ; 
 
 Then care away, etc. 
 
 This is not half the happiness 
 The countryman enjoys ; 
 
 Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc. 
 Though others think they have as much, 
 Yet he that says so lies : 
 
 Then come away, turn 
 
 Countryman with me. — Jo. Chalkhill.* 
 
 Pisc. Well sung, Coridon ; this song was sung with mettle, 
 and it was choicely fitted to the occasion; I shall love you 
 for it as long as I know you ; I would you were a brother of 
 the angle ; for a companion that is cheerful, and free from 
 swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such 
 mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one 
 another next morning ; nor men that cannot well bear it, to 
 repent the money they spent when they be warmed with 
 drink : and take this for a rule, you may pick out such times, 
 and such companions, that you may make yourselves merrier 
 for a little than a great deal of money ; for, " 'Tis the com- 
 pany and not the charge, that makes the feast ;" and such a 
 companion you prove, I thank you for it. 
 
 But I will not compliment you out of the debt that I owe 
 you ; and therefore I will begin my song, and wish it may 
 be so well liked. 
 
 * This poet's works Walton edited in his 90th year— that of his death.— Ed. 
 
7i THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 As inward love breeds outward talk, 
 The hound some praise, and some the hawk ; 
 Some, better pleased with private sport, 
 Use tennis ; some a mistress court : 
 But these delights I neither wish 
 ^ Nor envy, while I freely fish. 
 
 Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride ; 
 Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide ; 
 Who uses games, shall often prove 
 A loser ; but who falls in love 
 Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare : 
 — ^My angle breeds me no such care. 
 
 Of recreation there is none 
 So free as fishing is alone ; 
 All other pastimes do no less 
 Than mind and body both possess ; 
 
 My hand alone my work can do 
 
 So I can fi^h and study too. 
 
 I care not, I, to fish in seas — 
 
 ' ^resh rivers best my mind do please, 
 
 Whose sweet calm course I contemplate, 
 And seek in life to imitate : 
 
 In civil bounds I fain would keep, 
 And for my past offences weep. 
 
 And when the timorous trout I wait 
 To take, and he devours my bait. 
 How poor a thing, sometimes I find, 
 Will captivate a greedy mind ; 
 And when none bite, I praise the wise, 
 Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise. 
 
 But yet, though while I fish I fast, 
 
 I make good fortune my repast ; 
 
 And thereunto my friend invite. 
 
 In whom I more than that delight : 
 Who is more welcome to my dish 
 Than to my angle was my fish. 
 
 As well content no prize to take, 
 
 As use of taken prize to make : 
 
 For so our Lord was pleased, when 
 
 He fishers made fishers of men ; 
 Where (which is in no other game) 
 A man may fish and praise His name. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 75 
 
 The first men that our Saviour dear 
 Did choose to wait upon Him here, 
 Bless'd fishers were, and fish the last 
 Food was that He on earth did taste : ' 
 
 I therefore strive to follow those 
 Whom He to follow Him hath chose. 
 
 CoK. Well sung, brother, you have paid your debt in good 
 coin. We anglers are all beholden to the good man that 
 made this song : come, hostess, give us more ale, and let's 
 drink to him. 
 
 And now let's every one go to bed, that we may rise early : 
 but first let's pay our reckoning, for I will have nothing to 
 hinder me in the morning, for my purpose is to prevent the 
 sun-rising. 
 
 Peter. A match. Come, Coridon, you are to be my bed- 
 fellow. I know, brother, you and your scholar will lie 
 together. But where shall we meet to-morrow night 1 for 
 my friend Coridon and I will go up the water towards Ware. 
 
 Pisc. And my scholar and I will go down towards Waltham. 
 
 Cor. Then let's meet here, for here are fresh sheets that 
 smell of lavender ; and I am sure we cannot expect better 
 meat or better usage in any place. 
 
 Peter. 'Tis a match. Good night to everybody. 
 
 Pisc. And so say I. 
 
 Yen. And so say I. 
 
 [JFottvt!) 59a».] 
 
 Pisc. Good morrow, good hostess ; I see my brother Peter 
 is still in bed : come, give my scholar and me a morning 
 drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast ; and be sure to get a 
 good dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come 
 home as hungry as hawks. Come, scholar, let's be going. 
 
 Yen. Well now, e^ood master, as we walk towards the 
 river give me direction, according to your promise, how i 
 shall fish for a trout. 
 
 Pisc. My honest scholar, I will take this very convenient 
 opportunity to do it. 
 
 The trout is usually caught with a worm or a minnow, 
 which some call a penk, or with a fly, viz., either a natural or 
 an artificial fly : concerning which three I will give you some 
 observations and directions. 
 
 And, first, for worms : of these there be very many sorts : 
 
76 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 some breed only in the earth, as the earth-worm ; others of 
 or amongst plants, as the dung- worm ; and others breed either 
 out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in 
 the horns of sheep or deer; or some of dead flesh, as the 
 maggot or gentle, and others. 
 
 Now these be most of them particularly good for particular 
 fishes : but for the trout, the dew- worm, which some also 
 call the lob-worm, and the brandling, are the chief; and 
 especially the first for a great trout, and the latter for a less. 
 There be also of lob-worms some called squirrel-tails, a worm 
 that has a red head, a streak down the back, and a broadtail, 
 which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest 
 and most lively, and live longest in the water : for you are to 
 know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch 
 nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm : and for 
 a brandling, he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some 
 very rotten place near to it : but most usually in cow-dung, 
 or hog's dung, rather than horse- dung, which is somewhat too 
 hot and dry for that worm. But the best of them are to be 
 found in the bark of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps 
 after they have used it about their leather. 
 
 There are also divers other kinds of worms, which for 
 colour and shape alter even as the ground out of which they 
 are got ; as the marsh-worm, tlie tag-tail, the flag-worm, the 
 dock-worm, the oak-worm, the gilt-tail, the twachel, or lob- 
 worm,''^ which of all others is the most excellent bait for a 
 salmon ; and too many to name, even as many sorts as some 
 think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds 
 of birds in the air ; of which I shall say no more, but tell you 
 
 * To avoid confusion, it may be necessary to remark, that the same kind of 
 worm is, in different places, known by different names ; thus the marsh and 
 the meadow-worm are the same ; and the lob-worm or twachel is also called 
 the dew-worm, and the garden-worm ; and the dock-worm is, in some places, 
 called the flag-worm. 
 
 The tag-tail is found in March and April, in marled lands or meadows, 
 after a shower of rain ; or in the morning, when the weather is calm, and not 
 cold. 
 
 To find the oak-worm, beat on an oak-tree that grows over a high- way or 
 bare place, and they will fall for you to gather, 
 
 To find the dock-worm, go to an old pond or pit, and pull up some of the 
 flags ; shake the roots in the water; and amongst the fibres that grow from the 
 roots you will find little husks, or cases, of a reddish or yellowish colour ; open 
 these carefully with a pin, and take from them a little worm, pale yellow, or 
 white, like a gentle, but longer and slenderer, with rows of feet down his belly, 
 and a red head : this is the dock or flag-worm. An excellent bait for grayling, 
 tench, bream, carp, roach, and dace. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 77 
 
 that what worms soever you fish with are the better for being 
 well sconred, that is, long kept before they be used : and in 
 case you have not been so provident, then the way to cleanse 
 and scour them quickly is to put them all night in water, if 
 they be lob- worms, and then put them into your bag with 
 fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an hour 
 in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use : but 
 if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they 
 be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, 
 which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and 
 every week or eight days in winter ; or, at least, the moss 
 taken from tbem and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your 
 hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And 
 when your worms, especially the brandling, begins to be sick 
 and lose of his bigness, then you may recover him by putting 
 a little milk or cream, about a spoonful in a day, into them, 
 by drops on the moss ; and if there be added to the cream an 
 egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will both fatten and 
 preserve them long.* And note, that when the knot, which 
 is near to the middle of the brandling, begins to swell, then 
 he is sick ; and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. 
 And for moss, you are to note, that there be divers kinds of 
 it, which I could name to you, but I will only tell you that 
 that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best, except it be soft 
 white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be 
 found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put 
 to an extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into 
 water, or salt in water, to make it bitter or salt, and then 
 that water poured on the ground, where you shall see worms 
 are used to rise in the night, will make them to appear above 
 ground presently. And you may take notice, some say that 
 camphor, put into your bag with your moss and worms, gives 
 them a strong and so tempting a smell, that the fish fare the 
 worse and you the better for it. 
 
 * The following is also an excellent way : viz., Take a piece of hop-sack, or 
 other very coarse cloth, and wash it clean, and let it dry ; then wet in the 
 liquor wherein heef has been boiled ; but be careful that the beef is fresh, for 
 salt will kill the worms, and wring it, but not quite dry ; put the worms into 
 this cloth, and lay them in an earthen pot, and let them stand from morning 
 till night ; then take the worms from the cloth, and wash it, and wet it again 
 in some of the liquor : do thus once a day, and you may keep worms in perfect 
 health, and fit for use, for near a month. 
 
 Observe that the lob-worm, marsh-worm, and red-worm, will bear more 
 scouring than any others, and arc better for long keeping. — U, 
 
78 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 And now I shall show you how to bait your hook with a 
 worm, so as shall prevent you from much trouble, and thi», 
 loss of many a hook too, when you fish for a trout with a 
 running-line,'^ that is to say, when you fish for him by hand 
 at the ground : I will direct you in this as plainly as I can, 
 that you may not mistake. 
 
 Suppose it be a big lob- worm, put your hook into him 
 somewhat above the middle, and out again a little below the 
 middle ; having so done, draw your worm above the ai^mmg 
 of your hook : but note that at the entering of your hook it 
 must not be at the head-end of the worm, but at the tail-end 
 of him, that the point of your hook may come out toward 
 the head-end, and having drawn him above the arming of 
 your hook, then put the point of your hook again into the 
 very head of the worm, till it come near to the place where 
 the point of the hook first came out : and then draw back 
 that part of the worm that was above the shank or arming 
 of your hook, and so fish with it. And if you mean to fish 
 with two worms, then put the second on before you turn 
 back the hook's-head of the first worm : you cannot lose 
 above two or three worms before you attain to what ] 
 direct you ; and having attained it, you will find it very 
 useful, and thank me for it, for you will run on the ground 
 without tangling. 
 
 . Now for the Minnow or Penk : he is not easily found and 
 caught till March, or in April, for then he appears first in 
 the river ; nature having taught him to shelter and hide 
 himself, in the winter, in ditches that be near to the river ; 
 and there both to hide, and keep himself warm, in the mud, or 
 in the weeds, which rot not so soon as in a running river, in 
 which place if he were in winter, the distempered floods that 
 are usually in that season would sufier him to take no rest, 
 but carry him headlong to mills and weirs, to his confusion. 
 
 * The running-line, so called because it runs along the ground, is made of 
 strong silk, which you may buy at the fishing-tackle shops (but I prefer hair, 
 as being less apt to tangle), and is thus fitted up. About ten inches from the 
 end, fasten a small cleft shot : then make a hole through a pistol or musket 
 bullet, according to the swiftness of the stream you fish in ; and put the line 
 through it, and draw the bullet down to the shot : to the end of your line 
 fasten an Indian grass, or silkworm-gut, with a large hook. Or you may, in- 
 stead of a bullet, fix four large shot, at the distance of eight inches from the 
 hook. The running-line is used for trout, grayling, and salmon-smelts; and is 
 proper only for streams and rapid waters. See Cotton on Bottom-fishing, 
 part ii. chap. xi. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 79 
 
 And of these minnows; first you are to know that the biggest 
 size is not the best ; and next, that the middle size and 
 the whitest are the best ; and then you are to know, that 
 your minnow must be so put on your hook, that it must 
 turn round when it is di-awn against the stream ; and, that 
 it may turn nimbly, you must put it on a big-sized hook, as 
 I shall now direct you, which is thus : put your hook in at 
 liis mouth, and out at his gill ; then, having drawn your 
 hook tw^o or three inches beyond or through his gill, put it 
 again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his 
 tail ; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, 
 with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn 
 quick in the water : that done, pull back that part of your 
 line which was slack when you did put your hook into the 
 minnow the second time ; I say, pull that part of your line 
 back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the 
 minnow shall be almost straight on your hook : this done, 
 try how it will turn, by drawing it across the water or 
 against the stream ; and if it do not turn nimbly, then turn 
 the tail a little to the right or left hand, and try again, till it 
 turn quick ; for if not, you are in danger to catch nothing: 
 for know that it is impossible that it should turn too quick ; 
 and you are yet to know, that in case you want a minnow, 
 then a small loach or a stickle-bag, or any other small fish 
 that will turn quick, will serve as well : and you are yet to 
 know, that you may salt them, and by that means keep them 
 ready and fit for use three or four days or longer ; and that 
 of salt, bay-salt is the best. 
 
 And here let me tell you, what many old anglers know 
 right well, that at some times, and in some waters, a minnow 
 is not to be got ; and therefore let me tell you, I have, — 
 which I will show you, — an artificial minnow,* that will 
 catch a trout as well as an artificial fly, and it was made by 
 a handsome woman that had a fine hand, and a live minnow 
 lying by her : the mould or body of the minnow, was cloth, 
 and wrought upon or over it thus with a needle : the back 
 of it with very sad French green silk, and paler green silk 
 towards the belly, shadowed as perfectly as you can imagine, 
 
 * Walton's method of making an artificial minnow is curious. How sur- 
 prised he would be to see the artificial minnows, and other artificial fish baits 
 of these days. No amateur need make them now, as they are to be had 
 cheaply at all the tackle shops, well made, and in infinite variety. The best 
 are those called " flexible," made by William Flinn, of Worcester. — Ed. 
 
80 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 just as you see a minnow ; the belly was wrought also with a 
 needle, and it was a part of it white silk, and another part of 
 it with silver thread ; the tail and fins were of a quill which 
 Avas shaven thin ; the eyes were of two little black beads, and 
 the head was so shadowed, and all of it so curiously wrought, 
 and so exactly dissembled that it would beguile any sharp- 
 sighted trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now 
 show you ; look, here it is. and, if you like it, lend it you, to 
 have two or three made by it ; for they be easily carried about 
 an angler, and be of excellent use ; for note, that a large 
 trout will come as fiercely at a minnow as the highest mettled 
 hawk doth seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. 
 I have been told that a hundred and sixty minnows have 
 been found in a trout's belly ; either the trout had devoured 
 so many, or the miller that gave it a friend of mine had 
 forced them down his throat after he had taken him. 
 
 Now for flies, ^^ which is the third bait wherewith trouts are 
 usually taken. You are to know that there are so many 
 sorts of flies as there be of fimits : I will name you but some 
 of them ; as the dun-fly, the stone-fly, the red-fly, the moor- 
 fly, the tawny-fly, the shell-fly, the cloudy or blackish-fly, the 
 flag-fly, the vine-fly ; there be of flies, caterpillars, and canker- 
 flies, and bear-flies ; and indeed too many either for me to 
 name, or for you to remember. And their breeding is so 
 various and wonderful, that I might easily amaze myself, and 
 tire you in a relation of them. 
 
 And, yet, I will exercise your promised patience by saying 
 a little of the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm ; that by 
 them you may guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but 
 to run over those very many flies, worms and little living 
 creatures with which the sun and summer adorn and beautify 
 the river-banks and meadows, both for the recreation and 
 contemplation of us anglers; pleasures which, I think, I 
 myself enjoy more than any other man that is not of my 
 profession. 
 
 Pliny holds an opinion, that many have their birth or being 
 from a dew that in the spring falls from the leaves of trees ; 
 and that some kinds of them are from a dew left upon herbs 
 
 * The student must not pay any attention to what Walton says about artifi- 
 cial flies. He was not a fly-fisher ; but he was a good bottom-fisher, and dibbed 
 or daped well. Cotton was the fly-fisher, and when I come to the second part 
 of this book, written by him, all that is necessary to be known about artificial 
 flies shall be stated. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 81 
 
 or flowers ; and others, from a dew left upon coleworts or 
 cabbages : all which kinds of dews being thickened and con- 
 densed, are by the sun s generative heat most of them hatched, 
 and in three days made living creatures : and these of several 
 shapes and colours; some being hard and tough, some smooth 
 and soft ; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, 
 some have none ; some have hair, some none ; some have 
 sixteen feet, some less, and some have none ; but as our 
 Topsel* hath with great diligence observed, those which have 
 none move upon the earth, or upon broad leaves, their motion 
 being not unlike to the waves of the sea. Some of them, he 
 also observes, to be bred of the eggs of other caterpillars, and 
 that those in their time, turn to be butterflies ; and again, 
 that their eggs turn the following year to be caterpillars. And 
 some affirm that every plant has his particular fly or cater- 
 pillar, which it breeds and feeds. I have seen, and may 
 therefore affirm it, a green caterpillar or worm, as big as a 
 small peascod, which had fourteen legs, eight on the belly, 
 four under the neck, and two near the tail. It was found 
 on a hedge of privet, and was taken thence and put into a 
 large box, and a little branch or two of privet put to it, on 
 which I saw it feed as sharply as a dog gnaws a bone ; it 
 lived thus five or six days, and thrived and changed the 
 colour two or three times ; but, by some neglect in the 
 keeper of it, it then died, and did not turn to a fly : but if it 
 had lived, it had doubtless turned to one of those flies that 
 some call flies of prey, which those that walk by the rivers, 
 may, in summer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think, 
 make them their food. And 'tis observable, that as there be 
 these flies of prey, w^hicli be very large, so there be others, 
 very little, created, I think, only to feed them, and breed out 
 of I know not what ; whose life, they say, nature intended 
 not to exceed an hour : and yet that life is thus made shorter 
 by other flies, or by accident. 
 
 It is needless to tell you what the curious searchers into 
 nature's productions have observed of these worms and flies : 
 but yet I shall tell you what Aldrovandus,t our Topsel, and 
 others, say of the palmer-worm, or caterpillar, that whereas 
 others content themselves to feed on particular herbs or leaves, 
 
 * In his •• History of Serpents." 
 
 t Ulysses Aldrovandus, a great physician and naturalist of Bologna ; he 
 wrote a hundred and twenty books on several subjects, and a treatise De 
 riscibus, published at Frankfort, 1640. — H. 
 
 F 
 
S2 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 — for most til ink those very leaves that gave them life and 
 shape, give them a jDarticular feeding and nourishment, and 
 that upon them they usually abide ; yet he observes that this 
 is called a pilgiim, or palmer-worm, for his very wandering- 
 life, and various food : not contenting himself, as others do, 
 with any one certain place for his abode, nor any certain kind 
 of herb or flower for his feeding, but will boldly and disorderly 
 wander up and down, and not endure to be kept to a diet, or 
 fixed to a particular place, 
 r Nay, the.very colours of caterpillars are, as one has observed, 
 1 very elegant and beautiful. I shall, for a taste of the rest, 
 I describe one of them ; which I will, some time the next 
 ^month, show you feeding on a willow-tree ; and you shall find 
 him punctually to answer this very description : his lips and 
 moutli somewhat yellow ; his eyes black as jet ; his forehead 
 purple ; his feet and hinder parts green ; his tail two-forked 
 and black ; the whole body stained with a kind of red spots, 
 which run along the neck and shoulder-blade, not unlike the 
 form of St. Andrew's cross, or the letter X? made thus cross- 
 wise, and a white line drawn down his back to his tail ; all 
 which add much beauty to his whole body. And it is to me 
 observable, that at a fixed age this caterpillar gives over to 
 eat, and towards winter comes to be covered over with a 
 strange shell or crust, called an aurelia : and so lives a kind 
 of dead life, without eating, all the winter ;* and, as others of 
 several kinds turn to be several kinds of flies and vermin the 
 spring following, so this caterpillar then turns to be a painted 
 butterfly. 
 
 Come, come, my scholar, yon see the river stops our morn- 
 ing walk, and I will also here stop my discourse ; only as we 
 sit down under this honeysuckle hedge, whilst I look a line to 
 fit the rod that our brother Peter hath lent you, I shall for a 
 little confirmation of what I have said, repeat the observation 
 of Du Bartas. 
 
 God, not contented to eacli kind to give, '< 
 
 And to infuse the virtue generative, 
 
 By Plis wise i)ower made many creatures breed 
 
 Of lifeless bodies, without Venus' deed. 
 
 So the cold humour breeds the salamander, 
 Who, in effect like to her birth's commander, 
 With child with hundred winters, with her touch 
 Quencheth the fire, though glowing ne'er so much. 
 
 * See Sir Francis Bacon's Exper,, 72 S and 90, in liis Natural History. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 83 
 
 So in the fire, in burning furnace springs 
 The fly Perausta, with the flaming wings ; 
 Without the fire it dies, in it it joys, 
 Living in that which all things else destroys. 
 
 So slow Bootos underneath him sees, 
 In th' icy islands, goslings hatch'd of trees, 
 Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water. 
 Are turn'd, 'tis known, to living fowls soon after. 
 
 So rotten planks of broken ships do change 
 To barnacles. transformation strange ! 
 'Twas first a green tree, then a broken hull, 
 Lately a mushroom, nov/ a flying gull. 
 
 Yen. my good master, this morning- walk has been spent 
 to my great pleasure and wonder : but I pray, when shall I 
 have your direction how to make artificial flies, like to those 
 that the trout loves best, and also how to use them 1 
 
 Pisc. My honest scholar, it is now past five of the clock, 
 we will fish till nine, and then go to breakfast. Go you to 
 yon sycamore-tree and hide your bottle of drink under the 
 hollow root of it ; for about that time, and in that place, we 
 will make a brave breakfast with a piece of powdered beef, 
 and a radish or two that I have in my fish-bag ; we shall, I 
 warrant you, make a good, honest, wholesome, hungry break- 
 fast, and 1 will then give you direction for the making and 
 using of your flies ; and in the mean time there is your rod, 
 and line, and my advice is, that you fish as you see me do, 
 and let's try which can catch the first fish. 
 
 Vex. I thank you, master. I will observe and practise your 
 direction as far as I am able. 
 
 Pisc. Look you, scholar, you see I have hold of a good 
 -fish : I now see it is a trout, I pray put that net under him^ 
 and touch not my line, for if you do, then we break all.* 
 "Well done, scholar, I thank you. 
 
 Now for another. Trust me, I have another bite : come, 
 scholar, come lay down your rod, and help me to land this as 
 you did the other. So now we shall be sure to have a good 
 dish for supper. 
 
 Yen. I am glad of that : but I have no fortune : sure, 
 master, yours is a better rod and better tackling. 
 
 Pisc. Nay, then, take mine, and I will fish with yours. 
 
 * Nothing can be sounder than this advice. In playing a fish, the line must 
 never be seized by the hand, but it must be shortened more or less according to 
 circumstances, by winding it up by means of the winch or reel. — Ed. 
 
 f2 
 
84^ THE COMPLETE ANGLEil, 
 
 Look yon, scholar, I have another. Come, do as you did 
 I before. And now I liave a bite at another. Oh me ! he has 
 \broke all : there's half a line and a good hook lost. 
 
 Yen. Ay, and a good trout too. 
 /" — ^^isc. Nay, the trout is not lost ; for pray take notice, no 
 man can lose what he never had. 
 
 Ven. Master, I can neither catch with the first nor second 
 angle : I have no fortune. 
 
 Pisc. Look yon, scholar, T have yet another. And now, 
 having caught three [two] brace of trouts, I will tell you a short 
 tale as we walk towards our breakfast. A scholar, a preacher 
 I should say, that was to preach to procure the approbation of 
 a parish, that he might be their lecturer, had got from his 
 fellow pupil the copy of a sermon that was first ]3reached with 
 great commendation by him that composed it : and though 
 the borrower of it preached it, word for word, as it was at 
 first, yet it was utterly disliked as it was preached by the 
 second to his congregation : which the sermon-borrower 
 complained of to the lender of it : and thus was answered : 
 ** I lent you, indeed, my fiddle, but not my fiddlestick ; for 
 you are to know that every one cannot make music with my 
 words, which are fitted to my own mouth." And so, my 
 scholar, you are to know, that as the ill-pronunciation or ill 
 accenting of words in a sermon spoils it, so the ill carriage of 
 your line, or not fishing even to a foot in a right place, makes 
 you lose your labour : and you are to know, that though you 
 have my fiddle, that is, my very rod and tacklings with which 
 you see I catch fish, yet you have not my fiddlestick, that is, 
 you yet have not skill to know how to carry your hand and 
 line, or how to guide it to a right place ; and this must be 
 taught you : for you are to remember, I told you angling is 
 an art, either by practice or a long observation, or both. But 
 take this for a rule. When you fish for a trout with a worm, 
 let your line have so much, and not more lead than will fit the 
 stream in which you fish ; that is to say, more in a great 
 troublesome stream than in a smaller that is quieter ; as near 
 as may be, so much as will sink the bait to the bottom, and 
 keep it still in motion, and not more. 
 
 But now let's say grace and fall to breakfast: what say 
 
 you, scholar, to the providence of an old angler ? Does not 
 this meat taste well ? and was not this place well chosen to 
 oat it ? for this sycamore-tree will shade us from the sun's 
 beat. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 85 
 
 Vem. All excellent good, and ray stomach excellent good 
 too. And now 1 remember and find that true which devout 
 Lessius'"' says: "That poor men, and those that fast often, 
 have much, more pleasure in eating than rich men and gluttons, 
 that always feed before their stomachs are empty of their last 
 meat, and call for more : for by that means they rob them- 
 selves of tliat pleasure that hunger brings to poor men." 
 And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, " that 
 you would rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, 
 temperate, poor angler, than a drunken lord." But I hope 
 there is none such ; however, I am certain of this, that I 
 have been at very many costly dinners that have not afforded 
 me half the content that this has done, for which I thank 
 God and you. 
 
 And now, good master, proceed to your promised direction 
 for making and ordering my artificial fly. 
 
 Pisc. My honest scholar, I will do it ; for it is a debt due 
 unto you by my promise. And because you shall not think 
 yourself more engaged to me than indeed you really are, I 
 will freely give you such directions as were lately given to 
 me by an ingenious brother of the angle, an honest man and 
 a most excellent fly-fisher.t 
 
 You are to note, that there are twelve kinds of artificial 
 made, flies to angle with on the top of the water. Note, 
 by the way, that the fittest season of using these, is a bluster- 
 ing windy day, when the waters are so troubled, that the 
 natural fly cannot be seen, or rest upon them. The first is 
 the dun-fly, in March : the body is made of dun wool ; the 
 wings, of the partridge's feathers. The second, is another 
 dun-fly ; the body of black wool : and the wings made of the 
 black drake's feathers, and of the feathers under his tail. 
 The third, is the stone -fly, in April : the body is made of 
 black wool ; made yellow under the wings and under the tail 
 
 * Leonard Lessius.a very learned Jesuit, professor of divinity in the College 
 of Jesuits at Louvain. He was born at Antwerp, 1554, and became very famous 
 for his skill in divinity, civil law, mathematics, physic, and history : he wrote 
 several theological tracts, and a book entitled, Ilygiasticon^seuvera ratio valetu- 
 dinis honae, et vltae ad extremam senecttitem conservandae. From this work of 
 Lessius, it is probable the passage in the text is cited. He died in 1G23. 
 
 t Walton knew very little about fly-fishing. In this passage lie admits his 
 ignorance, by stating that tlie instructions he gives the scholar are derived from 
 "an ingenious brother of the angle." The instructions are curious, but by no 
 means useful. When we come to tlie second part of this work, written by 
 Cotton, who was an excellent fly-lisher in his day, we shall treat of artificial 
 flies, as now made, and show the modern metliod of using them. — Ed. 
 
86 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 and so made with the wiugs of the drake. The fourth, is the 
 ruddy-fly, in the beginning of May : the body made of red 
 wool, wrapt about with black silk ; and the feathers are the 
 wings of the drake : with the feathers of a red capon also, 
 which hangs dangling on his sides next to the tail. The 
 fifth, is the yellow or greenish fly, in May likewise ; the body 
 made of yellow wool ; and the wings made of the red cock's 
 hackle or tail. The sixth is the black -fly, in May also : the 
 body made of black wool, and lapped about with the herle of 
 a peacock's tail : the wings are made of the wiugs of a brown 
 capon, with his blue feathers in his head. The seventh, is the- 
 sad yellow-fly, in June : the body is made of black wool, with 
 a yellow list on either side ; and the wings taken oft* the wings 
 of a buzzard, bound with black braked hemp. The eighth, is 
 the moorish-fly ; made with the body of duskish wool ; and 
 the wings made of the blackish mail of the drake. The ninth, 
 is the tawny-fly, good until the middle of June : the body 
 made of tawny wool, the wings made contrary, one against the 
 other, made of the whitish mail of the wild drake. The tenth,, 
 is the wasp-fly, in July ; the body made of black wool, la])ped 
 about with yellow silk, the wings made of the feathers of the 
 drake, or of the buzzard. The eleventh is the shell-fly, good 
 in mid- July ; the body made of greenish wool, lapped about 
 with the herle of a peacock's tail, and the wings made of the 
 wings of the buzzard. The twelfth, is the dark drake-fl}'', 
 good in August ; the body made with black wool, lapped 
 about with black silk ; his wings are made with the mail of 
 „V2the black drake, with a black head. Thus have'you a jury of 
 \flies, likely to betray and condemn all the trouts in the river.* 
 I shall next give you some other directions for fly-fishing, 
 such as are given by Mi\ Thomas Barker,t a gentleman that 
 
 * The reader is not to adopt for his use any of these fiies. By the word 
 " mail," we must understand " mottled." The mottled feathers of the mallard 
 of several hues are still used for the wings, legs, and tails of flies. There are 
 few feathers more useful. — Ed. 
 
 t I shall also furnish you with •' some other directions for fly-fishing, such as 
 are given by Mr. Thomas Barker," who wrote before Walton a short treatise on 
 Angling; and, as far as it goes, it is clever. He was no doubt a practical angler, 
 almost a poacher, because he cares little how he catches fish, provided he does 
 catch them. His patron was Edward Lord Montague," a general" of the navy. 
 Addressing himself to the noble lord, he thus begins : — 
 
 " Under favour, I will compliment, and put a case to your honour. I met 
 with a man, and upon our discourse he fell out with me, having a good weapon, 
 but neither stomach nor skill ; I say this man may come liome by AVeeping- 
 cross ; I will cause the clerk to toll his knell. It is the very like case to the 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEPu S7 
 
 hatli spent much time iii fishing ; but I shall do it with a 
 little variation. 
 
 First, let your rod be light, and very gentle ; I take the 
 best to be of two pieces : and let not your line exceed, — 
 especially for three or four links next to the hook, — I say, not 
 exceed three or four hairs at the most, though you may fish 
 a little stronger above, in tlie upper part of your line ; but if 
 you can attain to angle with one hair, you shall have more 
 rises, and catch more fish. Now you must be sure not to 
 cumber yourself with too long a line, as most do. And before 
 you begin to angle, cast to have the wind on your back ; and 
 the sun, if it shines, to be before you ; and to fish down the 
 stream; and carry the point or top of your rod downward, by 
 which means, the shadow of yourself and rod too, will be least 
 offensive to the fish ; for the sight of any shade amazes the 
 fish, and spoils your sport — of whichyou must take agreat care. 
 
 gentleman angler, that goetli to the river for his pleasure : this angler hath 
 neither, judgment nor experience : he may come home lightly laden at hia 
 leisure. 
 
 " A man that goeth to the river for his pleasure, must understand, when he 
 Cometh there, to set forth his tackle. The first thing he must do, is to observe 
 the wind and sun for day, the moon, the stars, and the wanes of the air for 
 night, to set forth his tackles for day or night ; and accordingly to go for his 
 pleasure and some profit. 
 
 " Now I am determined to angle with the ground-baits, and set my tackles 
 to my rod, and go to my pleasure. I begin at the uppermost |iart of the stream, 
 carrying my line with an upright hand, feeling my plummet running truly on 
 the groimd some ten inches from the hook, plumming my line according to the 
 swiftness of the stream T angle in ; for one plummet will not serve for all 
 streams: for the true angling is, that the plummet run truly on the ground. 
 
 " My lord sent to me, at sun going down, to provide him a good dish of 
 trouts against the next morning, by six o'clock. I went to the door to see 
 how the wanes of the air were like to prove. I returned answer, that I doubted 
 not, God willing, but to be provided at the time appointed. I went presently 
 to the river, and it proved very dark : I threw out a line of three silks and 
 three hairs twisted, for the uppermost part ; and a line of two hairs and two 
 silks twisted, for the lower part — with a good large hook. I baited my hook 
 with two lob-worms, the four ends hanging its meet as I could guess them in 
 the dark. I fell to angle. It proved very dark, so that I had good sport ; 
 angling with the lob-worms the same as I do with the flies, on the top of the 
 water :~You will hear the fish rise at the top of the water ; then, you must 
 loose a slack line down to the bottom, as nigh as you can guess ; then hold 
 your line straight, feeling the fish bite ; give time, there is no doubt of losing 
 the fish, for there is not one amongst twenty but doth gorge the bait : the least 
 stroke you can strike fastens the hook, and makes the fish sure, letting the fish 
 take a turn or two ; you may take him up with your hands. The night began 
 to alter and grow somewhat lighter ; I took off" the lob-worms, and set to my 
 rod a white palmer fly made of a large hook ; I had good sport for the time, 
 until it grew lighter ; so I took off" the white palmer, and set to a red palmer, 
 made of a large hook ; I had good sport until it grew very light: then I took 
 
88 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 In the middle of March, till which time, a man should not, 
 in honesty, catch a trout — or in April, if the weather be dark, 
 or a little windy or cloudy, the best fishing is with the 
 palmer-worm, of which I last spoke to you ; but of these 
 there be divers kinds, or at least of divers colours ; these and 
 the May-fly are the ground of all fly-angling, which are to be 
 thus made : 
 
 First, you must arm your hook with the line in the inside 
 of it, then take your scissors, and cut so much of a brown 
 mallard's feather, as in your own reason will make the wings 
 of it, you having withal regard to the bigness or littleness of 
 your hook; then lay the outmost part of your feather next to 
 your liook, then the point of your feather next the shank of 
 your hook ; and having so done, whip it three or four times 
 about the hook with the same silk with which your hook 
 was armed ; and, having made the silk fast, take the hackle 
 of a cock or capon's neck, or a plover's toj), which is usually 
 
 off the red palmer and set to a black palmer ; I had good sport, and made up 
 the dish of fish. So I put ui) my tackles, and was with my lord at his time 
 appointed for the service. 
 
 " These three flies, with the help of the lob-worms, serve to angle all the year 
 for the niglit ; observing the times — as I have showed you — in this nightwork ; 
 the white lly for darkness, the red fly in medio, and the black fly for lightness. 
 This is the true experience for angling in the night ; which is the surest angling 
 of all, and killeth the greatest trouts. Your lines may be strong, but must not 
 be longer tlian your rod. 
 
 " Now, having taken a good dish of trouts, I presented them to my lord. He 
 having provided good company, commanded me to turn cook, and dress them 
 
 for dinner 
 
 " There comes an honest gentleman, a familiar friend, to me — he was 
 an angler — begins to compliment witli me, and asked me how I did ? when I 
 had been angling? and demanded, in discourse, what was the reason I did not 
 relate in my book the dressing of his dish offish, which he loved ? I pray you, 
 sir, what dish of trouts was that ? He said it was a dish of close-boiled trouts, 
 buttered with eggs. My answer was to him, that every scullion dresseth that 
 dish against his will, because he cannot calvor them. I will tell you, in short : 
 Put your trouts into the kettle when the kettle is set to the fire, and let them 
 boil gently, as many cooks do ; and they shall boil close enough ; which is a 
 good dish, buttered with eggs, good for ploughmen, but not for the palate. Sir, 
 I hope I have given satisfaction," 
 
 [This Mr. Thomas Barker was no doubt an excellent angler. He was the 
 first known inventor of what are called night-flies or moths. And he used 
 them on the right principle, viz. : in darkness, a very light bodied and light- 
 winged fly ; when only moderately dark, a yellow fly ; and when becoming to 
 get dark, a brown-bodied fly. Hence we moderns have the flies called the 
 brown, the yellow, and the white moth. If I mistake not, Barker was the first 
 to make use of trout or salmon roe as a bait for fish, but he used it in a raw state. 
 It is now a very common and a very deadly bait ; but it is used in a preserved 
 state, and very properly, as being, when so, more killing and far more conve- 
 nient than when raw.] — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 8?- 
 
 better; take off the one side of the feather, and then take 
 the hackle, silk, or crewel, gold or silver thread, make these 
 fast at the bent of the hook, that is to say, below your arm- 
 ing; then you must take the hackle, the silver or gold thread, 
 and work it up to the wings, shifting or still removing your 
 finger, as you turn the silk about the hook; and still looking 
 at every stop or turn, that your gold, or what materials 
 soever you make your fly of do lie right and neatly ; and if 
 you find they do so, then, when you have made the head^ 
 make all fast and then work your hackle up to the head, 
 and make that fast : and then with a needle or pin divide the 
 wing into two, and then with the arming silk whip it about 
 crossways betwixt the wings, and then with your thumb you 
 must turn the point of the feather towards the bent of the 
 hook, and then work three or four times about the shank of the 
 hook, and then view the proportion, and if all be neat and to 
 your liking, fasten. 
 
 I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a 
 dull capacity able to make a fly well : and yet I know, this, 
 with a little practice, will help an ingenious angler in a good 
 degree ; but to see a fly made by an artist in that kind, is the 
 best teaching to make it. And then an ingenious angler may 
 walk by the river and mark what flies fall on the water that 
 day, and catch one of them, if he sees the trouts leap at a 
 fly of that kind ; and then having always hooks ready hung, 
 with him, and having a bag always with him, with bear's 
 hair, or the hair of a brown or sad-coloured heifer, hackles 
 of a cock or capon, several coloured silk and crewel to make 
 the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's head, black or 
 brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool or hair, thread of gold and 
 of silver ; silk of several colours (especially sad-coloured), to 
 make the fly's head : and there be also other coloured feathers, 
 both of little birds and of speckled fowl :'•■ I say, having those 
 
 » Sir John Hawkins, at tliis point of his edition of AValton, gives, in a note» 
 a list of the materials used in his time— nearly a hundred years ago — for fly- 
 making. Some of the materials mentioned are proper, the others not so. The • 
 following list contains all that is necessary for dressing such flies as will capture 
 trout, grayling, chub, dace, and roach. For plain, dully transparent wings, tlie 
 fibres of the starling's wing-feather are the best, and therefore far more gene- 
 rally used ; for small light transparent wings, fibres from the feathers of the 
 lark's wings ; for reddish wings, the land-rail's and red-wing's feathers from the 
 wing and from under the wing; for mottled wings, the wing-feathers of wood- 
 cock, partridge, and hen pheasant, and the brown and grey mottled feathers of 
 the mallard, and tail-feathers of the hen and cock pheasant ; for legs, all sorts 
 
W THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 with Mm in a bag, and trying to make a fly, though he miss 
 at first, yet shall he at last hit it better, even to such a per- 
 fection as none can well teach him ; and if he hit to make 
 his fly right, and have the luck to hit also where there b'> 
 store of trouts, a dark day, and a right wind, he will catch 
 such store of them, as will encourage him to grow more and 
 more in love with the art of fly-making. 
 
 Ven. But, my loving master, if any wind will not serve, 
 then T wish I were in Lapland, to buy a good wind of one of 
 the honest witches, that sell so many winds there, and so 
 cheap. 
 
 Pisc. Marry, scholar, but I would not be there, nor indeed 
 from under this tree : for look how it begins to rain ; and by 
 the clouds, if I mistake not, we shall presently have a smoking 
 shower ; and therefore sit close ; this sycamore tree will 
 shelter us : and I will tell you, as they shall come into my 
 mind, more observations of fly-fishing for a trout. 
 
 But first, for the wind ; you are to take notice, that of the 
 winds, the south wind is said to be the best. One observes, 
 that 
 
 when the wind is south, 
 
 It blows your bait into a fish's mouth. 
 
 Next to that, the west wind is believed to be the best : and 
 having told you that the east wind is the worst, I need not 
 
 of cock's hackles, duns, reds, browns, whites, and blacks, naturally, and dyed 
 yellow, green, olive, orange, purple; for legs also, grouse's back-feathers, wren's 
 tail, golden plover back-feathers, pewit's topping, peacock's harl of different 
 hues, black ostrich harl (harl is the fibre of the long tail-feathers of the peacock, 
 &c.), and a few others. These feathers, or at least a few of them, are often used 
 • to make the bodies of flies, and frequently to rib them. 
 
 The best materials for dubbing, that is for making the bodies and occasionally 
 the legs, are mohair and pig's wool, dyed of many colours. They best suit the 
 imitation of large-bodied flies, and resist the water better than any other sub- 
 stance used, except seal's fur, which dyed diversely, is an excellent dubbing. 
 Floss silk of every hue is used for bodies, and various sorts of furs, bear's, 
 monkey's, spaniel's, mole's, water-rat's, hare's pole and ear, martin's yellow fur, 
 and a few other sorts. For tipping at the tails of flies, and for ribbing the 
 bodies, you must use silver and gold twist and tinsel. All sorts, sizes, and 
 <;olours, of tying silk are indispensable, and they must be well waxed when 
 used. Varnish is necessary for the whipping of the hook and gut, and for the 
 finishing of the heads of flies. All slip-knots sliould be touched with varnish 
 to prevent them undoing. Some flies have two whisks or tails, some three. 
 To imitate them, the fibre of the mallard's mottled feather is much used, and 
 so are hairs, particularly the dark ones found on bear skins, and on the faces 
 •of rabbits, cats, &c. The whisks or tails of flies should generally be the colour 
 either of the bodies or wings. The fibres of the feathers used for the wings 
 ivill frequently suit for the tails. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 91 
 
 tell you which wind is the best in the third degree : and yet 
 (as Solomon observes), that " he that considers the wind shall 
 never sow," so lie that busies his head too much about them, 
 if the weather be not made extreme cold by an east wind, 
 shall be a little superstitious : for as it is observed by some, 
 that " there is no good horse of a bad colour," so I have 
 observed, that if it be a cloudy day, and not extreme cold, let 
 the wind set in what corner it will and do its worst, I heed it 
 not. And yet take this for a rule, that I would willingly fish 
 standing on the lee-shore : and you are to take notice, that 
 the fish lies or swims nearer the bottom, and in deeper 
 water, in winter than in summer ; and also nearer the 
 bottom in any cold day, and then gets nearest the lee side of 
 the water. 
 
 But I promised to tell 3'ou more of the fly-fishing for a 
 trout, which I may have time enough to do, for you see it 
 rains May-butter. First, for a May-fly, you may make his 
 body with greenish-coloured crewel or willowish colour; 
 darkening it in most places with waxed silk, or ribbed with 
 black hair, or some of them ribbed with silver thread ; and 
 such wings for the colour, as you see the fly to have at that 
 season, nay, at that very day, on the water. Or yon may 
 jnake the oak-fly, with an orange tawny, and black ground, 
 and the brown of a mallard's feather for the wiugs ;* and you 
 are to know, that these two are most excellent flies, that is, 
 the May-fly and the oak-fly. And let me again tell you that 
 you keep as far from the water as you can possibl}^, whether 
 you fish with a fly or worm, and fish down the stream : and 
 when you fish with a fly, if it be possible, let no part of your 
 line touch the water,t but your fly only ; and be still moving 
 your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water, you 
 yourself being also always moving down the stream. 
 
 Mr. Barker commends several sorts of the palmer-flies, not 
 only those ribbed with silver and gold, but others that have 
 their bodies all made of black, or some w^ith red, and a red 
 
 * The best way to imitate this excellent fly is thus shown in my " Handbook 
 of Angling." Wings, — Partridge's wing-feather dressed of a full size, and to 
 lie flat. Body, bright yellow mohair, ribbed with dark brown silk, and tipped 
 with gold twist. Legs, a honey-dun hackle wound twice under the wings. 
 Hook, No. 9 and 10. — Ed. 
 
 t This is impossible, unless you dib with the artificial as with the natural fly, 
 which is never practised. The method of throwing or casting is more particu- 
 larly treated of in the notes on part 2, chap. v. — Ed. 
 
92 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 hackle ; you may also make the hawthoru-fly, which is all 
 blackj and not big, but very small, the smaller the better ; or 
 the oak-fly, the body of which is orange colour and black 
 crewel, with a brown wing ; or a fly made with a peacock's 
 feather is excellent in a bright day. You must be sure you 
 want not in your magazine-bag, the peacock's feather, and 
 grounds of such wool and crewel as will make the grass- 
 hopper ; and note, that usually the smallest flies are the best ; 
 and note also, that the light fly does usually make most 
 sport in a dark day, and the darkest and least fly in a bright 
 or clear day ; and lastly, note, that you are to repair upon 
 any occasion to your magazine-bag, and upon any occasion, 
 vary and make them lighter or sadder, according to your 
 fancy, or the day. 
 
 And now I*shall tell you, that the fishing with a natural 
 fly is excellent, and aftbrds much pleasure. They may be 
 found thus : the May- fly, usually in and about that month, near 
 to the river side, especially against rain : the oak-fly, on the 
 butt or body of an oak or ash, from the beginning of May to 
 the end of August ; it is a brownish fly and easy to be found, 
 and {?tands usually with his head downward, that is to say, 
 towards the root of the tree : the small black-fly, or hawthorn- 
 fly, is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves be 
 come forth. With these and a short line (as I showed, to 
 angle for a chub), you may dape or dop, and also with a 
 grasshopper, behind a tree, or in any deep hole ; still making 
 it to move on the top of the water, as if it were alive, and 
 still keeping yourself out of sight, you shall certainly have 
 sport if there be trouts ; yea, in a liot day, but especially in 
 the evening of a hot day, you wall have sport. 
 
 And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended 
 w^ith this shower, for it has done raining ; and now look 
 about you, and see how pleasantly that meadow looks ; nay, 
 and the earth smells as sweetly too. Come, let me tell you 
 ■what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as 
 these ; and then w^e will thank God that we enjoy them, and 
 walk to the river and sit down quietly, and try to catch the 
 other brace of trouts. 
 
 Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so briglit. 
 The bridal of tlie earth and sky, 
 Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night — 
 For thou must die. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 9.3 
 
 Sweet rose, whose hue, angrj^ and brave, 
 Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 
 Thy root is ever in its grave — 
 
 And thou must die. 
 
 Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 
 A box where sweets compacted lie ; 
 My music shows you have your closes — 
 And all must die. 
 
 Only a sweet and virtuous soul. 
 Like season'd timber, never gives ; 
 But when the whole world turns to coal, 
 Then chiefly lives. 
 
 Ven. I tliank you, good master, for your good direction 
 for fly-fishing, and for the sweet enjoynjeot of the pleasant 
 day, which is so far spent without offence to God or man : 
 and I thank you for the sweet close of your discourse with 
 Mr. Herbert's verses, who, I have heard, loved angling ; and 
 I do the rather believe it, because he had a spirit suitable 
 to anglers, and to those primitive Christians that you love, 
 and have so much commended. 
 
 Pisc. Well, my loving scholar, and I am pleased to know 
 that you are so well pleased with my direction and dis- 
 course. 
 
 And since you like these verses of Mr. Herbert's so well, 
 let me tell you what a reverend and learned divine that pro- 
 fesses to imitate him (and has indeed done so most excellently) 
 hath writ of our book of Common Prayer ; which I know 
 you will like the better, because he is a friend of mine, and I 
 am sure no enem}^ to angling. 
 
 "What ! Prayer by the Booh ? and Gonimon ? Yes ! why not ? 
 The spirit of grace 
 And supplication 
 Is not left free alone 
 For time and place. 
 But manner too : to read, or specik^ by rote, 
 Is all alike to him that prays 
 In's heart, what with his mouth he says. 
 
 They that in private, by themselves alone, 
 Do pray, may take 
 What liberty they please, 
 In choosing of the ways 
 Wherein to make 
 Their soul's most intimate affections known 
 To him that sees in secret, when 
 They're most conceal'd from other men. 
 
3i THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 But he tliat unto others leads the way 
 In public prayer, 
 Should do it so 
 As all that hear may know 
 They need not fear 
 To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and say, 
 Amen ; not doubt they were betrayed 
 To blaspheme, when they meant to have pray'd. 
 
 Devotion will add life unto the letter : 
 And why sliould not 
 That which authority 
 Prescribes, esteemed be 
 Advantage got ? 
 If the prayer be good, the commoner the better ; 
 Prayer in the Church's words as well 
 As sense, of all prayers bears the bell. — Cn. Harvie. 
 
 And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our 
 angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves : 
 and you shall choose which shall be yours ; and it is an even 
 lay, one of them catches. 
 
 And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, 
 and laying night-hooks, are like jDutting money to use ; for 
 they both work for the owners, wlien they do nothing but 
 sleep, or eat, or rejoice; as you know we have done this 
 last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this 
 sycamore, as Yirgil's Tityrus and his Melibceus did under 
 I their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life 
 \ so happy and so pleasant, as the life of a well-governed 
 \ angler, for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, 
 •and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we 
 [sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess our- 
 jselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, 
 which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good 
 scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of straw- 
 berries," Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but 
 doubtless God never did ;" and so, if I might be judge, " God 
 ^ never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation, than 
 angling." 
 
 ril tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose bank, 
 and looked down these meadows, I thought of them, as 
 Charles the emperor did of the city of Florence, " That they 
 were too pleasant to be looked on, but only on holidays." As 
 I then sat on this very grass, I turned my present thoughts 
 into verse : 'twas a wish, which I'll rej)eat to you.* 
 
 ' We have here liltle less than Walton's own word for it, that the following 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 95 
 
 ^c angler's raisL 
 
 I in these flowery meads would be : 
 These crystal streams should solace me ; 
 To whose harmonious bubbling noise 
 I with my angle would rejoice, 
 
 Sit here, and see the turtle dove 
 
 Court his chaste mate to acts of love : 
 
 Or, on that bank, feel the west wind 
 Breathe health and plenty : please my mind, 
 To see sweet dew^rops kiss these flowers, 
 And then wash'd oif by April showers ; 
 
 Here, hear my Kenna* sing a song ;* [^ "Like Hermit Poor.^'| 
 
 There, see a blackbird feed her young. 
 
 Or a leverock build her nest : 
 Here, give my weary spirits rest. 
 And raise my low-jjitch'd thoughts above 
 Earth, or what poor mortals love : 
 
 Thus, free from lawsuits and the noise 
 
 Of princes' courts, I would rejoice ; 
 
 Or, with my Biyanf and a book, 
 Loiter long days near Shawford brook ;t 
 There sit by him, and eat my meat ; 
 There see the sun both rise and set ; 
 There bid good morning to next day ; 
 There meditate my time away ; 
 
 And angle on, and beg to have 
 
 A quiet passage to a welcome grave, , 
 
 ^. 
 
 beautiful stanzas are of his writing. That he had in his mind a vein of poetry 
 is noted in our life of him ; to which let me add, that the name of his supposed 
 mistress, " Kenna," seems clearly to be formed from the maiden-name of his- 
 wife, which was Ken. — H. 
 
 * We see, by the author's reference to the margin, that he wishes to hear 
 Kenna, his mistress, sing the song, " Like Hermit Poor." This song was set to 
 music by Nich. Laneare, an eminent master of Walton's time. 
 
 There is no doubt that this song was (and probably with Mrs. Walton) a 
 favourite one; for, some years after the Ilestoration, the three first words of it 
 were become a phrase. The affected writer of the " Life of the Lord Keeper 
 Guildford," page 212 of that book, speaking of Sir Job Charleton, then chief- 
 justice of Chester, says, he wanted to speak with the king ; and went to White- 
 hall ; where, returning from his walk in St. James's-park, he must pass ; and 
 there he sat him down ♦• like hermit poor." — H. 
 
 t A friend conjectures this to be the name of his favourite dog. — H. 
 
 X Shawford -brook, part of the river Sow, running through the very land 
 which AValton bequeathed in his will to the corporation of Stafford to find coals 
 for the poor; the right of fisliery in which attaches to this little estate. The 
 house, described by Walton in his will , is now divided . The brook is a beautiful 
 winding stream, and the situation such as would be likely to create admiratioa 
 in a mind like Walton's. — H. 
 
^6 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 When I liacl ended this composure, I left this place, and 
 saw a brother of the angle sit under that honeysuckle hedge, 
 one that will prove worth your acquaintance : I sat down by 
 him, and presently we met with an accidental piece of merri- 
 ment, which I will relate to you ; for it rains still. 
 
 On the other side of this very hedge sat a gang of gipsies, 
 and near to them sat a gang of beggars. The gipsies were 
 then to divide all the money that had been got that week, 
 either by stealing linen or poultry, or by fortune-telling, or 
 legerdemain, or indeed by any other sleights and secrets 
 belonging to their mysterious government. And the sum 
 that was got that week proved to be but twenty and some 
 odd shillings. The odd money was agreed to be distributed 
 amongst the poor of their own corporation ; and for the 
 remaining twenty shillings, that was to be divided unto four 
 gentlemen gipsies, according to their several degrees in their 
 commonwealth. 
 
 -And the first or chiefest gipsy was, by consent, lo have a 
 third part of the 20s., which all men know is 6s. Sd, 
 
 The second was to have a fourth part of the 205., which all 
 men know to be 5s. 
 
 The third was to have a fifth part of the 205., which all 
 men know to be 45. 
 
 The fourth and last gipsy was to have a sixth part of the 
 20s., which all men know to be os. id. 
 As for example, 
 
 3 times 6s, 8d. is 205. 
 And so is 4 times 5s, , , 20s. 
 And so is 5 times 45. . . 205. 
 And so is 6 times 35. id. , 20s, 
 And yet he that divided the money was so very a gipsy, 
 that though he gave to every one these said sums, yet he 
 kept Is. of it for himself. 
 
 As for example, s, d, 
 6 8 
 5 
 4 
 3 4 
 
 make but . .19 
 But now you shall know, that when the four gipsies saw 
 that he had got Is, by dividing the money, though not one of 
 them knew any reason to demand more, yet, like lords and 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEJR. 97 
 
 courtiers, every gipsy envied him that was the gainer, and 
 wrangled with him, and every one said the remaining shilling 
 belonged to him : and so they fell to so high a contest about 
 it, as none that knows the faithfulness of one gipsy to 
 another will easily believe; only we that have lived these last 
 twenty years, are certain that money has been able to do 
 much mischief However, the gipsies were too w^ise to go to 
 law, and did therefore choose their choice friends Rook and 
 Shark, and our late English Gusman,"' to be their arbitrators 
 and umpires ; and so tliey left this honeysuckle hedge, and 
 went to tell fortunes, and cheat, and get more money and 
 lodging in the next village. 
 
 When these were gone, we heard a liigh contention amongst 
 the beggars, whether it was easiest to rip a cloak, or to unrip 
 a cloak. One beggar affirmed it was all one. But that was 
 denied by asking her if doing and undoing were all one. 
 Then another said 'twas easiest to unrip a cloak, for that was 
 to let it alone. But she was answered by asking her, how 
 she unripped it, if she let it alone : and she confessed herself 
 mistaken. These and twenty such like questions were pro- 
 posed, and answered with as much beggarly logic and earnest- 
 ness, as was ever heard to proceed from the mouth of the 
 most pertinacious schismatic : and sometimes all the beggars, 
 whose number was neither more nor less than the poet's nine 
 muses, talked altogether about this ripping and unripping, 
 and so loud that not one heard what the other said : but at 
 last one beggar craved audience, and told them that old father 
 Clause, whom Ben Jonson in his "Beggar's Bush,"t created 
 king of their corporation, was to lodge at an alehouse called 
 " Catch-her-by-the-way," not far from Waltham Cross, and 
 in the high road towards London ; and he therefore desired 
 them to spend no more time about that and such like ques- 
 tions, but refer all to father Clause at night, for he was an 
 upright judge, and in the meantime draw cuts, what song- 
 should be next sung, and who should sing it. They all agreed 
 to the motion ; and the lot fell to her that was the youngest 
 
 * Alluding to a work that appeared a few years before, entitled " The 
 English Gusman ; or, The History of that Unparalleled 'J'hief, James Hind," 
 written by George Fidge. 4to. London, 1G52. Hind made a considerable 
 figure at the time of the great rebellion, and fought, both at VTorcester and 
 Warrington, on the king's side. He was arrested by order of the Parliament 
 in 1C51. Rook and Shark, imaginary associates of the English Gusman. — H. 
 
 t This comedy was not written by Jonson, but by Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 and veriest virgin of the company. And she sung Frank 
 Davison's song, which he made forty years ago ; and all the 
 others of the company joined to sing the burthen with her. 
 The ditty was this : but first the burthen : 
 
 Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars play ! 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 
 
 What noise of viols is so sweet 
 
 As when our merry clappers ring ? 
 What mirth doth want when beggars meet ? 
 
 A beggar's life is for a king, 
 Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list, 
 Gro where we will — so stocks be miss'd. 
 
 Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! 
 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 
 
 The world is ours, and ours alone ; 
 
 For we alone have world at will. 
 We purchase not — all is our own ; 
 
 Both fields and streets we beggars fill. 
 
 Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! 
 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 
 
 A hundred herds of black and white 
 
 Upon our gowns securely feed ; 
 And yet if any dare us bite, 
 
 He dies, therefore, as sure as creed. 
 Thus beggars lord it as they please, 
 And only beggars live at ease. 
 
 Bright shines the sun ; play, beggars, play ! 
 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 
 
 Yen. I thank you, good master, for this piece of merri- 
 ment, and this song, which was well humoured by the maker, 
 and well remembered by you. 
 
 Pisc. But, I pray, forget not the catch which you promised 
 to make against night ; for our countryman, honest Coridon, 
 will expect your catch, and my song, which I must be forced 
 to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that I have 
 forgotten a part of it. But, come, now it hath done raining, 
 let's stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the river, and 
 try what interest our angles will pay us for lending them so 
 long to be used by the trouts ; lent them, indeed, like usurers, 
 for our profit and their destniction. 
 
 Yen. Oh me ! look you, master, a fish ! a fish I Oh, alas, 
 master, I have lost her ! 
 
 Pisc. Ay, marry, sir, that was a good fish indeed : if I had 
 Lad the luck to have taken up that rod, then 'tis twenty to 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 99 
 
 one lie should not have broke my line by running to the rod's 
 end, as you suffered him. I would have held him within the 
 bent of my rod (unless he had been fellow to the great trout 
 that is near an ell long, which was of such a length and depth 
 that he had his picture drawn, and now is to be seen at mine 
 host E.ickabie's, at the George, in Ware), and it may be by 
 giving that very great trout the rod, that is, by casting it to 
 him into the water, I might have caught him at the long run ; 
 for so I use always to do when I meet with an overgrown 
 fish; and you will learn to do so too hereafter : for I tell you, 
 scholar, fishing is an art ; or, at least, it is an art to catch fish. 
 
 Yen. But, master, I have heard that the great trout you 
 speak of is a salmon. 
 
 Pisc. Trust me, scholar, I know not what to say to it. 
 There are many country people that believe hares change 
 sexes every year : and there be very many learned men think 
 so too, for in their dissecting them they find many reasons to 
 incline them to that belief And to make the wonder seem 
 yet less, that hares change sexes, note, that Doctor Mer. 
 Casaubon affirms in his book of credible and incredible things, 
 that Gaspar Peucerus, a learned ph37^sician, tells us of a people 
 that once a year turn wolves, partly in shape and partly in 
 conditions. And so, whether this were a salmon when he 
 came into the fresh water, and his not returning into the sea 
 hath altered him to another colour or kind, I am not able to 
 say : but I am certain he hath all the signs of being a trout 
 both for his shape, colour, and spots; and yet many think he 
 is not. 
 
 Vex. But, master, will this trout which I had hold of 
 die ^ for it is like he hath the hook in his belly. 
 
 Pisc. I will tell you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast 
 in his very gorge, 'tis more than probable he will live; and a 
 little time, with the help of the water, will rust the hook, and 
 it will in time wear away ; as the gravel doth in the horse- 
 hoof, which only leaves a false quarter. 
 
 And now, scholar, let's go to my rod. Look you, scholar, 
 I have a fish too, but it proves a logger-headed chub ; and 
 this is not much amiss, for this will pleasure some poor body, 
 as we go to our lodging to meet our brother Peter, and honest 
 Coridon. Come, now bait your hook again, and lay it into 
 the water, for it rains again : and we will even retire to the 
 sycamore tree, and there I will give you more directions con- 
 cerning fishing ; for I would fain make you an artist. 
 
 G 2 
 
100 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Yen. Yes, good master, I pray let it be so. 
 
 Pisc. Well, scholar, now we are sat down and are at ease^ 
 I shall tell you a little more of trout-fishing, before I speak 
 of 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 in the night the best trouts come out of their 
 holes : and ijie 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 within a place where the waters run somewhat 
 quietly, for in a stream the bait will not be so well discerned, 
 I say, in a quiet or dead place, near 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 will take it, especially 
 if the night be dark ; for then he is bold, and lies near the top 
 of the water, watching the motion of any frog, or water- 
 rat, or mouse that swims between him and the sky : these he 
 hunts after if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of 
 these dead holes, where these great old trouts usually lie near 
 to their holds j for you are to note, that the great old trout is 
 both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not 
 usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day 
 as the timorous hare does in her form, for the chief feeding 
 of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and 
 then the great trout feeds very boldly. 
 
 And you must fish for him w^ith 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, and at the snap : nay, he will sometimes 
 rise at a dead mouse, or a piece of cloth, or anything that 
 seems to swim across the water, or to be in motion. This is a 
 choice way, but I have not often used it, because it is void of 
 the pleasures that such days as these, that we two now enjoy, 
 afibrd an angler. 
 
 And you are to know^ that in Hampshire, which I think 
 exceeds all England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, 
 and store of trouts, they used to catch trouts in the night, by 
 the light of a torch or straw, which, when they have dis- 
 covered, they strike with a trout-spear, or other ways. This 
 kind of way they catch very many ; but I would not believe it 
 till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have 
 seen it. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. >, , . , lOX > 
 
 Yen. But, master, do not trouts see us in the night 1 ^ 
 Pisc. Yes, and hear and smell too, both then and in the 
 day-time : for Gesner observes, the otter smells a fish forty 
 furlongs off him in the water : and that it may be true, seems 
 to be affirmed by Sir Francis Bacon, in the eighth century of -f- 
 his "Natural History," who there proves that water 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 near 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 well observed and demon- 
 strated as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe! 
 that eels unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder;! 
 and not only, as some think, by the motion or stirring of the 
 earth, which is occasioned by that thunder. 
 
 And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon, Exper. 792, has 
 made me crave pardon of one that I laughed at, for affirming 
 that he knew carps come to a certain place in a pond, to be 
 fed, at the ringing of a bell, or the beating of a drum ; and 
 however, it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as 
 I can when I am fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be con- 
 futed, which I shall give any man leave to do.* 
 
 * That fish hear, is confirmed by the authority of late writers. Swammer- 
 dam asserts it, and adds, that " they have a wonderful labyrinth of the ear for 
 that purpose." See Swammerdam on Insects, edit. London, 1758, p. 50. A 
 clergyman, a friend of mine, assures me, that at the Abbey of St. Bernard, near 
 Antwerp, he saw carp come at the whistling of the feeder.— H. 
 
 [With respect to the organs of hearing, and the power of hearing in fish, I 
 consulted Mr. Erasmus Wilson, one of the most eminent anatomists and phy- 
 siologists now alive, and the following is his opinion : — " There is nothing in 
 the exterior head of the fish to indicate that it is provided with an ear. In. 
 the higher animals, the mechanical apparatus of hearing consists of an internal 
 and an external portion : in fishes, the internal portion alone exists, and is 
 hardly inferior in perfection of form and structure, to that of creatures placed 
 higher in the animal scale. The nerves distributed to the organs of hearing 
 are of large size, and the vital apparatus, or portion of brain, from which the 
 former proceed, is considerable. There exists, however, this important dif- 
 ference between the organ of hearing of terrestrial animals and fishes, viz., that 
 the ear in the fonner is organized for the reception of the more delicate vibra- 
 tions of the atmosphere, while in the latter it is adapted to the rude oscillations 
 of a denser element. We may make this difference apparent by the following 
 simple illustration. The impulse occasioned to the air by the ticking of a watch 
 is so weak, as to be indistinctly heard when the watch is brought close to the 
 ear ; but if we convey the watch to a greater distance from the ear and press 
 it against the teeth, we hear the ticking with remarkable distinctness. In the 
 language of science, solid and dense bodies vibrate with greater intensity than 
 
102 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 And, lest you may think him singular in his opinion, I will 
 tell you, this seems to be believed by our learned Dr. Hake- 
 will, who, in his '^Apology of God's Power and Providence," 
 fol. 360, quotes Pliny to report that one of the emperors had 
 particular fish-ponds, and in them several fish that appeared 
 and came when they were called by their particular names : 
 and St. James tells us, chap. iii. 7, that all things in the sea 
 have been tamed by mankind. And Pliny tells us, lib. ix. 35, 
 that Antonia, the wife of Darsus, had a lamprey, at whose 
 gills she himg jewels or ear-rings; and that others have been 
 so tender-hearted as to shed tears at the death of fishes which 
 they have kept and loved. Arid these observations, which 
 will to most hearers seem wonderful, seem to have a further 
 confirmation from Martial, lib. iv. Ejjigr. 30, who writes 
 thus : 
 
 Piscator, fuge ; ne nocens, etc. 
 
 Angler ! wouldst thou be guiltless ? then forbear ; 
 
 For these are sacred fishes that swim here, 
 
 Who know their sovereign, and will lick his hand ; 
 
 Than which none's greater in the world's command : 
 
 Nay more, they've names, and, when they called are, 
 
 Do to their several owners' call repair. * 
 
 All the further use that I shall make of this shall be, to advise 
 anglers to be patient and forbear swearing, lest they be heard, 
 and catch no fish. 
 
 And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain, that 
 certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are 
 observed to make the sheep that graze upon them more fat 
 than 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 
 
 lighter media, sucli as the atmosphere. "When the watch is held nigh to the 
 ear, the atmosphere is the conductor ; when the watch is connected with the 
 ear by the intervention of a rod of wood, or the solid parts of the head, these 
 are the conductors. Now the apparatus of hearing of the fish presents con- 
 ductors of the latter kind ; water, a denser body than air, is the conducting 
 medium ; and the solid mass of the head, and, in fact, of the entire body, com- 
 plete the conduction to the vital apparatus. Hence, in fishes, an humble con- 
 trivance is capable of effecting the same end as the higher-toned instruments 
 of terrestrial animals. As fishes thus evidently possess the organ of hearing in 
 a moderate degree of perfection, they must therefore hear with moderate acute- 
 ness, particularly such sounds as occasion a vibration of the element in which 
 they reside ; for example, an approcahing footstep ; while the sounds which 
 proceed from musical instruments, being less easily conveyed, are probably 
 unknown to them : certainly this is the case with regard to tone." We con- 
 stantly hear of fish coming to be fed at the sound of the bell. They rather 
 come to the sound of the bell-ringer's feet, that is to the vibration caused by his 
 foot-fall, and so indicating his presence. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 108 
 
 shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they 
 came to feed in it, and coarser 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 
 lil^e to be lousy ; and as certainly, if I catch a trout in the 
 next meadow, he shall be strong, and red, and lusty, and 
 much better meat. Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a 
 trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the 
 enamelled colour of him hath been such, as have joyed me to 
 look on him : and I have then with much pleasure concluded 
 with Solomon, " Everything is beautiful in his season." 
 
 I should by promise speak next of the salmon ; but I will 
 by your favour say a little of the umber or grayling, which is 
 so like a trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may 
 exercise your patience with a short discourse of him, and then 
 the next shall be of the salmon. 
 
 [Remaeks, etc., TorcHiNG THE Teout. — Walton has dedicated 
 portions of the Third and Fourth Day's fishing and dialogue, embracing 
 two very long chapters, to that interesting fish the Trout. To be sure 
 the chapters are interspersed with songs, conviviality, and conversation 
 on many subjects besides fish. This good father of us anglers knew well 
 how to catch a trout with a worm, or with a live May-fly ; but certainly 
 he was not an adept at taking that fish with the artificial fly or by spin- 
 ning the minnow. Nor do I at all think that his knowledge of the 
 natural history of the trout, of its habits, and of the methods of breeding 
 it, was either accurate or profound. 
 
 I shall begin with the natural history of the fish, and most probably 
 state that which will appear heterodox to thousands. We know the 
 history of salmon, but certainly not of trout, because there are so many 
 varieties of that fish differing in appearance, size, colour, shape, and 
 habits. As Walton and Cotton treat only of the common trout, perhaps 
 I ought to have confined myself to that fish, and avoided the other 
 species. My love for the art I have so long possessed prevents me. To 
 begin :— 
 
 The common trout is the salmofario of Linna>us. On its lateral line 
 it has red spots, its tail is much forked when out of condition, and hardly 
 forked at all when the fish is in full season, at the end of June. It ia 
 yellowish about the belly, darkish on the back, and in the upper part of 
 the sides has deep purple and pink spots. The head of the female is 
 blunter than that of the male, which, if he is an old fish, has the lower 
 jaw more elongated than the upper. The rays of the dorsal fin are 
 thirteen, pectoral thirteen, ventral nine, anal nine, and caudal or tail 
 twenty-five. Guided by this description, no one can fail to recognise 
 the trout. Let me utter one caution. He is not always of the colour 
 
104 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 described, and the best signalement must be sought for in the rays of his 
 tins. I have seen trout of the very same species, nay, probably, of the 
 same brood, differing much in colour; some dark, some bright, and 
 some yellow. Colour depends on depth of water. In deep and shaded 
 waters, yellow and dark-coloured trout will be found ; in shallow waters, 
 bright ones. The chemical properties of light are the cause. The sun's rays 
 can penetrate and oxygenate the shallow exposed streams, and hence the 
 brightness of the fish resident there. Light is wanting in the deep and 
 shaded waters, and hence the darkness in the colour of its denizens. 
 The general habits of the common trout are well enough known. Its 
 food are worms, small fish, larvse, grubs, caterpillars, flies, etc. On flies 
 it thrives best, next on fish, and worst of all on worms. Very large 
 fish thrive best on fish-food. It breeds in September, October, and 
 November, rarely earlier, but sometimes later. What is called the 
 " throng'' breeding season depends upon temperature — upon season and 
 locality. The trout of England breed earlier than those of the North 
 of Scotland. They breed in the shallows at the heads of rivers, and in 
 the smallest rivulets. Male and female assist each other in excavating 
 in the sand and gravel a bed, or nest for their spawn. The female first 
 deposits her ova, or eggs, and then the male sheds his milt over them, and 
 to impregnates them. The fish then covers over with sand and gravel 
 the deposited and impregnated ova. In about fifty daj^s, on an average, 
 they are hatched, but perfect incubation may, in a cold climate, or in a 
 very severe winter, require thirty days longer. The growth of trout is 
 not precisely ascertained. It is not possible to do so. They difter so 
 much in size, though of the same species, in different rivers, that it is 
 extremely difficult to strike an average. Guessing, I should say that 
 the common river trout averages about one pound in two years. I 
 think (many will think me mad for doing so) that the sea-trout, the bull- 
 trout, and many other varieties, are crosses of ancient date between the 
 common trout and the i)ure salmon. I think also, that these crosses 
 inter-generate, if I may use the word, and hence a vast variety of river- 
 trout. Of lake-trout, bred in lakes not connected with salmon rivers, 
 I have little to say. Every such lake has its particular trout; some 
 small, some large, some handsome, some ugly, some well-flavoured, 
 some ill-flavoured, all which conditions are the results of the volume and 
 depth of water, its temperature, and the quantity and quality of the food 
 it affords. It is only in very large lakes that the immense grey lake- 
 trout, or salmo ferox, is found. In my remarks on the salmon, at the 
 end of the seventh chapter, I'll show how trout and that fish are bred 
 artificially. 
 
 If I fished for trout with the worm, I should never use a float, but put 
 a few shot on my line, increasing or diminishing the number according 
 to the strength or weakness of the current. I should have a swivel on 
 the gut foot-line, about two feet from the hook, and I should fish close to 
 the bottom, allowing the worm to move on with the current — more slowly, 
 than the stream where it is rapid. Two middle-sized worms on the hook 
 at tlie same time are better than one, and the best worms are brandlings 
 and blue-heads. The most deadly way of fishing for trout is by 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 105 
 
 spinning the minnow for moderately sized fish, and the gudgeon, dace, 
 and even a small trout for large trout. A very large fish of that species, 
 such as the great grey lake trout, will take a common tront, weighing 
 half or three-quarters of a pound. A Thames trout, of the weight 
 of twelve pounds, will take as a bait the largest gudgeon, or even a 
 dace, four inches in length. It is a general rule, that large baits are 
 the best for large fish ; they will not trouble themselves about small 
 ones. The best minnow-flight consists of eleven hooks [see cut at end of 
 these remarks] : one lip hook, two treble hooks, a single hook to curb the 
 fish bait, a little below the vent, a treble hook to pass " fly^' or free be- 
 yond the tail. In the London fishing-tackle shops every sort of spinning 
 tackle is sold, but I conscientiously believe the above "fiight^^ is the best. 
 It must be firmly tied on gut for small fish, on gimp for large ones. 
 There must be a swivel close to the lip-hook, and another on the gut, or 
 gimp-trace, two feet higher up. The trace should be shotted at about 
 twelve inches from the lip-hook. The spinning rod need never to be 
 more than twelve feet in length, and it should be rather stiff than pliant. 
 Its rings should be large and stand upright. It should be made of the 
 following woods, and be of four joints, butt, ash, or willow, second joint 
 hickory, small piece ditto, and top lance wood and bamboo-cane. The 
 line should be stout, and of platted silk, and it should be oiled or var- 
 nished. The winch should be large, and of free action. The tyro must 
 cast the spinning-bait and work it through the water thus : uncoil from 
 the winch as much line as is wanted, allowing the coils to rest at your 
 feet. Let the bait hang not more than a yard from the top of the rod, 
 then, poising and bringing back the rod either to the left or right, propel 
 the bait somewhat upwards and forwards; and its weight, and the 
 momentum given to it, will carry out all the coiled line. As soon as the 
 bait falls in the water, commence drawing it towards you by short pulls 
 of the line either with the right or left hand, making the bait spin 
 straightly towards you with moderate speed. When the bait is drawn 
 in close to the fisher, he must lift it out of the water, and repeat the 
 cast. Wlien there is what is called a " run," the angler must strike 
 shai-ply, and play the hooked fish boldly. Repeat casting until the 
 stream or pool is fished all over, and then move to another spot. All 
 hooks used in spinning should be made of bright wire. There is a 
 spinning flight called Colonel Hawker's, sold in all the shops, which^ I 
 consider very good ; but it is not very easy to bait with it. Artificial 
 minnows are to be bought, ready mounted, and they must be used just 
 in the way I have described. Spinning answers best in water that has 
 been recently discoloured by rain, and is useless in clear shallow water. 
 The Thames punt-men are the best masters and teachers of the art of 
 spinning in the world. — Ed.] 
 
 FLIGHT OF H0OK3. 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OBSEEVATIONS ON THE UMBER OR GRAYLING, AND DIRECTIONS HOW 
 TO FISH FOR HIM. 
 
 Lfouvtf) Ban.] 
 
 Pisc. Tlie umber and grayling are thought by some to differ, 
 as the herring and pilchard do. But though they may do so 
 in other nations, I think those in England differ in nothing but 
 their names. Aldrovandus says they be of a trout kind ; and 
 Gesner says, that in his country, which is in Switzerland, he is 
 accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is in the 
 month of May so highly valued, that he is sold at a much 
 higher rate than any other fish. The French, which call the 
 chub un vilain, call the umber of the lake Leman un umhle die- 
 valier : and they value the umber or grayling so highly, that 
 they say he feeds on gold, and say that many have been 
 caught out of their famous river Loire, out of whose bellies 
 grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that 
 , he feeds on water-thyme, and smells of it at his first taking 
 ■ out of the water ; and they may think so with as good reason 
 as we do that our smelts smell like violets at their first being 
 caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the 
 salmon, the grayling, and trout, and all fish that live in clear 
 and ^harp streams, are made by their mother nature of such 
 exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a 
 joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a 
 truth or not it is not my purpose to dispute : but 't is certain, 
 all that write of the umber declare him to be very medicin- 
 able. And Gesner says, that the fat of an umber or Gray- 
 ling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 107 
 
 in a little glass, is very excellent against redness^ or swarthi- 
 ness, or anything that breeds in the eyes. Salvian takes him. 
 to be called umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out 
 of sight more like a shadow or a ghost than a iish. Much 
 more might be said both of his smell and taste : but I shall 
 only tell you, that St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, 
 who lived when the church kept fasting days, calls him the 
 Hower-fish, or flower of fishes : and that he was so far in love 
 with him that he w^ould not let him pass without the honour 
 of a long discourse ; but I must, and pass on to tell you how 
 to take this dainty fish. 
 
 First, note, that he grows not to the bigness of a trout; for 
 the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. 
 He lives in such rivers as the trout does, and is usually taken 
 with the same baits as the trout is, and after the same manner ; 
 for he \vill bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly ; though 
 he bites not often at the minnow, and is very gamesome at 
 the fly, and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a trout ; 
 for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and 
 yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red 
 feathers of a parakita, a strange outlandish bird; and he will 
 rise at a fly not unlike a gnat or a small moth, or indeed at 
 most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close 
 all winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid- April, and 
 in May, and in the hot months : he is of a very fine shape, 
 his flesh is white ; his teeth, those little ones that he has, are 
 in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener 
 lost after an angler has hooked him, than any other fish. 
 Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river 
 Dove and Trent, and some other small rivers, as that which 
 runs by Salisbury,* yet he is not so general a fish as the trout, 
 nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall 
 take my leave of him ; and now come to some observations of 
 the salmon, and how to catch him. 
 
 * Not one of these rivers is small. Tlie Trent is a large navigable one. It 
 now produces very few grayling. The Dove is the classic river of fly-fishers, 
 rendered so by its abounding in trout and grayling, and by the extraordinary 
 beauty of its scenery ; and by the fact, that Charles Cotton, author of the second 
 part of the '* Complete Angler," resided on its br.nks, described it, and taught 
 how grayling and trout are to be caught in it. In truth, Cotton's fly-fishing 
 experience hardly went beyond the Dove and the neighbouring streams of 
 Derbyshire. Such experience was amply sufficient, for he who could success- 
 fully fly-fish in the limpid waters of those rivers, need not hesitate to wet a fly 
 anywhere. The Lathkil, a little brook of Derbyshire, is famous for its trout 
 and no less so for the difficulty of catching them with a fly. — Ed. 
 
108 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 [Remarks TorcHiNG the GEAYLixa. — In my opinion this is one 
 of the most gracefully shaped of our river nsh. The trout is handsomer, 
 but the grayling is prettier. The former is of Herculean beauty ; the 
 latter possesses that of Apollo, delicate, light, gracefully active. The 
 trout is rather of golden hue, studded with bright pink ornaments ; the 
 grayling is spangled with silver and purple. " It is a favourite fish of 
 mine,'*'' I say (in a Handbook of Angling) — "takes a fly boldly, but does 
 not show much resisting courage after having taken it and been hooked: 
 it is a gamesome fish but not a game one. The grayling very rarely 
 exceeds three pounds in weight, and a far greater number are caught 
 under twelve ounces weight than above it. They are not like the trout, 
 indigenous to this country ; and very probably, on account of their being 
 in season in the winter, when trout are not, and being an excellent gas- 
 tronomic substitute for that fish; they were brought from the continent 
 to this country by the monks, that those Sybarites might not be without 
 a fresh water delicacy during the most festive period of the year." It 
 has been remarked, in proof of this, that they are found in rivers on 
 whose banks monasteries and convents once abounded. The rule is 
 exceedingly exceptional, for the fish is not found in any of the rivers of 
 Ireland and Scotland, and in very few of those of England. Though 
 monasteries once flourished in great numbers on the banks and lakes of 
 Scotland and Ireland, still grayling have never been found in those 
 waters. The truth is, as Mr. Blaine remarks, " grayhng require other 
 peculiarities of location besides those of temperature, such as a general 
 character of the water they inhabit, and certain circumstances in the 
 nature of its composition derived from its sources: with one or two excep- 
 tions, they are only found in rivers which belong to the southern and 
 western parts of our island. It is probably owing to the abstraction of 
 some of these requisites, that the multiplication of these fish in several 
 rivers where they have been attempted to be naturalized has not been 
 attended with success. (I recollect Mr. Warburton, formerly member 
 for Bridport, attempting to introduce grayling into the upper parts of 
 the Thames. Though he carried a large number of store fish of that 
 species to be placed in the river, they never bred, and have long since totally 
 disappeared.) In some they soon disappeared; in others, they remained, 
 but never thrived ; while in some waters, though they lived and at first 
 increased, yet they were afterwards observed to shift their quarters to 
 difierent parts of the same river, in most of which cases it proved, as in 
 that which occurred in the Test in Hampshire, that they migrated from 
 above downwards, probably in search of deep and tranquil waters ; for 
 the angler cannot fail to observe that grayling do not, like trout, affect 
 very rapid shallows, and the boldest torrents : on the contrary, they 
 seem to thrive best where milder currents alternate with deep and exten- 
 sive pools ; neither do they do well where strong gravel or pure rock 
 characterise the bottoms; for it appears necessary to them, that the 
 ground over which they swim, should be compounded of sand, gravel, 
 and loam ; which mixture is, as we know, very favourable to the produc- 
 tion of the insect food on which they principally subsist." I have fre- 
 quently found smaU grayling on rapid shallows, but never large ones. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 109 
 
 except in the spawning season. The haunts of large grayling are the 
 somewhat deep and slowly running tails of streams or pools, a few yards 
 before the formation of the rapid heads of other pools. 
 
 The grayling is scientifically termed salmo tliymallus, from a general 
 belief that it emits a smell similar to that of thyme. In my opinion, as 
 well as in that of others, it faintly smells of cucumber. Dr. Fleming 
 (Brit. Animal.) calls this fish the grey salmon, and describes it as having 
 longitudinal dusky blue lines (some consider them grey, and hence its 
 name " gray -lines " abbreviated into " grayling ") and violet-coloured 
 dorsal fin barred with brown ; length from ten to eighteen inches ; head 
 obtuse, and the upper jaw longest. The rays of its dorsal fin are eighteen, 
 pectoral twelve, ventral eleven, and caudal nineteen. Its dorsal fm is 
 remarkably large, enabling it to rise to the surface of the water and sink 
 again with very great rapidity. It never jumps out of the water like 
 the trout ; and is incapable of surmounting either natural or artificial 
 obstructions in the water, such as cascades or weirs. By striking its 
 immense dorsal fin downwards against the water, it raises itself rapidly 
 to the surface, and by striking the same fin upwards against the superin- 
 cumbent element, it causes itself to descend with stone-like velocity. The 
 grayling rivers are the Dove, Teme, Lug, Test (these are the best rivers). 
 Wye, both in Herefordshire and Derbyshire, Severn, Trent, Irvon, 
 Hidder, Wharf and Avon in Hampshire. Mr. Henry George, of Wor- 
 cester, says of the Teme, that it produces the finest grayling in Eng- 
 land. He states, "a Teme grayling, in the height of condition, in 
 October or November, when first taken out of the water, is one of the 
 handsomest and most symmetrical fish that rise at the fly in our beautiful 
 streams ; and if laid upon the hand, and looked at horizontally, presents 
 the most beautiful purple or violet hue from snout to tail. The snout is 
 sharp, and the eyes lozenge -shaped; this fish is hog-backed, and the 
 back is of a dark purple colour, with small dark square spots on the sides. 
 The under part of the lower jaw and belly touch the ground together j 
 the latter is brilliantly white, with a narrow ledge or lacing of gold, 
 extending along each side, from the pectoral towards the ventral fin ; 
 and the tail, and pectoral and ventral fins are of a beautiful purple. 
 The dorsal fin is very large, and a beautiful picture, covered with scarlet 
 waves and spots intermingled with purple. The little velvet [adipose] 
 fin on the back near the tail, is also dark pui'ple, and the fish smells like 
 a cucumber." 
 
 The grayling is a native of the north-eastern rivers of France, of 
 Switzerland, Bavaria, the Tyrol, the northern rivers of Italy, and of 
 many of the smaller rivers of the German states. It spawns in April 
 and early in May, and is in season in July, but not fully so until Sep- 
 tember. The finest grayling are caught in the winter and early spring 
 months. In the winter months, in clear frosty weather, when the water 
 is low, they will take small dark dun flies from eleven to two o'clock, 
 particularly if the sun be gently shining. In deep water at this season 
 they will take gentles. In the autumn months they will take small 
 artificial ant-flies, small brown and furnace hackles, the soldier palmer, 
 and the coch-y-bondhu ; also wasp-grubs, and the green grubs that are 
 
IJO THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 found on cabbage-leaves. The artificial grasshopper is an excellent bait 
 for them : it must be sunk to the bottom and drawn up and down con- 
 tinually. When gentles or grubs are used, the sinking and drawing 
 system must be resorted to. Sir Humphry Davy {vide Salmonia) under- 
 stood grayling fishing well, and practised it with great ardour in this 
 country and in Germany. I will quote some of his remarks on the sub- 
 ject : " The grayling lies deeper, and is not so shy a fish as the trout ; 
 and, provided your link [gut casting line] is fine, is not apt to be scared 
 by the cast of flies on the water. The fineness of the link, and of the 
 gut to which your flies are attached, is a most essential point, and the 
 clearer the stream the finer should be the tackle. I have known good 
 fishermen foiled by using gut of ordinary thickness, though their flies 
 were of the right size and colour. Very slender transparent gut, of the 
 colour of the water, is one of the most important causes of success in 
 grayling fishing. He is to be fished for at all times, for he is rarely so 
 much out of season as to be a bad fish ; and when there are flies on the 
 water he will generally take them : but as the trout may be considered 
 as a spring and summer fish, so the grayling may be considered as a 
 winter and autumnal fish. Grayling do not refuse large flies, [In March 
 and April I use these flies, the March-brown, the oak-fly, the silver 
 palmer, and honey dun -fly, the sand and cow-dung-fly dressed on No. 9 
 hooks] ; and in the Avon and Test in Hampshire, May-flies and even 
 moths, are greedily taken in the summer by large grayling. There is no 
 method more killing for large grayling than applying a grasshopper 
 to the point of a leaded hook, the lead and shank of which are covered 
 with green and yellow silk, to imitate the body of the insect : this mode 
 of fishing is called sinking and drawing. I have seen it practised in 
 this river with as much success as maggot fishing, and the fish taken 
 were all of the largest size ; the method being most successful in deep 
 holes, where the bottom was not visible, which are the natural haunts of 
 such fish. In the winter grayling rise for an hour or two in bright and 
 tolerably warm weather ; and at this time, the smallest imitations of 
 black or pale gnats that can be made, on the smallest sized hook, succeed 
 best in taking them. In July, imitations of the black and red palmer 
 worms, which I believe are taken for black or brown or red beetles or 
 cockchafers, kill well ; and in dark weather there are usually very light 
 duns near the water. In August, imitations of the house fly and blue- 
 bottle, and the red and black ant-fly, are taken, and are particularly 
 killing after floods in autumn, when great quantities of the fly are de- 
 stroyed and washed down the river. In this month, on cloudy days, pale 
 blue duns ofben appear, and they are still more common in September. 
 Throughout the summer and autumn, in fine calm evenings, a large dun 
 fly with a pale yellow body, is greedily taken by grayling after sunset, 
 and the imitation of it is very killing. In the end of October, and 
 through November, there is no fly-fishing but in the middle of the day, 
 when imitations of the smaller duns may be used with great success; and 
 I have often seen the fish sport most, and fly-fishing pursued with great 
 success in bright sunshine, from twelve till half-past two o'clock, after 
 severe frosts in the morning ; and I even caught, under these circum- 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. Ill 
 
 stances, a ver}^ fine dish of fish on the 7th November, 1816." The winter 
 of 1838 was a very severe one : in February of that year, with snow 
 upon the ground, but with the weather frosty and clear, and the water 
 low and bright, I caught grayling in the Dove with very small dun 
 hackles. The best summer fly for grayling, on dark days, and morning 
 and evenings, is the fern-fly (described in note' to p. 91), which 1 have 
 used in the Dove with very great success. In a list of flies to be given 
 hereafter in chapters vii. and viii. of part ii. of this work, I shall point 
 out some eagerly taken by grayling. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE SxiLMON ; WITH DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH 
 FOR HIM. 
 
 Pisc. The salmon is accounted the king of ft^esh-water 
 fish j and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so 
 high or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt or brack- 
 ishness. He is said to breed, or cast his spawn, in most 
 rivers, in the month of August : some say, that then they 
 dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there 
 place their eggs or spawn, after the melter has done his 
 natural office, and then hide it most cunningly, and cover it 
 over "with gravel and stones,* and then leave it to that 
 Creator s protection, who, by a gentle heat which He infuses 
 into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life in the 
 spawn, and to become samlets early in the spring next fol- 
 lowing. + 
 
 The salmons having spent their appointed time, and done 
 
 * See observations at the end of the chapter on the formation of the salmon- 
 bed.— Ed. 
 
 t If salmon spa^vned in August, which not one in many thousand does, there 
 would be young salmon (salmon-fry) in December, nay in November. Salmon 
 ova are incubated in about 120 days on the average — in the winter months in 
 140 days ; in those of autumn and winter in about 100 days. The duration of 
 the incubating time depends on the temperature of atmosphere and water. 
 Salmon spawn deposited and impregnated on the 1st of August, would be 
 hatched very probably by the 1st of November, whereas spawn deposited in 
 November would not be incubated before March. The temperature at the two 
 I)eriods would make the difference. I entreat the reader to study carefully the 
 remarks on the natural history and habits of the salmon, which I shall append 
 to this chapter.— Ed. 
 
112 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the 
 sea before winter, both the melter and spawn er : but if they 
 be stopped by flood-gates or weirs or lost in the fresh waters, 
 then those so left behind by degrees grow sick, and lean, and 
 unseasonable, and kipper ; that is to say, have bony gristles 
 grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, 
 which hinders their feeding ; and in time, such fish, so left 
 behind, pine away and die. It is observed, that he may live 
 thus one year from the sea ; but he then grows insipid and 
 tasteless, and loses both his blood and strength, and pines 
 and dies the second year. And it is noted, that those little 
 salmons called skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating 
 to the sea, are bred by such sick salmons that might not go 
 to the sea ; and that though they abound, yet they never 
 thrive to any considerable bigness. 
 
 But if the old salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle, 
 which shows him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as 
 the eagle is said to cast his bill ; and he recovers his strength, 
 and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, 
 to enjoy the former pleasures that there possessed him ; for, 
 •as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of 
 honour and riches, which have both their winter and summer 
 houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for 
 winter, to spend his life in ; which is not, as Sir Francis 
 Bacon hath observed in his '' History of Life and Death," 
 above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though the 
 salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in 
 fresh rivers ; and it is observed, that the farther they get 
 from the sea, they be both the fatter and better.''*" 
 
 * This paragraph, tvith the one that precedes it, teems with palpable igno- 
 rance. Salmon, having spawned, proceed to sea immediately they have reco- 
 vered from the exhaustion consequent on spawning. It is, therefore, in the 
 spring, before summer, and not as Walton says, *' before winter," that they 
 generally migrate sea-ward. Their remaining for a year, under any circum- 
 stances, in fresh water, after they have become adult, never occurs. The gristle, 
 or crook-shaped excrescence, is only found in male salmon, generally about 
 spawning time, and some weeks afterwards, and disappears as the fish gets into 
 condition, to re-appear again the following breeding season. The use of this 
 excrescence is not accurately known. Skeggers are smolts, the one-year-old 
 produce of healthy, and not of " sick salmons." Salmon cannot be called sick, 
 except between the periods of spawning and going to sea. They are then 
 called '• kelts," and not " kippers." A " kipper" now means a salmon cured by 
 salt, sugar, and drying. It is in the sea, and not in fresh water, that salmon 
 grow " big and fat." After the first year, they do not increase in size in fresh 
 water, but, on the contrary, diminish in bulk. When we say a " clear fresh- 
 run" salmon, we mean one in good condition, bright and fat, and caught just 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 113. 
 
 Next I shall tell you, that though they make very hard 
 shift to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea, yet they will 
 make a harder shift to get out of the salt into the fresh 
 rivers, to spawn, or possess the pleasures that they have for- 
 merly found in them : to which end they will force them- 
 selves through flood-gates, or over weirs or hedges, or stops in 
 the water, even to a height beyond common belief. Gesner 
 speaks of such places as are known to be above eight feet 
 high above water. And our Camden mentions, in his 
 " Britannia," the like wonder to be in Pembrokeshire, where 
 the river Tivy falls into the sea ; and that the fall is so down- 
 right, and so high, that the people stand and wonder at the 
 strength and sleight by which they see the salmon use to get 
 out of the sea into the said river ; and the manner and height 
 of the place is so notable, that it is known, far, by the name 
 of the " Salmon-leap." Concerning which, take this also out 
 of Michael Drayton,* my honest old friend, as he tells it you,. >^/ 
 in his " Polyolbion :" ^ 
 
 And when the salmon seeks a fresher stream to find, 
 "Which hither from the sea comes yearly by his kind ; 
 As he tow'rds season grows, and stems the wat'ry tract 
 Where Tivy falling down, makes a high cataract, 
 Forced by the rising rocks that there her course oppose, 
 As though within her bounds they meant her to inclose ; 
 Here, when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, 
 And finds that by his strength he does but vainly strive, 
 His tail takes in his mouth, f and, bending like a bow, 
 That's to full compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw ; 
 
 on its return from the sea to its native river. In a few days afterwards, it is 
 no longer clear and fresh-run, and in two or three weeks loses its fat or curd, 
 becomes comparatively lean, and almost black on the head, gill-covers and 
 back. This is the result of its sojourn in fresh water, in which it no longer 
 finds that food on which it thrived in its salt-water feeding-grounds. — Ed. 
 
 * An excellent poet, born in "Warwickshire, 1563. Among his works is the 
 •' Polyolbion," a chorographical description of the rivers, mountains, forests, 
 castles, etc., in this island. Though this poem has great merit, it is rendered 
 much more valuable by the learned notes of Mr. Selden. The author died in 
 1C31, and lies buried among the poets in Westminster Abbey. — H. 
 
 t This error prevails to the present day. The salmon never curves itself, or 
 puts its tail in its mouth for the purpose of jumping from the water. It is by 
 means of its fins, as explained in the observations at the end of this chapter, 
 that it throws itself from the water. It cannot jump perpendicularly to th3 
 height of eight feet, but may, probably, if there be sufficient depth of water, 
 jump six feet. In shallow water not half that distance. Its spring to surmount 
 cascades or weirs is not perpendicular — not an upright standing leap — but, as 
 it were, a running jump forwards, gradually attaining, in extreme instances,- a 
 height of six feet. In subsequent remarks, the saltatory progress of the salmon 
 is explained from actual observation. — Ed. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand 
 That, bended end to end, and started from man's hand, 
 Far oft itself doth cast ; so does the salmon vault : 
 And if at first he fail, his second summersault 
 He instantly essays ; and from his nimble ring, 
 Still yerking, never leaves until himself he fling 
 Above the opposing stream 
 
 This Micliael Drayton tells you of this leap or summersault 
 of the salmon. 
 
 And next I shall tell you, that it is observed by Gesner 
 and others, that there is no better salmon than in England ; 
 and that though some of our northern counties have as fat 
 and as large as the river Thames, yet none are of so excel- 
 lent a taste.* 
 
 And as I have told you that Sir Francis Bacon observes, 
 the age of a salmon exceeds not ten years; so let me next tell 
 you, that his growth is very sudden : it is said, that after he 
 is got into the sea, he becomes from a samlet not so big as a 
 gudgeon, to be a salmon, in as short a time as a gosling 
 becomes to be a goose. Much of this has been observed by 
 tying a ribbon, or some known tape or thread, in the tail of 
 some young salmons, which have been taken in weirs as they 
 have swimmed towards the salt water, and then by taking 
 a part of them again with the known mark at the same place 
 at their return from the sea, which is usually about six 
 months after jt and the like experiment hath been tried upon 
 
 * Salmon have long since disappeared from the Thames. Those formerly 
 caught in it, the very old Thames fishermen tell us, were of such fine flavour as 
 to fetch from six shillings to ten shillings a pound. We fancy that the price 
 was enhanced by the rarity and freshness of the fish. If Scotch or Irish 
 Salmon could be brought into the London market on the day they were cap- 
 tured, their flavour would equal those of Thames or Severn salmon. The 
 great mass of salmon brought to Billingsgate are a week out of the water. Ice 
 keeps them still fresh, but their curd and high flavour are gone. It is difficult 
 to decide which countries or rivers produce the best salmon : some prefer Dutch, 
 otliers Scotch or Irish salmon. They judge of it as it appears in the London 
 market. In our opinion, Irish salmon would turn out the best, if it were as 
 carefully packed and forwarded to London as the salmon from other countries. 
 The few salmon that come from the Tyne, Severn, and Hampshire, reach Lon- 
 don soon after they are captured ; and their condition, not ha\ing been deteri- 
 orated by several days keeping in ice, their silvery coat and bright deep ver- 
 milion-coloured flesh, attract the connoisseur, and secure the best prices. In 
 our opinion, there are several small-sized salmon-rivers in Ireland and Scot- 
 land, from which, on account of the small number captured, or the expense of 
 carriage, no salmon are sent to London, that produce fish of the finest 
 quality. — Ed. 
 
 t On an average, salmon return from sea to their native rivers in three 
 months, rarely in a month, but very frequently in two. A sea-sojourn of four 
 months is rare ; one of six quite abnormal. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 115 
 
 young swallows, who have, after six months' absence, been 
 observed to return to the same chimney, there to make their 
 nests and habitations for the summer following : which has 
 inclined many to think, that every salmon usually* returns 
 to the same river in which it was bred, as young pigeons 
 taken out of the same dove-cote have also been observed to do. 
 
 And you are yet to observe farther, that the he-salmon is 
 usually bigger than the spawner ; and that he is more kipper, 
 and less able to endure a winter in the fresh water than she 
 is : yet she is, at that time of looking less kipper and better, 
 as watery, and as bad meat.t 
 
 And yet you are to observe, that as there is no general 
 rule without an exception, so there are some few rivers in 
 this nation that have trouts and salmons in season in winter, 
 as it is certain there be in the river Wye, in Monmouthshire, 
 where they be in season, as Camden observes, from Septem- 
 ber till April. J But, my scholar, the observation of this and 
 many other things, I must in manners omit, because they 
 will prove too large for our narrow compass of time, and 
 therefore I shall next fall upon my directions how to fish for 
 this salmon. 
 
 And for that, first you shall observe, that usually he stays 
 not long in a place, as trouts will, but, as I said, covets still 
 to go nearer the spring head ; and that he does not, as the 
 trout and many other fish, lie near the water-side, or bank, or 
 roots of trees, but swims in the deep and broad parts of the 
 water,§ and usually in the middle, and near the ground, and 
 
 * Not only " usually," but always, if not disabled or killed. — Ed. 
 
 t This short paragraph is sadly erroneous. A female salmon may be twice 
 as large, or twice as small, as the male with which she consorts on the spawn- 
 ing bed. She is frequently obliged to mate with male fish of all sizes and ages, 
 nay, with small male trout. If a male and female salmon, the produce of the 
 same brood, were to consort, after having been the same time on the same feed- 
 ing-ground at sea, the female would be the larger fisli. She suffers more from 
 the elfects of spawning than the male, and he is better, not " less, able to endure 
 a winter in the fresh water than she is." He more promptly recovers from the 
 *' kelt" state, and is sooner fitted for his sea voyage. — Ed. 
 
 I I do not think there are any rivers in the empire which have the common, 
 non-migratory trout " in season in winter." But there are a few rivers, the 
 majority of which are Welch, in which salmon are in season, or at least clean 
 and fresh-run in Avinter — in Isovember and December. These fish are late 
 spawners. Very early spawners may be taken, in very small numbers in 
 January, in what are considered the " early" salmon rivers of Ireland and 
 Scotland. — Ed. 
 
 § The salmon, in coming up the estuaries, seldom swims in the middle, but 
 by the sides, and for that reason he is caught in the stake-nets that project, 
 some hundred yards, or more, into the tidal waters. In rivers his haunts are 
 
 h2 
 
116 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 that there you are to fish for him, and that he is to be caught 
 as the trout is, with a worm, a minnow, which some call a 
 penk, or with a fly. 
 
 And you are to observe, that he is very seldom observed 
 to bite at a minnow, yet sometimes he will, and not usually at 
 a fly ; but more usually at a worm, and then most usually at 
 a lob or garden-worm, which should be well scoured, that is 
 to say, kept seven or eight days in moss before you fish 
 with them : and if you double your time of eight into six- 
 teen, twenty, or more days, it is still the better ; for the 
 worms will still be clearer, tougher, and more lively, and 
 continue so longer upon your hook ; and they may be kept 
 longer by keeping them cool and in fresh moss, and some 
 advise to put camphor into it. 
 
 Note also, that many used to fish for a salmon with a ring 
 of wire on the top of their rod, through which the line may 
 run to as great a length as is needful when he is hooked. 
 And to that end, some use a wheel about the middle of their 
 rod, or near their hand ; which is to be observed better by 
 seeing one of them, than by a large demonstration of words. 
 
 And now I shall tell you that which may be called a 
 secret : I have been a-fishing with old Oliver Henley, now 
 with God, a noted fisher both for trout and salmon, and have 
 observed, that he would usually take three or four worms out 
 
 various ; sometimes close by the banks, in an eddy or little current, formed by 
 rocks or roots ; sometimes a little further out ; sometimes in the middle, or at 
 the sides, of the rapidly running tails of pools ; sometimes at their head ; some- 
 times in the middle of deep or shallow currents. In line, in any spot to which 
 the current or the chief strength of it, tends or diverges, thereby bringing some 
 sort of food to the salmon on the look out for it. Two rocks, a yard or two 
 apart, will form an angular current, or a wedge-like one. At the point of the 
 wedge, no matter whether in tlie middle of the river, or by its sides, salmon 
 surely lie, because to that point insects, larva, worms, and other food are 
 washed, sucked in at the head of the triangular rapid formed by the two rocks. 
 If a sharp-run is caused by a rock placed at a short distance from the bank, 
 the salmon will lie close by the inside of the rock, or near the bank, or at the 
 tail of the sharp-run. The precise lairs of salmon in diiferent rivers, can only 
 be known by experience. Ko general rule respecting them will hold good. On 
 first fishing a river, you must have a guide — a fisherman, born, as it were, on 
 its banks — and he will show you what are called the best " salmon-casts." 
 Without such a guide, you will waste much time, by fishing likely-looking spots, 
 but which, from some cause or other unknown to you, are not frequented by 
 salmon ; and you will pass over, without fishing them, unfavourable spots 
 apparently, but where salmon lie, from some cause also unknown to you. In 
 the pools immediately above waterfalls, or any difficult " salmon-leap," salmon 
 very rarely take the fly, or any other bait. They stop in these pools for 
 the sake of repose, and are disinclined to disturb it even for the sake of food. 
 To the non-local salmon-fisher a local guide is indispensable. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 117 
 
 of his bag, and put them into a little box in his pocket, 
 where he would usually let them continue half an hour or 
 more, before he would bait his hook with them. I have 
 asked him his reason, and he has replied : " He did but pick 
 the best out to be in readiness against he baited his hook the 
 next time :" but he has been observed, both by others and 
 myself, to catch more fish than I or any other body that has 
 ever gone a-fishing with him could do, and especially salmons ; 
 and I have been told lately by one of his most intimate and 
 secret friends, that the box in which he put those worms, 
 was anointed with a drop, or two or three, of the oil of ivy- 
 berries, made by expression or infusion ; and told, that by 
 the worms remaining in that box an hour, or a like time, 
 they had incorporated a kind of smell that was irresistibly 
 attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of them, 
 to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have 
 not tried it ; yet I grant it probable, and refer my reader to 
 Sir Francis Bacon's "Natural History," where he proves fishes 
 may hear, and doubtless can more probably smell : and I am 
 certain Gesner says the otter can smell in the water, and 1 
 know not but that fish may do so too ; it is left for a lover 
 of angling, or any that desires to improve that art, to try 
 this conclusion.* 
 
 I shall also impart two other experiments (but not tried 
 by myself), which I will deliver in the same words that they 
 
 * By the word " conclusion," Walton means " experiment." He was too 
 practical a bottom-fisher to have faith in scented baits. Kespectiug them, he 
 only writes what he had heard from others. Although many old anglmg 
 authors recommend perfumed baits, the use of tliem is ridiculed and exploded 
 by modern artists. Very justly in our opinion. — Ed. 
 
118 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 were given me, by an excellent angler, and a very friend, in 
 writing : he told me the latter was too good to be told, but 
 in a learned language, lest it should be made common. 
 
 " Take the stinking oil drawn out of the polybody of the 
 oak by a retort, mixed with turpentine and hive-honey, and 
 anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw the 
 fish to it." 
 
 The other is this : " Vulnera hederce grandissimce inflicta 
 Sudani halsamitm oleo gelato, albicantique persi7nile, odoris 
 vero longe suavissimi" 
 
 It is supremely sweet to any fish, and yet assafoetida may 
 do the like. 
 
 But in these things I have no great faith, yet grant it 
 probable, and have had from some chemical men, namely, 
 from Sir Georoje Hastinofs and others, an affirmation of them 
 to be very advantageous j but no more of these, especially 
 •not in this place. 
 
 THE SAI.MON FLY, 
 
 I might here, before I take my leave of the salmon, tell 
 you, that there is more than one sort of them ; as, namely, a 
 tecon, and another called in some places a samlet, or by some 
 a skegger : but these and others, which I forbear to name, 
 may be fish of another kind, and difier as we know a herring 
 and a pilchard do, which, I think, are as different as the 
 rivers in which they breed, and must by me be left to the 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 119 
 
 disquisitions of men of more leisure, and of greater abilities, 
 than I profess myself to have.* 
 
 And lastly, I am to borrow so much of your promised 
 patience as to tell you, that the trout or salmon, being in 
 season, have, at their first taking out of the water, which 
 continues during life, their bodies adorned, the one with such 
 red spots, and the other with such black or blackish spots, as 
 give them such an addition of natural beauty, as I think 
 was never given to any woman by the artificial paint or 
 patches in which they so much pride themselves in this age. 
 And so I shall leave them both, and proceed to some obser- 
 vations on the pike. 
 
 [Remaeks o:n" the Nattjeal Histoey, Habits, Aetipicial 
 Beeeding of, and Fishing poe, Salmon. — It is not at all surprising 
 that the venerable and venerated father of our art should have been hut 
 imperfectly acquainted with the history and the habits of the salmo 
 solar ^ the progenitor of nearly every variety of salmonidce (descendants 
 of the salmon), chiefly by means of fortuitous alliances with the salmo 
 farioy or pure river trout — it is not, I say, surprising, since even at the 
 present day, not one in many thousand consumers of salmon, and not one 
 in many hundred captors of it are acquainted with the extraordinary 
 phases in the life of this valuable and splendid fish. Of its general 
 habits I think I am accurately cognisant, although my opinions are dis- 
 puted by many clever people, but I am happy to know that all carefal 
 observers agree with me. I shall give a rapid resume of all I know of 
 the fluvial monarch of the British Isles. The salmon — salmo solar — is 
 called by Shaw the " silvery grey spotted salmon," with the jaws of the 
 male fish incurvated ; by Linnaeus it is described with " rostro ultra in- 
 feriorem maxillom prominent e*' {^no\xt^vd]Qcim^\ie^OTi(i the lower jaws), 
 and by Dr. Fleming it is described with upper jaw longest, teeth on the 
 lower; dorsal fin fourteen rays, pectoral fourteen, ventral ten, anal 
 thirteen, and caudal (or tail) twenty-one rays. The salmon is a fresh- 
 water fish, for in fresh-water it breeds, passes the whole of the first year 
 
 * There is a fish in many rivers, of the salmon kind, which, though very- 
 small, is thought by some curious persons to be of the same species ; and this, I 
 take it, is the fish known by the different names of salmon-pink, shedders, 
 skeggers, and last-springs. But there is another small fish, very much resem- 
 bling these in shape and colour, called the gravel-last-spring, found only in the 
 river Wye and Severn ; which is, undoubtedly, a distinct species. These spawn 
 about the beginning of September : and in the Wye I have taken them with 
 an ant-fly as fast as I could throw. Perhaps this is what Walton calls the 
 tecon. — H. 
 
 [Note.— All the fish named, except the gravel-last-spring, are salmon-fry of 
 diflerent ages, from three or four months to twelve. The gravel-last-spring is, 
 in all probabifity, the little trout called a " parr." It is found in many rivers 
 besides the Wye and Severn. Walton's " tecon" may be the parr. Samlet, 
 skegger, etc., are local names for young salmon, before then- first migration to 
 sea. — Ed.] 
 
120 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 of its existence in it, and two-thirds, at least, of its after-life, or eight 
 months out of every twelve. It migrates to sea annually, making its 
 first voyage at the age of twelve months or thereabouts, never before, but 
 sometimes a little later, and repeating it every year, and in some rare 
 instances, twice a-year, as long as it lives. It invariably returns — life 
 permitting — to breed in the rivers in which it has been bred. Take a 
 salmon bred in the Shin, in Sutherlandshire, and set it at liberty in the 
 Tweed, at Berwick, and it will not ascend the Tweed, but will, if not 
 slain in transitu, return to its native river, the Shin, traversing hundreds 
 of miles of ocean to do so. Is this wonderful ? Not more wonderful 
 than,— - 
 
 " The swallow twittering from its straw-built shed," 
 
 migrating, on the first appearance of winter on these shores, to the 
 warm atmosphere, yielding insect food, of Africa, and returning to its 
 natal locality in the spring, to live and give life in the temperate summer 
 of a temperate zone. The annual emigrations of fish and fowl are caused 
 by natural wants, but the instinct, " true as the needle to the pole," that 
 guides them, undeviatingly, in their long out and return voyages, through 
 the stormy air and through the tempest-tossed seas, is wonderful unto 
 adoration of the Providence that hath implanted it in these animals of 
 its creation. I will here give a happy illustration of the invari- 
 able habit of salmon returning to the rivers in which they first saw life. 
 It is taken from my "Book of the Salmon," p. 172 : — " Loch-shin, a piece 
 of water about 20 miles by 14, situate in the heart of the Sutherland- 
 shire mountains, is the immediate feeder of the river Shin, noted for the 
 abundance of its salmon. The Loch itself has four feeders, middhng- 
 sized rivers, viz., the Terry, Fiack, Garvy, and Curvy, in which, pre- 
 viously to the year 1836, not a salmon was ever seen, though many were 
 in the habit of entering the loch or lake. In the year mentioned, at the 
 request of his Grace of Sutherland, and Mr. Loch, M.P., salmon were 
 caught in the river Shin, shortly before the spawning season, and con- 
 veyed to the four rivers above named, amongst which they were distri- 
 buted in due proportion. Mr. Andrew Young, the Duke's salmon-factor, 
 and our best natural historian of salmon, was the managing director on 
 the occasion. In the winter season all the fish spawned, each in the 
 river into which it was put. Now, mark one of the consequences : salmon 
 at present, and ever since, come regularly to spawn, traversing the lake, 
 &c., to do so, in all those heretofore salmonless rivers. Nay, more, the 
 fish hatched in the Terry, at least those that survive long enough, 
 return to the Terry; and the young of the other three rivers return from 
 the sea to them, each grilse or salmon entering never-failingly the 
 victual stream that gave it birth. AVhat wonderful and unerring in- 
 stinct ! One might think that they would remain in the river Shin, 
 and spawn where their first ancestors had spawned -, but no, they leave 
 their own natal shallows, pass down the lake, through the river Shin, 
 along the Kyle of Sutherland, to the sea; and there having become 
 adolescent, in three months or so, they retrace their route, and, after 
 necessary rests on their long voyage, very frequently in the spots of 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 121 
 
 tlieir parents' nativity, they revisit, for the first time, but not for the 
 last if they survive, the scenes of their birth and infancy. Revisit them 
 — for what? Being nubile, to perform the nuptial rites, which they 
 do where their forefathers begat them, and so they go on increasing 
 and multiplying in colonies, heretofore tenantless of salmon, ever since 
 volcanic action called from the ' vasty deep ' the mountains and rivers of 
 northern Caledonia \" 
 
 Salmon never deposit their spawn in deep or still water. If they did, 
 it would not be vivified. To vivify salmon ova impregnated by the 
 milt, the combined influence of running water, and of atmospheric and 
 solar action is necessary. Hence nature directs the salmon to spawn in 
 shallows, or the fords as they are called, and even to run up narrow, 
 shallow, rapid brooks, tributaries to the large salmon rivers, to do so. 
 The female chooses a mate, who must make good her selection, by 
 fighting for it, and in these salmon onslaughts the trite saying, " None 
 but the brave deserve the fair," is fully verified. The male fish that 
 remains in victorious possession of his aquatic bride proceeds with her to 
 make choice of the marital bed, having driven from it all intruders. 
 This bed is placed in a shallow part of the river, and consists of gravel 
 and sand. Having chosen it, 'tis necessary to make it. I cannot tell 
 whether it is the gentleman or lady that commences the operation first, 
 which is done by one or the other darting its head into the gravel and 
 burrowing upwards and downwards in it, the tail being used as a 
 propelling power, and the snout as an excavating one. As soon as 
 one fish gets tired the other takes its place. When one link or nest of 
 the bed is deep and large enough the female enters it and deposits the 
 mature portion of her ova, or part of it, and then retires. Forthwith 
 the male takes her place and exudes some of his milt upon the ova, 
 thereby impregnating them. This done, they proceed to dig another 
 nest, the gravel and sand excavated from which cover the ova in the 
 first nest made. This process is continued, nest above nest being dug, 
 until the female has deposited all her ova. This is not the work of 
 one day ; it may extend from two or three to eight or ten according 
 to the size and age of the fish, that is, according to the quantity 
 of ova to be deposited. The younger and smaller the female fish the 
 fewer ova she has, the sooner they will be all mature, and the more 
 rapidly they will be deposited, and the whole process of digging the 
 different nests of the narrow, longitudinal bed, and covering them in 
 finished. Once covered in, the fish have no fiu-ther care for the spawn. 
 They drop down into the next deep pool and there remain until they 
 become partly convalescent from the exhausting effects of spawning. 
 Soon after this— they are now "kelts" or "spent" fish — they commence 
 their voyage to the sea to recruit thoroughly their health, to grow and 
 fatten in submarine feeding fields. In from 100 to 140 days (see notef 
 to page 111) the ova are hatched. The foetus at first is like a large 
 larva with a little sack of nutritious vitelline matter attached to its 
 neck. On this it lives for about a month. Wlien the sack disappears, 
 the foetus assumes a fish shape, and is able to seek for food for itself 
 amongst the gravel. At two months the fry is perfectly shaped, and 
 
122 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 strongly marked with transverse bars and pink spots along the lateral 
 line. The transverse bars are erroneously called "parr^* marks, some 
 naturalists confounding the salmon fry with the diminutive trout called 
 the " parr." At two months the fiy eagerly feeds npon flies on the 
 surface of the water, and small w^orms or larvae at the bottom. It goes 
 on slowly increasing in size until it is a year old, when the transverse 
 bar-marks disappear, and it assumes a silvery exterior covering of small 
 scales, called its " migratory" coat. It is now a smolt, and with the 
 first moderate flood it takes its maiden trip to the sea. It feeds therein 
 from two to four months on an average, and then immigrates to its 
 natal river as a "grilse." In the ensuing autumn or winter it breeds for 
 the first time, and returns again to the sea. Having sojourned there 
 the requisite time, it immigrates for the second time and is now an 
 adult, though not an aged salmon. 
 
 It would be impossible for me to w^ite anything more correctly on 
 the growth of salmon than that which I have already written in the 
 " Book of the Salmon," p. 197 to 201, as follows:— "At the end of a 
 year, the whole of it passed in fresh water, the young fish, on an average, 
 weigh little more than three ounces. At that weight, being a smolt, 
 it descends to the sea ; and, if it should remain therein, say for eight 
 or nine weeks, and then return to its natural element, fresh water, it 
 will, in ail probability, and no specific circumstances preventing, have 
 increased by the end of that time, to the w^eight of five pounds or more. 
 This rapidity of increase is most wonderful; and, though an adult 
 salmon has been known to double its weight by sea-food in thirty-eight 
 days, nothing like the increase that takes place between the smolt and 
 grilse states ever after occurs. So, if the growth of salmon during the 
 first year of its existence, is extremely slow in fresh water, it is, after 
 that age, by far more than proportionately rapid in salt water. It will 
 be well to bear in mind, that the growth of salmon is not always pro- 
 portioned to the length of time they sojourn at sea. Several circum- 
 stances affect their rate of i)hysical development. Amongst others— 
 indeed they are the chief ones — quality and quantity of food found on 
 the salt water feeding-grounds, and hereditary capacity for growth. 
 By * hereditary capacity,' I mean that the offspring of large fish have 
 the inherent power of growing, and do grow, faster, and to a larger 
 size than the young of salmon of small race. When I speak of large 
 and small salmon, I refer to fish w^hich eventually become very large, 
 and to fish which, no matter Mdiat their age, will always be small, — in 
 fact, to giant and dwarf breeds. The growth of salmon fry is pretty 
 equal in all rivers ; and, therefore, smolts, no matter whether they are 
 the produce of large or small salmon, will be found in different rivers, 
 not differing much in size. Such is not the case, however, after the 
 smolt stage of existence. After that, the growth of the offspring of 
 large-growing salmon is more rapid than that of the produce of salmon 
 of more diminutive race. The smolts of rivers which produce salmon 
 weighing forty pounds, grow faster to the grilse and in the salmon 
 state, than the smolts of rivers whose largest fish do not exceed twenty 
 pounds ; and faster still than the smolts of rivers, the salmon of which 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 128 
 
 do not average more than ten pounds in weight each. I will suppose 
 three rivers running at short distances, the one from the other, into the 
 same arm of the sea, as do the Shin, the Oikel, and the Carsely, and 
 that smolts from each descend simultaneously, and take up their quarters 
 on the same feeding- grounds. Again, I will suppose them entering, in 
 the grilse state, simultaneously to their respective natal rivers. It will 
 be found that the grilse of the Shin will be larger, and much longer 
 than the grilse of the Oikel, and that the grilse of the Oikel will be 
 larger than the grilse of the Carsely. The reason of this disparity 
 is, the full-grown fish of the Shin are much larger than those of the 
 Oikel, and the adult fish of the latter are somewhat larger than those 
 of the Carsely. The growth of salmon at sea, and at sea only, for after 
 having attained in fresh water the small size of smolts, they make no 
 further increase in the non-saline element, depends on three things : 
 duration of time they remain on their sea-feeding grounds, quality and 
 quantity of food they obtain thereon, and hereditary capacity for growth, 
 with apportioned powers of digestion. The grilse of small salmon, that 
 is, of salmon wliich never grow beyond a small size, are handsomer, in 
 every way better shaped, and generally of a brighter hue than the. 
 grilse, the produce of larger- growing salmon. The grilse of the rivers 
 Carron and Laxford, in Ross-shire and Sutherlandshire, are handsome, 
 small-headed, thick and deep, and short in the body; the scales of which 
 are small, smooth, and bright, because they are the offspring of small 
 parent salmon ; whereas, the grilse of the river Shin, in which salmon 
 grow to a very large size, are ill-shapen fish, having large heads, long- 
 thin bodies, large, long fins, and large, rough, and by no means brilliant 
 scales. It requires experience to distinguish a large and well-shaped 
 grilse from a small salmon; indeed, grilse are sometimes larger than 
 galmon, for the same reason that a young Dorking fowl is larger than 
 an aged bantam. Frequently, the only distinguishing marks between 
 grilse and salmon, are the smaller scales of the former, and the longer 
 and larger fins in proportion to size. The fins of a grilse of eight pounds 
 in weight, are longer and larger than those of a salmon of the same 
 size. The tail of the grilse is deeply forked ; that of the salmon less so, 
 and very slightly indeed when in prime condition.^^ 
 
 I have now stated the prominent habits of the salmon. Minor matters 
 concerning it, I wiU narrate rapidly. First, of its powers of jumping 
 from the water, and passing through it. The salmon throws itself 
 straight, rising perpendicularly forward, from the water. Putting its 
 tail in its mouth, and bounding like a skip-jack from the water, is an 
 miaccountable nonsensical notion. Its body is quite straight when it 
 makes its leap, and it does so, no doubt, chiefly by means of striking its 
 fins against the body of water underneath it, and profiting by the 
 resistance to the fms, it presses on them as if they were jumping spring- 
 boards, and then darts forwards and upwards with great strength and 
 agility. 'It rises, I should say, after a run or rush, and jumps in a 
 slanting, uprising direction, like that of a man jumping over a gate. If 
 the v/ater be shallow, a salmon can only jump a very small height. It 
 is only from deep water that a full bound can be made. The jpoini 
 
124 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 d'appui for the fins can only be found in deep water, therefore in 
 shallow water the leap is feeble and low. Six feet is the average distance 
 in height a salmon can leap. I have read writers, who state that the 
 salmon can swim at the rate of forty miles an hour. No ; nor twenty, 
 nor fifteen. Perhaps, at the top of its speed, it might do ten miles an 
 hour, but only for a short " spurt" when passing through rapids, or 
 when hooked by the angler. In still water, when the salmon is ascending 
 rivers, its progress is very slow — a mere walking pace. It has been 
 considered a singular fact, to find salmon with sea-lice adhering to it 
 fifty miles up a river, but as these parasites stick to the fish for, at 
 least, twenty-four hours after it has quitted salt water, the fact only 
 proves an ascending progress of a small fraction more than two miles an 
 hour. I have never hooked a fish that I could not keep up with at a 
 sling trot. A fresh-run salmon, that is, a fish that has just entered 
 the fresh water, is in its best condition, which it loses bit by bit every 
 day it remains in the river. A fresh-run fish is fatter, and stronger, 
 but its strength does not last, than a fish that has been in fresh water 
 a fortnight or a month. The latter fish is, however, much more active, 
 and more difiicult to tire out. The reason is, that fresh water indurates 
 its fins, diminishes obesity, and increases muscular endurance. A fresh- 
 run fish of large size makes a pow^erful rush or two, and then is, to use 
 a racing phrase, "blown;" a fish not fresh-run will not make a 
 tremendous rush at first on being hooked, but he will make a long-con- 
 tinued series of short, rapid runs, jump out of the water, and fight for 
 his life longer, and with more " pluck," than the fat fresh-run salmon. 
 In my opinion, it is more difficult to slay a ten-pound salmon that has 
 been in fresh water a month, than it is to capture with rod and line an 
 eighteen pounder just fresh and full-fed from the sea. 
 
 The subject is a curious one, and specially interesting to anglers. I 
 will further explain it by an illustrative citation from my "Book of the; 
 Salmon," p. 201, et infra : — " Although a grilse or salmon, fresh run 
 from the sea, is larger and in better condition than it wiU be after a few 
 weeks' sojourn in fresh water, it is neither so strong nor so active — at all 
 events, its strength and activity are not so enduring. One evident cause 
 of this is, that fresh water hardens, and renders tough and stiffly elastic 
 the fins, which are soft and feebly pliant in fish fresh from the sea ; and 
 the natural consequence is, that, aided by those whalebone fin-rays (for 
 to the consistency, or very nearly so, of that substance, fresh water 
 reduces them), they are more capable of putting forth enduring effort, 
 and strong and rapid motion, than the obese fresh-run fish, with its 
 limber fins. A man rowing a heavy boat, with short pliant sculls, will 
 make but slow progress through the water, and will be speedily fatigued; 
 whereas, if he have long stout oars, they yield little to the water, and, by 
 resistance but slightly elastic to it, the boat is propelled rapidly onwards, 
 and the labour of the rower is considerably lightened. The pliant, 
 almost powerless sculls of the rower, are the soft fins of the fresh-run 
 fish — the stout oars, are the fins of the fish that has been a lengthy 
 sojourner in fresh water: besides, fresh -run fish that have been recently 
 feeding in rich sub-marine pastures, may not be unaptly compared to 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 125 
 
 horses just taken up from luxurious grass or clover-fields, and submitted 
 to dry feeding. The dry-feeding of salmon, are the insects, and larva?, 
 and small fish afforded to them in rivers. The consequence of dry- 
 feeding on good food in moderate quantity, is the same with quadrupeds 
 as with fish : they severally become less bulky, lose superfluous adipose 
 matter, which is replaced by increase of muscular fibre, and therefore, 
 though smaller in size, their strength and power of endurance are 
 greater. This will explain why the angler finds it frequently more 
 difficult to tire out a small fish than a larger one. For myself, I have 
 had over and over again an easier task in capturing with rod and line 
 a fresh -run salmon of fifteen pounds in weight, than a grilse half the 
 size, which has been a few weeks training, as it were, in short, but 
 strengthening commons in fresh water. At all times a grilse will be 
 found more powerful than a salmon of the same weight, because the fins 
 of grilse are larger in proportion to the size of their bodies, than the 
 fins of adult salmon — grilse possess, consequently, easier and greater 
 powers of locomotion than salmon. I cannot help fancying that the 
 aldermanic salmon, when put to the speed by the spur of the hook, 
 soon gets * blown,' or, as a turfite would say, exhibits symptoms of 
 
 * distress,* whilst its child or brother, limited to spare, wholesome, fresh- 
 water diet, has its air-passages and muscular tissues unclogged by obesity; 
 and, therefore, when compelled to make abnormal exertions, as it does 
 when hooked by the fly-fisher, it evinces greater power of endurance, or 
 
 * bottom,' as it is termed.'' 
 
 Breeding fish artificially, is a nice but by no means difficult series of 
 operations. Fish must be bred artificially in the same water from which 
 the spawn is taken. The first operation consists of making the spawn- 
 ing bed. Build a stout wall about six feet or more, in a moderately deep 
 and rapid stream, from the bank : the wall must be so high, as to dam 
 off" the highest floods, and its length must be regulated according to the 
 number of beds you mean to make. If only one, a length of fifteen feet 
 will do — if three, the wall must be fifty feet in length. There must be 
 an iron and wired grating at the top and bottom of the wall, between 
 them and the bank, to prevent the exit of the small salmon fry, and the 
 entrance of small trout and other piscine pirates. The bed, that is, all 
 the space between the wall and the bank, must consist of gravel and 
 sand, and it must be at its extreme depth five feet below the level of the 
 stream in which it is made : each bed of about three yards in length, 
 must be formed on a gradient of one inch to a foot or eighteen inches. 
 Towards the upper part of the inclined plane, the salmon spawn impreg- 
 nated, must be deposited and well covered in imder the gravel and sand. 
 The inclined plane is necessary to give rapidity to the current of water, 
 and that is necessary to the vivification of the ova. A sort of sluice 
 should be placed outside the upper grating of the beds to regulate the 
 flow of water, to dam it oft' when there are floods, and to let it run 
 freely when there are none. The depth of water in the deepest parts of 
 the beds should not exceed three feet. Each bed should have its separate 
 top and bottom grating. The beds should be formed by banks not so 
 much shaded by trees, or over-hanging rocks or cliffs as to prevent the 
 
J 28 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 rays of the sun from oxygenating the water flowing over the deposited 
 ova. The ova are to be taken from fish whilst in the act of naturally 
 spawming on shallows not far distant from the artificial beds. I have 
 written elsewhere on this most interesting subject, — '*We must avoid 
 capturing at random (a large casting net should be used) any pair of fish 
 we may see on the spawning bed, because many consorted males and 
 females are to be seen hovering about the spawning grounds several 
 days before they begin depositing their spawn. If from such fish ova be 
 expressed by manipulation, they will be found in an immature state, their 
 pores not as yet open for the reception or absorption of the milt, and 
 expressing it over them then will not produce impregnation. On the 
 contrary, when a pair, of course male and female, that have commenced 
 spawning are captured, their ova and milt will be found in the mature 
 state required, or at least a portion of them. A vessel, can, pail, or 
 small tub, must be ready, containing a small portion of clean gravel from 
 the river, and as much river water as will cover the gravel and the 
 spawn about to be placed in it. The female salmon just captured, must 
 be held up by the head over the vessel with one hand, whilst with the 
 other hand gentle pressure is made down the belly of the fish. This 
 pressure will cause the expulsion of all the ova that are mature, which 
 will be received in the vessel. The male fish is then to be held and 
 pressed in the same way, which will cause the emission of mature milt 
 into the vessel. The fish are then to be restored to their native element, 
 in which, if the manipulator be not a rough one, they will speedily re- 
 cover, and when the remaining spawn, not artificially forced from them, 
 becomes mature, they will deposit it as if nothing had happened. Having 
 expressed ova and milt into the vessel, it must be shaken so that gravel, 
 water, milt and ova, be properly mixed, and that no ova escape from 
 coming into contact with portions of the milt. If any do, they will not 
 be impregnated. On the contrary, the ova that are touched by the milt 
 are impregnated, and if properly cared for, will in due time produce 
 young salmon." 
 
 The ova, impregnated after the manner stated, must be placed in a 
 little longitudinal trench, five inches deep, made in the artificial bed at 
 the shoulder of the inclined plane. It must be spread at the bottom of 
 the trench and covered over loosely with gravel. The gravel must not 
 be pressed down on the ova, but it must be left in just such a loose state 
 as will allow the running water to percolate through it and constantly 
 pass over the ova. If they be deposited in September, and October, 
 November, and December be mild, they will be hatched in the latter 
 month, but if the weather be cold and frosty, they will not be incubated 
 before the latter end of January, or the beginning of February. The 
 young fish should be fed with insects, grubs, and very small worms, and 
 they may be set free at the age of six or eight months. They should 
 not be left in confinement longer than eleven months. Some of them 
 should be marked, with fry of the same age naturally bred in the river, 
 the marking being different, in order to determine whether there has 
 been any difference in growth when they return from the sea in a grilse 
 state. Ova artificially impregnated may be conveyed to rivers hundreds 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 127 
 
 of miles apart, but during the transit the water in the vessel should be 
 renewed every morning. In constructing the walls of salmon beds no 
 lime must be used. They must be " dry-built," and strongly, with a 
 proper admixture of large and small stones. 
 
 I have now done with the natural history of sahnon, and must show 
 how it is to be angled for. The only pleasant and surely successful way 
 of angling for salmon is with the artificial fly. The young fly -fisher for 
 salmon has four principal parts to learn — to throw the fly and line, to 
 work the fly against the water, to hook a fish, and finally, to play him 
 within reach of landing-net or gafl". I advise the aspirant to salmon 
 proficiency to commence by fishing for salmon-trout and grilse. The 
 former he will find in abundance in the County Kerry rivers in spring ; 
 the latter plentifully in the rivers of Sutherland, Ross-sliire, and Caith- 
 ness, and in the rivers of the north-west of Ireland in July, August, and 
 September. Why I advise thus, I'll tell. To capture those fish it 
 requires far lighter gear than to slay the adult salmon. A rod of 16, 
 nay, of 15 feet, will suffice, whilst a joust on fair terms with a mature 
 fish-foe cannot be carried on without a lance 18 or 20 feet in length. 
 The young hand can more easily wield the lighter weapon, and when he 
 shall have mastered that, then let him handle the heavier one. Sea-trout 
 and grilse are fished for in the same v;ay as salmon, but with smaller 
 flies and a lighter and shorter line, the throwing of which is to be done 
 as follows : — The straight right shoulder cast, which is the most natural 
 one, and should be practised when fishing from the left bank of a river, 
 is done thus : the right hand holds the rod above the winch, the left 
 below it ; the right side is next to the river, and the right foot foremost. 
 You bring your rod and line boldly and freely in a fine, easy, wide, 
 semicircular sweep over your right shoulder, until your right arm is 
 extended fully and vertically over the right side of your head, and then 
 you send rod and line strongly forward, by communicating to the right 
 arm sharp action, just as if you were going to strike at something elevated 
 before you with the soft or little-finger side of your clenched hand. If 
 all this compound action — bringing back the rod and line over the right 
 shoulder, and then sharply sending them forward — be performed dash- 
 ingly and energetically^, without nervousness, stint of sweep, and strength, 
 your fly will be driven to its destination, which should not be at first 
 eflbrts much more than twenty yards distant. If you can cast that space, 
 or say from one cricket wicket to another, well, you need not much fear 
 but you will be able to catch sea-trout and grilse, and ultimately succeed 
 in throwing ten yards fai'ther, which I think far enough, all matters 
 considered, for the great majority of useful purposes. Believe me that 
 the best salmon-fisher is not he who throws the farthest line, but he who 
 throws it neatly a moderate distance, and when his fly is in the water 
 makes the best use of the pretty lure. I have seen long-limbed louts 
 hurl or roll their fly an im]nense distance, three or four yards further than 
 I could, and yet I would stake my last florin to a farthing that I would 
 kill three fish or more for theu- one. The straight casts, whether from 
 the left or right shoulder, are, generally speaking, the best. At any rate, 
 executed by a proficient, they are always the neatest, and should, by 
 
128 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 beginners, be thefirstlearnt, and tben practised unto perfection. They 
 can be performed with great accuracy, so as to enable the angler to 
 determine, almost to an inch, the precise spot on which his fly is to fall. 
 They cause the fly and casting-line to touch the water first, and enable 
 the fisher to commence working the fly, or showingit to the fish, sooner 
 and better than he could do if much of the winch -line came in contact 
 with the water simultaneously with the casting-line, or a moment before. 
 
 The efiect of the straight cast is less disturbance to the water than 
 that of any other species of cast. In fishing down a river from its right 
 bank, you hold your rod with the left hand above the winch, and the 
 right one beneath it ; left leg foremost, and left side towards the water. 
 You bring your rod round, by, over, and beyond the point of your left 
 shoulder, which motion will carry the line to its full extent upwards 
 over the bed of the river, and feeling that the line is so extended, you 
 bring back a little, in the direction you are going to cast, the point of 
 the rod, and making use chiefly of the action of the left arm, you propel 
 the line forward by a motion which you make with the rod, as if you 
 were going to strike at something hovering over the river in the direction 
 you wish your fly to go. The forward motion of the rod will be checked 
 at a short distance, unless you bend forward with it, and the line will 
 be sent straight out, the fly and gut-line, to which it is attached, coming 
 first in contact with the water. Yielding down the arms and bending 
 the body too much with the descending rod and line, in making the 
 cast, is a very bad habit, as it brings the point of the rod too close to 
 the surface of the water, deadens its elastic and propelling action, and 
 causes the line to fall m a loose and slovenly manner on the water. 
 This left-shoulder cast is only absolutely necessary when you are fishing 
 from beneath the right bank of a river, and have behind you impediments 
 to a right-hand sweep of your rod and line. If the right bank be flat 
 or shelving — if it be clear of obstructions — T can see no objection to 
 right-shoulder casting from it. I counsel the learner to practise both 
 ways, alternately, under all circumstances, for if he does he will become 
 ambidexterous in the use of the rod, a great advantage and preventive 
 of fatigue. There are other methods of throwing the line and fly, but 
 they are difficult and should be learnt last. I do not wish to harass 
 my pupils with difficulties at the outset. When they know how to cast 
 well from the right and left shoulders they have then thoroughly learnt 
 the prose of their art. The understanding of the poetry of it will steal 
 on them unawares. 
 
 The salmon-line and fly must be thrown as straightly down the stream 
 as possible. Casting down the current, and completely in line with it, 
 can only be done by standing in the water at the head of the stream, 
 or on some projecting rock, bridge, or weir. When you cast from the 
 bank, throw slantingly down and across the stream, bringing the fly 
 round into a line with the current without delay. The salmon -fly is 
 worked, or " humoured" against the current, and never with it, or down 
 it, like the trout-fly. If it were worked downwards it would roll over, 
 on account of the general heaviness of its wings, and frighten rather 
 than lure salmon. When worked against the current, it seems like some 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 129 
 
 nondescript, beautiful, large insect, swimming by fits and starts a little 
 beneath the surface of the water, and up stream. The salmon-fly must 
 be worked towards you, up and down, and through the water, by moving 
 the rod up and down, not very rapidly, or very high or low. The hands, 
 grasping the rod, move up and down, just as if you were pumping 
 leisurely w-ith a light free-handled pump. In previous writings, I have 
 made the following analytical remarks on humouring the salmon-fly : — 
 " When the rod and line are lifted up, so will be the fly, and the 
 resistance it meets with from the superincumbent water against which, 
 in an upward direction, it is forced, will press down its wings on the 
 body, compressing, of course, the fibres of the feathery or fur material 
 of which wings, body, and legs are made ; when by the next motion, a 
 sinking one of the rod and line, the fly goes downwards against the 
 water, the resistance it meets with from beneath opens all the fibres 
 of the wing-feathers and hackles, displays the diflerent colours of each, 
 and discloses the body and the tinsel w^ith which it is ribbed. When by 
 the motion that occurs between the two others, the fly is drawn towards 
 the angler, the water presses it above and below — indeed on all sides — 
 and all the materials of which it is made are more compressed than 
 they are by any other motion. The motion I have called the sinking 
 one, is the most attractive of the three, because its effect is fuller deve- 
 lopment of the colours of the fly, and fuller action— I may say almost 
 separate action — of each of the fly's component parts. ]^ow, if the 
 up-and-down and drawing-in motions are performed roughly or rapidly, 
 the effect, or rather one of the effects, will be, constant compression of 
 the fibres of the wing and hackle feathers, and of the hairs, be they 
 mohair, or pig's wool, or fur, of which the body is made. By this com- 
 pression shades of colour are hidden, and nearly all the beauties of the 
 most seductively tinted wing are obscured. The full wing and the full 
 body are injuriously attenuated by water pressure. Certainly, no matter 
 how rapid the upward and downward motion of the fly may be, its 
 fibres must open as they descend against the water ; but their colours 
 are displayed for so brief a period, that the fish has not had sufficient 
 time to distinguish them. The too rapid motion between the heaving 
 -and the setting of the fly, draws it so swiftly towards you, that few fish 
 are fleet enough to overtake it ; and if they are, they will be, I fancy, 
 disinclined to make use of extraordinary effort to do so." It is a less 
 fault to work the fly too slowly and gently, than too rapidly and roughly. 
 I have seen salmon follow with open mouth a rapidly worked fly, and 
 not being able to overtake it, turn ])ack and descend to their lair. AVlien- 
 cver you see a salmon following your fly, lower your rod a Uttle, which 
 will cause the fly to rest, or move gently towards the fish, who, seeing it 
 with all its fibres temptingly displayed, will, in the majority of such 
 instances, take it eagerly. 
 
 There is no greater defect in salmon-fishing, than striking too quickly 
 and too strongly at a rising fish. You should never strike at a fish 
 unless you feel him, which you will not do unless you have the fly 
 between his lips, or withinside them. The instant a salmon has taken 
 the fly, he turns his head downwards with it, ostensibly to swallow it 
 
 I 
 
130 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 quietly in his lair. When you feel this, lift up the point of your rod, 
 and strike with very moderate force. The salmon-rise at the fly causes 
 a large circle about it in the water, and this circle diminishes as he 
 descends. The majority of writers say then is the time to strike with 
 the narrowing circle; but I tell you not to strike even then, unless at the 
 same time you feel your fish. If you strike rapidly and roughly at a 
 rising fish, and you miss him, he will hardly rise again. But if you do 
 not strike at a mere rise, but take no notice, and keep working your fly 
 on, the fish in all probability will rise and take the fly at a second or 
 third cast, provided they be not made in'too rapid succession. When a 
 salmon rises and is not hooked, allow from seven to ten minutes to expire 
 before you throw over him again. 
 
 Having hooked a salmon, do not press too much upon him at the 
 outset. Hold up your rod perpendicularly and let him run away, mth 
 a taut, but not a strongly strained line, whithersoever he likes. You 
 must only lean upon him and stop him when he makes for rocks or 
 dangerous places. You must then present the butt of the rod towards 
 him, throwing upon that part of it the pressure of his struggles, and 
 when you have turned him, ease him, letting him run again with a 
 taut line and uplifted rod. Whenever he makes for what are called 
 ** foul" spots, roots of trees, narrow rushing rapids, you must butt him 
 severely, so as to prevent his getting into a favourite position for pro- 
 longing his struggle with you. As soon as you see him flag and show his 
 sides, wind up your line, and moving backwards from the water your 
 ■weight will bring him towards you, or rather within reach of the gaff or 
 landing-net of your guide and assistant. I prefer, generally speaking, a 
 large, very large landing-net to the gaff, but the latter is good for rapid 
 work, in the hands of a clever attendant. Be in no hurry to land your 
 fish. Young anglers, in their excitement, think they have been playing 
 ra fish for half an hour, when in reality their tussle with him has hardly 
 been of ten minutes' duration. Take things easily, pleasantly, with good 
 and cheer}" temper — no nervousness or fear, and you cannot fail to play 
 and land your fish artistically. 
 
 Every stream and pool should be fished over slowly, and at least three 
 different flies should be tried before any promising part of a salmon river 
 be abandoned. When a fish rises and refuses one fly, try him with 
 several others. There is a great chance that you will force him to fancy 
 one at last. Fish every inch of a generally esteemed good " salmon- 
 cast." One pool fished perseveringly and artistically will afford more 
 sport than half a dozen fished hastily and unartistically. Salmon rise 
 best from break of day — particularly if the morning be clear and there 
 have been no heavy dews or thick fogs — to 11 a.m., and from 6 p.m. 
 until quite dark. Stop : there is frequently good mid-day fishing, espe- 
 cially when the rivers are clearing after a flood, and the day is rather 
 sombre than sunny. When the mercury in your barometer is sinking — 
 when your weather-glass has its hand shifty, pointing to rainy, foul, and 
 so forth, angling for salmon or any other river fish is next to useless. On 
 the contrary, mercury mounting — weather-glass hand pointing steadily 
 to fair — you will catch fish if you are a patient angler, plying your craft 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 131 
 
 from sunrise to sunset, allowing fair intervals for relaxation and fur the 
 refreshing of the whole physical powers by muscle-making aliments and 
 temperate potations. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 OBSEPvYATIONS OF THE LUCE, OR PIKE ; WITH DIRECTIONS IIOW TO 
 FISH FOR HIM. 
 
 [JFourt]^ JBa^.] 
 
 Pisc. The mighty Luce, or Pike is taken to be the tyrant, 
 as the salmon is the king of the fresh waters. It is not to 
 be doubted, but that they are bred, some by generation, and 
 some not,*"' as namely, of a weed called pickerel weed, unless 
 learned Gesner be much mistaken, for he says, this weed and 
 other glutinous matter, with the help of the sun's heat, in 
 some particular months, and some ponds apted for it by 
 nature, do become pikes. But, doubtless, divers pikes ;are 
 bred after this manner, or are brought into some ponds some 
 sach other ways as is past man's finding out, of which we 
 have daily testimonies. 
 
 Sir Prancis Bacon, in his *' History of Life and Death," 
 observes the pike to be the longest lived of any fresh water 
 fish j and yet he computes it to be not usually above forty 
 
 * Tlie simplicity of Walton, or his childish ignorance, is here manifest. To 
 fancy " pickerel-wee" or any other plant producing fish by means of the sun's 
 heat, is exceedingly ridiculous, hut not more so than the modern belief of many 
 persons, that horse-hair thrown into ponds will become eels. Eeader, all river 
 fish have productive spawn. All female fish have ova or eggs, commonly called 
 the *' hard-roe f all male river fish have milts, usually named the soft roe. 
 Unless the former be impregnated by the latter, there will be no reproduction. 
 The salmon tribe deposit their spawn beneath gravel-beds ; the carp tribe on 
 and amongst the subaqueous portions of aquatic plants to which the spawn 
 adheres by its inherent viscous properties. Mr. Blaine {Encyclopedia of Rural 
 SjJorts, p. 1102), accurately states: — "Jack and pike spawn either in March or 
 April, according to the forwardness of the spring, or temperature of the atmo- 
 sphere, as well as the situation of the water. They retire for the reproductive 
 purpose in pah^s, quitting the rivers for the creeks and ditches. When confined 
 in still waters they seek the stillest parts of them, and frequently occupy a mud- 
 bed, or remain towards the edges or shallows, depositing their spawn among 
 aquatic plants, of which the reed and rush varieties are favourites. The niale 
 may be seen during this time accompanying the female with much attention, 
 and when the fecundating milt has been deposited over the ova, the pair retire 
 into deep water, and seem to feel no further solicitude for the result of the pro- 
 cess." See the end of this chapter for other observations on the pike.— Ed. 
 
 i2 
 
132 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 years ; and others think it to be not above ten years ; and yet 
 Gesner mentions a pike taken in Swedeland, in the year 1449, 
 with a ring about his neck, declaring he was put into that 
 pond by Frederick the Second, more than two hundred years 
 before he was last taken, as by the inscription in that ring, 
 being Greek, was interpreted by the then Bishop of Worms.* 
 Eut of this no more but that it is observed, that the old or 
 very great pikes have in them more of state than goodness ; 
 the smaller or middle-sized pikes being, by the most and 
 choicest palates, observed to be the best meat : and, contrary, 
 the eel is observed to be the better for age and bigness. 
 
 All pikes that live long prove chargeable to their keepers, 
 because their life is maintained by the death of so many other 
 fish, even those of their own kind ; which has made him by 
 some writers to be called the tyrant of the rivers, or the fresh- 
 water wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposi- 
 tion ; which is so keen, as Gesner relates a man going to a 
 pond, where it seems a pike had devoured all the fish, to 
 water his mule, had a pike bit his mule by the lips; to which 
 
 * The story is told (more correctly) by Hakewill, who, in his " Apologie of 
 the Power and Providence of God," fol. Oxf. 1635, part i. p. 145, says, — " I 
 will close up this chapter with a relation of Gesner's in his epistle to the Em- 
 peror Ferdinand, prefixed before his booke De Piscibus, touching the long life 
 of a pike which was cast into a pond or poole near Hailebrune in Suabia, ^vith 
 this inscription engraven upon a collar of brass fastened about his necke,' ^^70 
 sum ille piscis hide stagno omnium piHmus impositiis per mwuU rectoris Frcderici 
 Secundi manus, 5 Octohris, anno 1230.' I am that fish which was first of all 
 cast into this poole by the hand of Fredericke the Second, governor of the 
 world, the fifth of October, in the year 1230. — He was again taken up in the 
 year 1497; and by the inscription, it appeared he had then lived there 2G7 
 yeareSv" — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 133 
 
 the pike bung so fast, that the mule drew him out of the 
 water, and by that accident the owner of the mule angled out 
 the pike. And the same Gesner observes, that a maid in 
 Poland had a pike bit her by the foot, as she was washing 
 clothes in a pond. And I have heard the like of a woman in 
 Killingworth pond, not far from Coventry. But I have been 
 assured by my friend Mr. Seagrave, of whom I spake to you 
 formerly, that keeps tame otters, that he hath known a pike 
 in extreme hunger fight with one of his otters for a carp that 
 the otter had caught, and was then bringing out of the water. 
 I have told you who relate these things, and tell you they are 
 persons of credit ; and shall conclude this observation, by 
 telling you what a wise man has observed, '^ It is a hard 
 thing to persuade the belly, because it has no ears."* 
 
 * Bowlker, in his Art of Angling, gives the follo^viiig instance of the exceed- 
 ing voracity of this fish : " My father catched a pike in Barn-Meer, (a large 
 standing water in Cheshire) was an ell long and weighed thirty-five pounds, 
 which he brought to the Lord Kholmondely : his lordship ordered it to be 
 turned into a canal in the garden, wherein were abundance of several sorts of 
 fish. About twelve months after, his lordship draw'd the canal, and found that 
 this overgrown pike had devoured all the fish, except one large carp, that 
 weighed between nine and ten pounds, and that was bitten in several places. 
 The pike was then put into the canal again, together with abundance of fish 
 for him to feed upon, all which he devoured in less than a year's time; and 
 was observed by the gardener and workmen there, to take the ducks and other 
 water- fowl under water : whereupon they shot magpies and crows, and threw 
 them into the canal, which the pike took before their eyes : of this they 
 acquainted their lord, who thereupon ordered the slaughtermen to fling in 
 calves' bellies, chickens' guts, and such like garbage to him, to prey upon ; but 
 being soon after neglected, he died as supposed for want of food." The follow- 
 ing relation was inserted as an article of news in one of the London papers, 
 2nd Jan. 1765. Extract of a letter from Littleport, Dec. 17.— "About ten 
 days ago, a large Pike was caught in the river Ouse, which weighed upwards of 
 twenty-eight pounds, and was sold to a gentleman in the neighbourhood for a 
 guinea. As the cook-maid was gutting the fish, she found, to her great asto- 
 nishment, a watch with a black ribbon, and two steel seals annexed, in the 
 body of the pike ; the gentleman's butler, upon opening the watch, found the 
 maker's name, Thomas Cranefield, Burnham, Norfolk. Upon a strict enquiry, 
 it appears that the said watch was sold to a gentleman's servant, who was 
 unfortunately drowned about six weeks ago, in his way to Cambridge, between 
 this place and South-Ferry. The watch is still in the possession of Mr. John 
 Roberts, at the Cross Keys, in Littleport, for the inspection of the public." And 
 this is in the same paper, the 25th of the same month and year. " On Tuesday 
 last, at Lillishall lime-works, near Newport, a pool about nine yards deep, 
 which has not yet been fished for ages, was let off by means of a level brought 
 up to drain the works, when an enormous pike was found ; he was drawn out 
 by a rope fastened round his head and gills, amidst hundreds of spectators, 
 in which service a great many men were employed : he weighed upwards of 
 170 pounds, and is thought to be the largest ever seen. Some time ago, the 
 clerk of the parish was trolling in the above pool, when his bait was seized by 
 this furious creature, which, by a sudden jerk, pulled him in, and doubtless 
 would have devoured him also, had he not by wonderful agility and dexterous 
 
134 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 But if tliese relations be disbelieved, it is too evident to be 
 doubted, tliat a pike will devour a fish of his own kind that 
 shall be bigger than his belly or throat will receive, and 
 swallow a part of him, and let the other part remain in his 
 mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow 
 that other part, that was in his mouth, and so put it over by- 
 degrees ; which is not unlike the ox, and some other beasts, 
 taking their meat, not out of their mouth immediately into 
 their belly, but first into some place betwixt, and then chew 
 it, or digest it by degrees after, which is called chewing the 
 cud. And, doubtless, pikes will bite when they are not 
 hungry ; but, as some think, even for very anger, when a 
 tempting bait comes near to them. 
 
 And it is observed that the pike will eat venomous things, 
 as some kind of frogs are, and yet live without being harmed 
 by them ; for, as some say, he has in him a natural balsam, or 
 antidote against all poison. And he has a strange heat, that 
 though it appears to us to be cold, can yet digest or put over 
 any fish-flesh, by degrees, without being sick. And others 
 observe that he never eats the venomous frog till he have 
 first killed her, and then, as ducks are observed to do to frogs 
 in spaMTiing time, at which time some frogs are observed to 
 be venomous, — so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her 
 up and down in the water, that he may devour her without 
 danger. And Gesner affirms that a Polonian gentleman did 
 faithfully assure him, he had seen two young geese at one 
 time in the belly of a pike. And doubtless a pike, in his 
 height of hunger, will bite at and devour a dog that swims in 
 a pond ; and there have been examples of it, or the like : for, 
 
 swimming, escaped the dreadful jaws of this voracious animal." In Dr. Plot's 
 History of Staffordshire, 246, are sundry relations of pike of great magnitude, 
 one in particular caught in the Thame, an ell and two inches long. The fol- 
 lomng story, containing further evidence of the voracity of this fish, with the 
 addition of a pleasant circumstance, I met with in Fuller's Worthies, Lincoln- 
 shire, page 144. "A cub fox, drinking out of the river Arnus, in Italy, had 
 his head seized on by a mighty pike, so that neither could free themselves, but 
 were ingrappled together. In this contest a young man runs into tlie water, 
 takes them out both alive, and carricth them to the Duke of Florence, whose 
 palace was hard by. The porter would not admit him without promising 
 of sharing his full half in what the duke should give him ; to wliich he (hope- 
 less otherwise of entrance) condescended ; the duke, highly affected with the 
 rarity, was about giving him a good reward, Avhich the other refused, desiring 
 his highness would appoint one of his guard to give him a hundred lashes, that 
 so his porter might have fifty, according to his composition. And here 
 my intelligence leaveth me, liovr much farther the jest was followed." — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 135 
 
 as I told you, " The belly has no ears when hunger comes 
 upon it." 
 
 The pike is also observed to be a solitary, melancholy, and 
 a bold fish : melancholy because he always swims or rests 
 himself alone, and never swims in shoals or with company, 
 as roach and dace and most other fish do ; and bold, because 
 he fears not a shadow, or to see or be seen of anybody, as 
 the trout and chub and all other fish do. 
 
 And it is observed by Gesner, that the jaw-bones and hearts 
 and galls of pikes are very medicinable for several diseases ; 
 or to stop blood,to abate fevers, to cure agues, to oppose or ex-~~ 
 pel the infection of the plague, and to be many ways medicin- 
 able and useful for the good of mankind : but he observes, 
 that the biting of a pike is venomous, and hard to be cured. 
 
 And it is observed, that the pike is a fish that breeds but 
 once a year ; and that other fish, as namely loaches, do breed 
 oftener, as we are certain tame pigeons do almost every month; 
 and yet the hawk, a bird of prey, as the pike is of fish, breeds 
 but once in twelve months.'"* And you are to note, that his 
 time of breeding, or spawning, is usually about the end of 
 February, or somewhat later, in March, as the weather proves 
 colder or warmer ; and to note, that his manner of breeding 
 is thus : a he and a she pike will usually go together out of a 
 river into some ditch or creek, and that there the spawner 
 casts her eggs, and the melter hovers over her all that time 
 that she is casting her spawn, but touches her not.t 
 
 * Walton here hints at a dispensation of Providence, by which animals of 
 prey are rendered less productive of their species than others, particularly than 
 those living things that furnish food for man. There are numerous excep- 
 tions. Animals, that come under the denomination of " vermin," are in many 
 instances exceedingly prolific ; far more so than the useful cow and sheep. The 
 salmon, so valuable as an edible, does not spawn more frequently than the pike ; 
 nor does the pheasant breed oftener than the hawk, though it does more pro- 
 ductively. Animals of prey abound in the uninhabited forest and desert, and 
 if some are very rare, and others extinct, in populous countries, we must impute 
 the fact to the destructive devices of man, rather than to limited natural powers 
 of productiveness. — Ed. 
 
 t Very late discoveries of naturalists contradict this hypothesis concerning 
 the generation of fishes, and prove that they are produced by the conjunction 
 of the male and female, as other animals are. See the " Philosophical Trans- 
 actions," Vol. XL VIII. Part II., for the year 1754, p. 870.— H. 
 
 [Discoveries later still, in the shape of repeated experunents, have proved 
 that Walton was more correct than the " Philosophic Transactions" for the 
 year 1754. The hypothesis that fish— we specifically refer to river fish—" are 
 produced by the conjunction of the male and female, as other animals are," is 
 rejected by all eminent modern naturalists. No sexual conjunction takes place. 
 The female fish deposits her spawn or ova, which the male fish fecundates by 
 
136 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity 
 or worse, and shall therefore forbear it ; and take up so much 
 of your attention as to tell you, that the best of pikes are 
 noted to be in rivers ; next, those in great ponds or meres ; 
 and the worst, in small ponds. 
 
 But before I proceed farther, I am to tell you, that there 
 is a great antipathy betwixt the pike and some frogs : and 
 this may appear to the reader of Dubravius, a bishop in 
 Bohemia, who, in his book " Of Fish and Fish-ponds,"'" re- 
 lates what he says he saw with his own eyes, and could not 
 forbear to tell the reader, which was : — 
 
 "As he and the Bishop Thurzo were walking by a large 
 pond in Bohemia, they saw a frog, when the pike lay very 
 sleepily and quiet by the shore side, leap upon his head ; and 
 the frog having expressed malice or anger by his swollen 
 cheeks and staring eyes, did stretch out his legs and embraced 
 the pike's head, and presently reached them to his eyes, tear- 
 ing with them and his teeth, those tender parts : the pike 
 moved with anguish, moves up and down the water, and 
 rubs himself against weeds and whatever he thought might 
 quit him of his enemy ; but all in vain, for the frog did con- 
 tinue to ride triumphantly, and to bite and torment the pike, 
 till his strength failed, and then the frog sunk with the pike 
 to the bottom of the water ; then presently the frog appeared 
 again at the top and croaked, and seemed to rejoice like a 
 conqueror ; after which he presently retired to his secret 
 hole. The bishop, that had beheld the battle, called his 
 
 emitting upon it his spawn or milt. The reader will remark, that Walton has 
 already said, at the beginning of this chapter, of pike, "'Tisnotto be doubted 
 but that they are bred, some by generation, and some not." In the jjresent 
 passage : — " A he and she-pike will usually go together out of a river into 
 some ditch or creek, and there the spawner casts her eggs, and the milter hovers 
 over her all that time she is casting her spawn, but touches lier not" — he sets 
 himself right, and gives the real process of pike re-production. One of 
 Walton's greatest errors is, that he places such confidence in what were in his 
 day called learned writers, particularly German ones. They were as bad natu~ 
 ralists in his time as they are now, and for the excellent reason that they 
 indulge in day-dreams about the abnormal habits and singular instincts of 
 animalia, instead of trying to account for them by facts derived from actual, 
 observation. The Tudesque theories about river-fish are the vaguest imaginable ;. 
 and if Walton had relied more on his own experience and good sense, than 
 on the dreaminess of Gesner, and similar gohe-mouche naturalists, the " Complete 
 Angler" would not have been the medium of conveying to credulous readers 
 statements concerning the habits offish, birds, and quadrupeds, as silly as tliey 
 are opposed to all the recognised laws of nature. — Ed.] 
 * Translated into English in 1599, by George Churchey, of Lyon's Inn. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 137 
 
 fishermen to fetch his nets, and by all means to get the pike 
 that they might declare what had happened : and the pike 
 was drawn forth, and both his eyes eaten out ; at which 
 when they began to wonder, the fisherman wished them to 
 forbear, and assured them he was certain that pikes were 
 often so served." 
 
 I told this, which is to be read in the sixth chapter of the 
 first book of Dubravius, unto a friend, who replied, " It was 
 as improbable as to have the mouse scratch out the cat's eyes." 
 Bat he did not consider, that there be fishing frogs, which 
 the Dahuatians call the water-devil, of which I might tell you 
 as wouderful a story ; but I shall tell you, that 'tis not to be 
 doubted, but that there be some frogs so fearful of the water- 
 snake, that, when they swim in a place in which they fear to 
 meet with him, they then get a reed across into their mouths, 
 which, if they two meet by accident, secures the frog from the 
 strength and malice of the snake ; and note, that the frog 
 usually swims the fastest of the two. 
 
 And let me tell you, that as there be water and land-frogs, 
 so there be land and water snakes. Concerning which, take 
 this observation, that the land-snake breeds and hatches her 
 eggs, which become young snakes, in some old dunghill, or a 
 like hot place ; but the water-snake, which is not venomous, 
 and, as I have been assured by a great observer of such secrets, 
 does not hatch, but breed her young alive, which she does 
 not ttien forsake, but bides with them, and in case of danger 
 will take them into her mouth and swim away from any 
 apprehended danger, and then let them out again when she 
 thinks all danger to be passed ; these be accidents that we 
 anglers sometimes see, and often talk of 
 
 But whither am I going ] I had almost lost myself, by 
 remembering the discourse of Dubravius. I will therefore 
 stop here, and tell you, according to my promise, how to 
 catch the pike. 
 
 His feeding is usually of fish or frogs, and sometimes a 
 weed of his own called pickerel- weed, of which I told you 
 some think pikes are bred ; for they have observed, that 
 where none have been put into ponds, yet they have there 
 found many, and that there has been plenty of that weed in 
 those ponds, and [they think] that that weed both breeds 
 and feeds them : but whether those pikes so bred will ever 
 breed by generation as the others do, I shall leave to the 
 disquisitions of men of more curiosity and leisure than I 
 
138 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 profess myself to have : and shall proceed to tell you, that 
 you may fish for a pike, either with a ledger or a walking- 
 bait ; and you are to note, that I call that a ledger-bait, 
 which is fixed or made to rest in one certain place when you 
 shall be absent from it ; and I call that a walking-bait which 
 you take with you, and have ever in motion. Concerning 
 which two, I shall give you this direction, that your ledger- 
 bait is best to be a living bait (though a dead one may catch), 
 whether it be a fish or a frog : and that you may make them 
 live the longer, you may, or indeed you must, take this course : 
 
 First, for your live-bait. Of fish, a roach or dace is, I 
 think, best and most tempting (and a perch is the longest 
 lived on a hook ;) and having cut oif his fin on his bacli, which 
 may be done without hurting him, you must take your knife, 
 which cannot be too sharp, and between the head and the fin 
 on the back, cut or make an incision, or such a scar, as you 
 may put the arming- wire of your hook into it, with as little 
 bruising or hurting the fish as art and diligence will enable 
 you to do ; and so carrying your arming- v/ire along his back, 
 unto or near the tail of your fish, between the skin and the 
 body of it, draw out that wire or arming of your hook at 
 another scar near to his tail : then tie him about it with 
 thread, but no harder than of necessity to prevent hurting 
 the fish ; and the better to avoid hurting the fish, some have 
 a kind of probe to open the way, for the more easy entrance 
 and passage of your wire or arming : but as for these, time 
 and a little experience will teach you better than I can by 
 words ; therefore I will for the present say no more of this, 
 but come next to give you some directions how to bait your 
 hook with a frog. 
 /^"Ven. But, good Master, did you not say even now, that 
 some frogs are venomous, and is it not dangerous to touch 
 them ? 
 
 Fisc. Yes ; but I will give you some rules or cautions con- 
 cerning them. And first, you are to note, that there are two 
 kinds of frogs ; that is to say, if I may so express myself, a 
 fiesh and a fish-frog : by fiesh-frogs, I mean frogs that breed 
 and live on the land ; and of these there be several sorts also, 
 and of several colours, some being speckled, some greenish, 
 some blackish or brown : the green frog, which is a small 
 one, is by Topsell taken to be venomous, and so is the 
 padock or frog padock, which usually keeps or breeds on the 
 land, and is very large, and bony and big, especially the she- 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 139 
 
 frog of that kind ; yet these will sometimes come into the 
 water, but it is not often ; and the land-frogs are some of 
 them observed by him to breed by laying eggs, and others to 
 breed of the slime and dust of the earth, and that in winter 
 they turn to slime again, and that the next summer that very 
 slime returns to be a living creature ; this is the opinion of 
 Pliny, and Cardanus'" (in his tenth book De Suhtilitate) under- 
 takes to give a reason for the raining of frogs : but if it were 
 in my power, it should rain none bub water-frogs, for those I 
 think are not venomous, especially the right water-frog, which 
 about February or March breeds in ditches by slime, and 
 blackish eggs in that slime, about which time of breeding the 
 he and she-frogs are observed to use divers summersaults, 
 and to croak and make a noise, which the land-frog, or padock- 
 frog, never does. Now of these water-frogs, if you intend to 
 fish with a frog for a pike, you are to choose the yellowest 
 that you can get, for that the pike ever likes best. And thus 
 use your frog, that he may continue long alive : 
 
 Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do 
 from the middle of April till August ; and then the frog's 
 mouth grows up, and he continues so for at least six months 
 without eating, but is sustained none but He whose name is 
 Wonderful know^s how : I say, put your hook, I mean the 
 arming- wire, through his mouth and out at his gills ; and 
 then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, 
 with only one stitch, to the arming- wire of your hook ; or tie 
 the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the arming-wire ; and, 
 in so doing, use him as though you loved him,t that is, harm 
 him as little as you may possibly, that he may live the 
 longer. 
 
 And now, having given you this direction for the baiting 
 your ledger-hook with a live fish or frog, J my next must be to 
 
 * Hieronymus Cardanus, an Italian physician, naturalist, and astrologer, 
 well-known by the many works he has published : he died at Rome 157C. It is 
 said that he had foretold the day of his death, and that, when it approached, 
 he suffered himself to die of hunger to preserve his reputation. — H. 
 
 t It is this expression, with the instructions given in the paragraph, on which 
 is mainly founded the charge of cruelty against Walton, and no doubt gave 
 rise to the lines of Byron so frequently quoted : — 
 
 " That quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet 
 Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." 
 
 " Don Juaiw'' canto xiii. 
 X Ledger-hook. The name is now applied to a certain sort of apparatus — 
 the best— used for fishing for barbel. In my notes about the end of chapter 
 the 14th, wliich treats of the barbel, the ledger-hook or line is fully described. 
 —Ed. 
 
140 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 tell you how your hook thus baited must or may be used, and 
 it is thus : Having fastened your hook to a line, which, if it 
 be not fourteen yards long, should not be less than twelve, 
 you are to fasten that line to any bough near to a hole where 
 a pike is, or is likely to lie, or to have a haunt, and then wind 
 your line on any forked stick, all your line, except half a yard 
 of it, or rather more, and split that forked stick with such a 
 nick or notch at one end of it as may keep the line from any 
 more of it ravelling from about the stick than so much of it 
 as you intend ; and choose your forked stick to be of that 
 bigness as may keep the fish or frog from pulling the forked 
 stick under the water till the pike bites ; and then the pike 
 having pulled the line forth of the cleft or nick of that stick 
 in which it was gently fastened, he will have line enough to 
 go to his hold and pouch the bait ; and if you would have this 
 ledger-bait to keep at a fixed place, undisturbed by wind or 
 other accidents, which may drive it to the shore- side, (for you 
 are to note, that it is likeliest to catch a pike in the midst of 
 the water,) then hang a small plummet of lead, a stone, or 
 piece of tile, or a turf in a string, and cast it into the water 
 with the forked stick, to hang upon the ground, to be a kind 
 of anchor to keep the forked stick from moving out of your 
 intended place till the pike come. This I take to be a very 
 good way, to use so many ledger-baits as you intend to make 
 trial of. 
 
 Or if you bait your hooks thus with live fish or frogs, and 
 in a windy day, fasten them thus to a bough or bundle of 
 straw, and by the help of that wind can get them to move 
 across a pond or mere, you are like to stand still on the shore 
 and see sport presently if there be any store of pikes : or 
 these live baits may make sport, being tied about the body 
 or wings of a goose or duck, and she chased over a pond : and 
 the like may be done with turning three or four live baits 
 thus fastened to bladders, or boughs, or bottles of hay or 
 flags, to swim down a river, whilst you walk quietly alone on 
 the shore, and are still in expectation of sport. The rest 
 must be taught you by practice, for time will not allow me to 
 say more of this kind of fishing with live baits. 
 
 And for your dead bait for a pike, for that you may be 
 taught by one day's going a fishing with me, or any other 
 body that fishes for him, for the baiting your hook with a 
 dead gudgeon or a roach, and moving it up and down the 
 water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 141 
 
 to do it ; and yet, because I cut you short in that, I will 
 commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a 
 secret : it is this : 
 
 Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint 
 your dead bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place, 
 and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it 
 towards the top of the water, and so up the stream, and it is 
 more than likely that you have a pike follow with more than 
 common eagerness. 
 
 And some affirm, that any bait anointed with the marrow of 
 the thigh-bone of an hern,'"' is a great temptation to any fish. 
 
 These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend 
 of note, that pretended to do me a courtesy ; but if this 
 direction to catch a pike thus do you no good, yet I am 
 certain this direction how to roast him when he is caught is 
 choicely good, for I have tried it, and it is somewhat the 
 better for not being common ; but with my direction you 
 must take this caution, that your pike must not be a small one, 
 that is, it must be more than half a yard, and should be bigger. 
 
 First, open your pike at the gills, and if need be, cut also 
 a little slit towards the belly ; out of these take his guts and 
 keep his liver, which you are to shred very small with thyme, 
 sweet-marjoram, and a little winter-savory : to these put some 
 pickled oysters, and some anchovies, two or three, both these 
 last whole ; for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should 
 not : to these you must add also a pound of sweet butter, 
 which you are to mix with the herbs that are shred, and let 
 them all be well salted : if the pike be more than a yard long, 
 then you may put into these herbs more than a pound, or if 
 he be less, then less butter will suffice ; these being thus 
 mixed with a blade or two of mace, must be put into the 
 pike's belly, and then his belly so sewed up, as to keep all the 
 butter in his belly, if it be possible : if not, then as much of it 
 as you possibly can ; but take not off the scales : then you are 
 to thrust the spit through his mouth out at his tail ; and then 
 take four, or five, or six split sticks or very thin laths, and a 
 convenient quantity of tape or filleting : these laths are to be 
 tied round about the pike's body from his head to his tail, and 
 
 * No doubt Walton means the well-known bird,thc heron, a great destroyer 
 of fish, and hence, apparently, the notion that its marrow had some odoriferous 
 attraction. Anointing any fish dead-bait for pike or for perch, or any other 
 fish, is more superfluous, if possible, than gilding the purest Australian gold 
 nugget. — Ed. 
 
142 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 tlie tape tied somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or fall- 
 ing off from the spit : let him be roasted very leisurely, and 
 often basted with claret v/ine and anchovies and butter mixed 
 together, and also with what moisture falls from him into the 
 pan : when you have roasted him sufficiently, you are to hold 
 under him, when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him, 
 such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of ; and let him fall 
 into it with the sauce that is roasted in his belly ; and by this 
 means the pike wdll be kept unbroken and complete : then, to 
 the sauce which was within, and also that sauce in the pan, 
 you are to add a fit quantity of the best butter, and to squeeze 
 the juice of three or four oranges : lastly, you may either put 
 into the pike with tlie oysters two cloves of garlick, and take 
 it whole out, when the pike is cut off the spit ; or to give the 
 sauce a haut-gout let the dish into which you let the pike fall 
 be rubbed with it : the using or not using of this garlick is 
 left to your discretion. — M. B. 
 ^ This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very 
 C honest men ; and I trust you will prove both, and therefore 
 \l have trusted you with this secret. 
 
 Let me next tell you, that Gesner tells us there are no 
 pikes in Spain ; and that the largest are in the lake Thrasy- 
 mene in Italy ; and the next, if not equal to them, are the 
 pikes of England ; and that in England, Lincolnshire boasteth 
 to have the biggest. Just so doth Sussex boast of four sorts 
 of lish ; namely, an Arundel JMullet, a Chichester Lobster, a 
 Shelsey Cockle, and an Amerley Trout. 
 
 But I will take up no more of your time with this relation ; 
 but proceed to give you some observations of the Carp, and 
 Low to angle for him, and to dress him, but not till he is 
 •cauG^ht. 
 
 GOf.OJi-EOOK 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 14S 
 
 [There is no fish better known to London anglers than the jack and 
 pike. When the pike weighs less than 41bs. it is .technically called in 
 England a jack ; above that weight a pike. Its right vernacular name, 
 however, at all ages and sizes is pike. Scientifically it is called Usox 
 Lucius, and Dr. . Fleming describes it thus : — body, olive above, with 
 yellow spots ; beneath white, with black spots ; body of nearly an equal 
 thickness, suddenly decreasing behind the dorsal and anal fins. Of this 
 notorious fish I painted some years ago a fancy miniature, which has 
 been extensively admired and copied. Here it is. *' The pike, commonly 
 called jack, when under 31bs. or 41bs. in weight, is a well-known fish ; like 
 many of us, better known than trusted or treated. He is a greedy, 
 unsociable, tyrannising savage, and is hated like a Blue Beard. Every 
 body girds at him with spear, gaft, hook, net, snare, and even with 
 powder and shot. He has not a friend in the world. The horrible 
 gorge hook is specially invented for the torment of his maw. Notwith- 
 standing, he fights his way vigorously, grows into immense strength, 
 despite his many enemies, and lives longer than his greatest foe, man. 
 His voracity is unbounded ; and, like the most accomplished corporate 
 officers, he is nearly omnivorous, his palate giving the preference 
 however, to fish, flesh, and fowl. Dyspepsia never interferes with his 
 digestion ; and he jjossesses a quality that would have been valuable at 
 La Trapxje — he can fast without inconvenience for a se'nnight. He can 
 gorge himself then to beyond the gills M^thout the slightest derangement 
 of the stomach. He is shark and ostrich combined. His body is 
 comely to look at ; and if he would hide his head — by no means a 
 diminished one — his green and silver vesture would attract many 
 admirers. His intemperate habits, however, render him an object of 
 disgust and dread. He devours his own children ; but, strange to say, 
 likes better (for eating) the children of his neighbours. Heat spoils his 
 appetite ; cold sharpens it. I envy the pike constitution." There are 
 more anecdotes in written and oral circulation, about this furious fish 
 than about any other denizen of our fresh waters. Those relative to his 
 ferocity I believe for the most part. No wonder that he should be 
 always a-hungered. He will digest a small roach, dace, or trout in 
 half an hour. It requires a large fish to be pouched to render torpid his 
 muscular action, or arrest the action of his most strongly and rapidly 
 dissolving gastric juices. The rascal's stomach is rarely empty, and 
 therefore there occurs continually a large absorption of nutritious matter 
 into the system. Hence the rapid growth and large size of pike. In 
 my opinion the salmon is a greater eater than the pike. But he feeds 
 with a prettier mouth, silently and unobserved, and does not ^ gobble 
 with avid eyes and crunching jaws like the pike, so nobody notices the 
 large quantity of food he " puts away'' in a gentlemanlike^ manner. 
 The salmon is a. (gourmet, the pike is a gourmand; which, being inter- 
 preted, means that the former is a nice, though a large feeder ; the latter 
 a gluttonous muncher, even of garbage. The one would be a Beau 
 Brummel at table, the other a Dr. Samuel Johnson. I do not believe 
 the story of Frederick the Second's pike mentioned in the second page of 
 the preceding chapter, nor do I believe Mr. Seagrave's story following 
 
344 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 the other, " that he hath known a pilce, in extreme hunger, fight with one 
 of his (tame) otters for a carp, that the otter had caught, and was then 
 bringing out of the water." If a pike were so fool-hardy as to make 
 any such assault, the otter would have dropped the lesser carp, and 
 speedily captured and with the greatest ease the bigger and best prize — 
 the pike. I believe that the largest pike ever caught in the British Isles 
 was that caught many years ago, and the weight of which was about 
 921bs., in the river Shannon, by some visitors at Portumna Castle, the 
 family seat of the Marquis of Clanricarde. I never saw a pike that 
 weighed more than 331bs. ; but Mr. Christopher Grove, of Bond-st., his 
 cousin, Mr. T. Grove, of Charing-cross, and Mr. Sweeting, of Cheapside, 
 all celebrated fishmongers, tell me they have frequently Dutch pike 
 weighing upwards of 401bs., and sometimes reaching 501bs. 
 
 There are many methods of angling for pike. I shall describe the 
 best. The easiest, simplest, and in many instances the best, is called 
 '* sinking and roving." It is practised with a live fish-bait — a gudgeon, 
 dace, roach, or trout. For large pike, a dace, roach, or trout, weighing 
 6oz. is not too big a bait. As a general rule, large fish will not trouble 
 themselves with small baits. In sinking and roving you pass your hook 
 through the skin, taking in a little of the flesh, by the side and at the 
 root of the dorsal fin of your live bait. The hook is to be attached to 
 one yard and a half of stout gimp, which is to be heavily leaded to keep 
 down the bait to within a foot or two of the bottom of the water. On 
 your line is to be a large cork float, to prevent the bait from sinking to 
 the very bottom, or swimming about too freely, and to tell you when 
 you have a bite, or technically speaking a " run." Your rod must be 
 stout and strong, and your winch line must consist of 80 yards of strong, 
 platted silk line, prepared with oil and varnish. Such a line will answer 
 for spinning or trolling for pike. The more lively your bait the better. 
 Let it swim about here and there, by aquatic plants and roots of trees, 
 and when you have a " run" do not strike instantly. Let the pike run 
 off with the bait, giving him line to enable him to do so without check. 
 In from five to ten minutes he will swallow or " pouch" the bait, and 
 then you nmst strike your fish smartly and play him vigorously. When 
 the line is suddenly slackened a little, and has a quivering motion 
 communicated to it, then you may be sure that the bait is pouched. On 
 the contrary, as Capt. Williamson says : — " when you see a great number 
 of very small bubbles rising from the spot where you know, by the 
 direction of the line, the jack is lying, you should forbear from striking, 
 it being a certain sign that he has not pouched your bait." A pike 
 seizes its prey by the middle, then swims off with it, to its lair, turns it 
 headforemost in his mouth and then swallows it, rapidly or slowly 
 according to the state of his appetite. Pike seem sometimes to play in 
 sheer wanton cruelty with the fish they have seized, as cats do with 
 mice. Taylor in an old, and, as far as it goes good, treatise on angling, 
 writes : — " The pike will, as soon as he has seized the bait, run to his 
 hold to pouch or swallow it ; allow him, therefore, five minutes to do so 
 (unless the line slackens before that time, which is a signal that he has 
 already done it), and then strike. But if after he has run off with the 
 
THE CQMPLETE ANGLER. ]45 
 
 bait, he makes scarcely any stay with it at his hold, but goes off with it 
 again, you should not strike until he has rested a second time, allowing 
 him still about five minutes ; but if he should run oft' a third time before 
 the five minutes are expired, draw a tight line, and strike him instantly.'* 
 There is another method of pike-fishing, called " snap" fishing. You 
 tie two large hooks, back to back, with their barbs pointing different 
 ways. Near the top of their shanks you tie a small hook, which is to be 
 inserted by the root of the dorsal fin of the live bait, and the two large 
 hooks are to lie down by the side of the bait, their bends not extending 
 below the belly of the dace or roach you fish with, but just even with it. 
 When you have a run, allow no time for pouching, but strike imme- 
 diately. There is another hook, called the " spring-snap,*' shaped like 
 the latter, but the backs of the hooks are held together by means of a 
 spring, which gives when a fish is struck, and then both hooks spring 
 suddenly and strongly out, and fix themselves inside the mouth of the 
 pike. The spring-snap is generally used with a dead bait, a roach being 
 the best one for the purpose. The snap-hooks are put in requisition in 
 the summer and early autumn months, when pike, finding plenty of fish 
 food in the rivers, are not very pressing in pursuit of the angler's lures. If 
 pike seize them then, they often reject them without pouching, so 
 that it is necessary to strike immediately. Hence the invention ot 
 snap-hooks. 
 
 ^, Trolling with the gorge-hook, or spinning for pike, are the two most 
 
 artistical ways of angling for him. I have explained how spinning is to 
 he practised in my remarks at the end of Chapter V., on trout-fishing. 
 Spinning for trout, pike, perch, and salmon is done in precisely the same 
 way. The spinning-flight of hooks for pike must be double the size of 
 that used for the capture of trout. Trolling is practised with the gorge- 
 hook, for a representation of which see the end of this chapter. The 
 gorge-hook, or hooks, are fashioned thus : — Take two eel-hooks, and whip 
 them back to back, with their points outside : to their shanks attach a 
 length of twisted wire, looped at the end. From three to four inches of 
 wire will be sufficient, and over it for about two inches, beginning at the 
 inside of the bends of the hooks, fix some lead, rounded and thick near 
 the hook -bend, and tapering off* gradually down the wire, until it becomes 
 no thicker than it. There should not be more lead than is necessary to 
 sink the bait. To the looped end of the wire a link of gimp a foot long 
 should be attached, the end of which is to be placed in the eye of a bait- 
 ing-needle, whose point is to be passed in at the mouth of the bait-fish, 
 and out at the middle of the tail. Draw the link to, and the wire and 
 lead on it will pass into the fish-bait, until their progress is arrested by 
 the bends of the hooks stopped at the angles of the mouth of the bait. 
 The barbs of the hooks must point upwards, never downwards. Your 
 link, with its baited gorge-hook, is to be looped on to a gimp trace of 
 about a yard in length, with two swivels on it, eighteen inches apart, 
 and the trace is to be looped on your prepared platted silk winch-line . 
 The trolling-rod should be from ten to twelve feet in length, with a few 
 very large rings upon it — large enough to admit easily the top of the 
 forefinger. The rod should be very stout, and slightly elastic ; its butt 
 
 K 
 
146 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 made of well-seasoned ash, its two middle pieces of hickory, and its top 
 of bamboo cane, tipped with about six inches of whalebone. The winch, 
 capable of holding eighty yards of line, should be a London-made check 
 one. Fairservice is the best maker. For salmon and trout fly-fishing, 
 I always use one of his check winches, varying its size according to the 
 size of the rod 1 use, and the fish I angle for. In a " Handbook of 
 Angling," I have briefly described how the trolling-rod is to be handled. 
 I say in it : — " To cast your gorge-bait, your must unroll ofl* your winch 
 as much line as you want to reach the distance you intend to cast to. 
 The line must fall in free coils by your feet on the left side. Take the 
 upper part of the coiled line in your left hand, drawing the bait within 
 a yard or a little less of the point of your rod, which lifting with your 
 right hand, the butt being propped against your right flank, throw up- 
 wards and forwards to your right or left if you are pond or lake fishing, 
 and across and down stream if you are river fishing ; and, simultaneously 
 with the throw or cast, letting free the line in your left hand, the bait 
 will be carried, if well and boldly projected, all the coiled portion of the 
 line running through the rings freely, to that spot of the river you wish 
 to reach, provided always that you have accurately calculated the length 
 of line required, and uncoiled it off" your winch, and coiled it at your feet 
 accordingly. The bait having entered the water, keep it at about a dis- 
 tance of one-third the whole depth, if the water be deep, from the bottom, 
 but generally speaking at mid- water in moderately deep places, and 
 drawing in your line with the left hand by short and gentle pulls, and 
 moving your rod's point in the same direction, try and give to the bait 
 an attractive, if not natural motion. Do not, unless in case of emergency, 
 lift your bait out of the water until you have worked it close to you. 
 A pike very frequently follows the bait and seizes it almost at your feet. 
 Repeat your cast, and go on casting, moving with each cast, until you 
 have left no portion of the water untried. Your first cast should be into 
 those parts of the water nearest to you, then further out, and lastly, as 
 far to the other side of the water as you can throw. When you have a 
 run, let the fish move ofl" with your bait, giiing time to gorge it, and 
 strike, and act as directed in my remarks on " sinking and roving'' for 
 pike. There is one more fair and sportsman-like mode of capturing pike, 
 viz., with a large artificial fly — a gigantic imitation of the dragon-fly. 
 Mr. Blacker, of Dean-street, Soho, makes it to perfection. It is to be 
 worked through the water like the salmon-fly, and should be used in pools, 
 ponds and lakes, in mild, sombre windy weather. It answers better in 
 Ireland and Scotland than in the waters of England. 
 
 The haunts of pike are the deep, still pools of rivers, bordered with 
 willow trees, and having beds of bulrushes, flags, water -Hlies, and other 
 aquatic plants. In flne weather they lie just outside these beds, or a 
 little within them, so the bait should be worked close by. In winter, 
 they lie on these rotten plants, and in sheltered deeps. Nearly all the 
 large lakes in Ireland abound with pike, as do the rivers that have their 
 sources in bogs. Many of the lochs of Scotland teem with them, and 
 they are plentiful in the meres of Norfolli and Suffolk. They are never 
 absent from the sluggish rivers that run through our flat counties, such 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEB. 147 
 
 as Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Nottinghamshire. 
 They do not fancy rapid rivers, and happily are ahsent from those 
 mountainous streams, the habitats of the salmon and trout. There are 
 many good pike-pools in the Thames, all the way up from Hampton to 
 Sonning, but the best pike-water near London is the Tring reservoir, in 
 Buckinghamshire. — Ed .] 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CARP ; WITH DIRECTIONS HOW TO 
 FISH FOR HIM. 
 
 [JFourtf) Bat).] 
 
 Pisc. The Carp is the queen of rivers ; a stately, a good, 
 and a very subtle fish ; that was not at first bred, nor hath 
 been long in England, but is now naturalised. It is said, 
 they were brought hither by one Mr. Mascal, a gentleman 
 that then lived at Plumsted, in Sussex, a county that abounds 
 more with fish than any in this nation. 
 
 You may remember that I told you Gesner says there are 
 no pikes in Spain : and doubtless there was a time, about a 
 hundred or a few more years ago, when there were no carps 
 in England, as may seem to be affirmed by Sir Kichard Baker, 
 in whose " Chronicle" you may find these verses : 
 
 Hops and turkeys, carps and beer, 
 Came into England all in a year. 
 
 And doubtless, as of sea-fish the herring dies soonest out 
 of the w^ter, and of fresh-water fish, the trout, so, except the 
 eel, the carp endures most hardness, and lives longest out of 
 his own proper element. And, therefore, the report of the 
 carp's being brought out of a foreign country into this nation 
 is the more probable. 
 
 Carps and loaches are observed to breed several months in 
 one year, which pikes and most other fish do not. And this 
 is partly proved by tame and wild rabbits ; and also by some 
 ducks, which will lay eggs nine of the twelve months ; and 
 yet there be other ducks that lay npt longer than about one 
 month. And it is the rather to be believed, because you 
 shall scarce or never take a male carp without a melt, and a 
 female without a roe or spawn, and for the most part, very 
 
 k2 
 
148 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 muchj and especially all the summer season. And it is 
 observed that they breed more naturally in ponds than in 
 running waters, if they breed there at all ; and that those 
 ''that live in rivers are taken by men of the best palates to be 
 much the better meat. 
 
 And it is observed, that in some ponds carps will not breed, 
 especially in cold ponds; but where they will breed they breed 
 innumerably : Aristotle and Pliny say six times in a year, if 
 there be no pikes or pearch to devour their spawn, when it is 
 cast upon grass, or flags, or weeds, where it lies ten or twelve 
 days before it be enlivened. 
 
 The carp, if he have water room and good feed, will grow 
 to a very great bigness and length ; I liave heard, to be 
 much above a yard long.'^ It is said by Jovius, who hath 
 writ of fishes, that in the lake Lurian in Italy, carps have 
 thriven to be more than fifty pounds weight ; which is the 
 more probable, for as the bear is conceived and born sud- 
 denly, and being born, is but short-lived, so, on the contrary, 
 the elephant is said to be two years in his dam's belly, some 
 think he is ten years in it, and being born, grows in bigness 
 twenty years ; and it is observed, too, that he lives to the age 
 of a hundred years. And it is also observed that the cro- 
 codile is very long-lived, and more than that, that all that 
 long life he thrives in bigness; and so I think some carps do, 
 especially in some places ; though I never saw one above 
 twenty-three inches, wliich was a great and a goodly fish ; 
 but have been assured there are of a far greater size, and in 
 Enojland too.t 
 
 Now, as the increase of carps is wonderful for their num- 
 ber, so there is not a reason found out, I think, by any, why 
 they should breed in some ponds, and not in others of the 
 same nature for soil and all other circumstances. And as 
 their breeding, so are their decays also very mysterious : I 
 have both read it, and been told by a gentleman of tried 
 honesty, that he has known sixty or more large carps put 
 into several ponds near to a house, where, by reason of the 
 stakes in the ponds, and the owner's constant being near to 
 
 * The v.-idovv of the late Mr. David Garrick, of Druiy-lane Theatre, once told 
 me, that in her native country, Germany, she had seen the head of a carx3 
 served up at table, big enough to fill a large dish. — H. 
 
 t The author of the " Angler's Sure Guide" says, tliat he has taken carp 
 above twenty-six inches long in rivers ; and adds, that they are often seen in 
 England above thirty inches long. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 149 
 
 them, it v/as impossible they should be stole away from him ; 
 and that when he has, after three or four years, emptied the 
 pond, and expected an increase from them by breeding young 
 ones (for that they might do so, he had, as the rule is, put in 
 three melters for one spawner), he has, I say, after three or 
 four years, found neither a young nor old carp remaining. 
 And the like I have known of one that had almost watched 
 the pond, and at a like distance of time, at the fishing of the 
 pond, found, of seventy or eighty large carps, not above five 
 or six ; and that he had forborne longer to fish the said pond, 
 but that he saw, in a hot day in summer, a large carp swim 
 near the top of the water with a frog upon his head ; and 
 that he, upon that occasion, caused his pond to be let dry : 
 and I say, of seventy or eighty carps, only found five or six in 
 the said pond, and those very sick and lean, and with every 
 one a frog sticking so" fast on the head of the said carps, that 
 the frog would not be got off without extreme force or 
 killing. And the gentleman that did affirm this to me, told 
 me he saw it ; and did declare his belief to be, and I also 
 believe the same, that he thought the other carps, that were 
 so strangely lost, were so killed by the frogs, and then 
 devoured. 
 
 And a person of honour, now living in Worcestershire, 
 assured me he had seen a necklace or collar of tadpoles, hang 
 like a chain or necklace of beads about a pike's neck, and to 
 kill him ; whether it be for meat or malice must be to me a 
 question. 
 
 But I am fallen into this discourse by accident, of which I 
 might say more, but it has proved longer tlian I intended, and 
 possibly may not to you be considerable : I shall therefore 
 give you three or four more short observations of the carp, 
 and then fall upon some directions how you shall fish for him. 
 
 The age of carps is by Sir Francis Bacon, in his *' History 
 of Life and Death," observed to be but ten years ; yet others 
 think they live longer. Gesner says, a carp has been known 
 to live in the Palatinate above a hundred years :" but most 
 conclude that, contrary to the pike or luce, all carps are the 
 better for age and bigness. The tongues of carps are noted 
 
 » Lately, viz., in one of the daily papers for the mouth of August, 1782, an 
 article appeared, purporting that in the bason at Emanuel College, Cambridge, 
 a carp was then living that had been in that water thirty-six years ; whicii, 
 though it had lost one eye, knew, and would constantly approach, its feeder. 
 — H. 
 
150 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 to be choice and costly meat, especially to tliem that buy 
 them : but Gesner says, carps have no tongue like other fish, 
 but a piece of flesh-like fish in their mouth like to a tongue, 
 and should be called a palate : but it is certain it is choicely 
 good ; and that the carp is to be reckoned amongst those 
 leather-mouthed fish, which I told you have their teeth in 
 their throat, and for that reason he is very seldom lost by 
 breaking his hold, if your hook be once stuck into his chaps. 
 
 I told you that Sir Francis Bacon thinks that the carp lives 
 but ten years : but Janus Dubravius has writ a book, " Of 
 Fish and Fish-ponds," in which he says, that carps begin to 
 spawn at the age of three years, and continue to do so till 
 thirty : he says also, that in the time of their breeding, which 
 is in summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and 
 water, and so apted them also for generation, that then three 
 or four male carps will follow a female : and that then, she 
 putting on a seeming coyness, they force her through weeds 
 and flags, where she lets fall her eggs or spawn, which sticks 
 fast to the weeds ; and then they let fall their melt upon it, 
 and so it becomes in a short time to be a living fish : and, as 
 I told you, it is thought that the carp does this several 
 months in the year. And most believe that most fish breed 
 after this manner, except the eel. And it has been observed, 
 that when the spawn er has weakened herself by doing that 
 natural office, that two or three melters have helped her from 
 off the weeds, by bearing her up on both sides, and guarding 
 her into the deep. And you may note, that though this 
 may seem a curiosity not worth observing, yet others have 
 judged it worth their time and cost to make glass hives, and 
 order them in such a manner as to see how bees have bred 
 and made their honeycombs, and how they have obeyed their 
 king, and governed their commonwealth. But it is thought 
 that all carps are not bred by generation; but that some 
 breed other ways, as some pikes do. 
 
 The physicians make the galls and stones in the heads of 
 carps to be very medicinable. But it is not to be doubted 
 but that in Italy they make great profit of the spawn of carps 
 by selling it to the Jews, who make it into red caviare ; the 
 Jews not being by their law admitted to eat of caviare made 
 of the sturgeon, that being a fish that wants scales — and, as 
 may appear in Lev. xi. 10, — ^by them reputed to be un- 
 clean. 
 
 Much more might be said out of him, and out of Aristotle, 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 151 
 
 whicli Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse of Fishes ; 
 but it might rather perplex than satisfy you : and therefore I 
 shall rather choose to direct you how to catch, than spend 
 more time in discoursing either of the nature or the breeding 
 of this Carp, or of any more circumstances concerning him ; but 
 
 __^S-o5i^'*-* 
 
 yet I shall remember you of what I told you before, that he 
 is a very subtle fish, and hard to be caught. 
 
 And my first direction is, that if you will fish for a carp, 
 you must put on a very large measure of patience ; especially 
 to fish for a river-carp ; I have known a very good fisher angle 
 diligently four or six hours in a day, for three or four days 
 together, for a river carp, and not have a bite. And you are 
 to note, that in some ponds it is as hard to catch a carp as in 
 a river ; that is to say, where they have store of feed, and the 
 water is of a clayish colour ; but you are to remember I have 
 told you there is no rule without an exception ; and therefore 
 being possessed with that hope and patience which I wish to 
 all fishers, especially to the carp- angler, I shall tell you with 
 what bait to fish for him. But first, you are to know that it | 
 must be either early or late ; and let me tell you, that in hot I 
 weather, for he will seldom bite in cold, you cannot be too 
 early or too late at it. And some have been so curious as to 
 say, the tenth of April is a fatal day for carps. 
 
 The carp bites either at worms or at paste ; and of worms 
 I think the bluish marsh or meadow worm is best; but 
 possibly another worm not too big may do as well, and so 
 may a green gentle ; and as for pastes, there are almost a 
 many sorts as there are medicines for the toothache h; bu 
 
152 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 doubtless sweet pastes are best ; I mean pastes made with 
 boney or witb sugar ; which, that you may the better beguile 
 this crafty fish, should be thrown in the pond or place in 
 which you fish for him, some hours, or longer, before you 
 undertake your trial of skill with the angle-rod ; and doubt- 
 less if it be thrown into the water a day or two before, at 
 several times, and in small pellets, you are the likelier, when 
 you fish for the carp, to obtain your desired sport. Or, in a 
 large pond, to draw them to a certain place, that they may 
 the better and with more hope be fished for, you are to throw 
 into it, in some certain place, either grains or blood mixed 
 with cow-dung, or with bran ; or any garbage, as chickens' 
 guts or the like ; and then some of your small sweet pellets 
 with which you purpose to angle : and these small pellets 
 being a few of them also thrown in as you are angling, will be 
 the better. 
 
 And your paste must be thus made : take the fiesh of a 
 rabbit or cat cut small ; and bean flour ; and if that may not 
 be easily got, get other flour ; and then mix these together, 
 and put to them either sugar, or honey (which I think better) : 
 and then beat these together in a mortar, or sometimes work 
 them in your hands, your hands being very clean ; and then 
 make it into a ball, or two, or three, as you like best, for your 
 use ; but you must work or pound it so long in the mortar, 
 as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook, without 
 washing from it, yet not too hard : or, that you may the 
 better keep it on your hook, you may knead with your paste 
 a little, and not much, white or yellowish wool. 
 
 And if you would have this paste keep all the year, for any 
 other fish, then mix with it virgin wax, and clarified honey, 
 and work them together with your hands before the fire ; 
 then make these into balls, and they will keep all the year. 
 
 And if you fish for a carp with gentles, then put upon your 
 hook a little piece of scarlet about this bigness D , it being- 
 soaked in or anointed with oil of peter, 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 it better than an/ that 1 have ever 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 153 
 
 practised or heard of; and yet I shall tell you, that the 
 crumb of white bread and honey, made into a paste, is a good 
 bait for a carp ; and jou know it is more easily made. And 
 having said thus much of a carp,'^ 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 savory, bind them into two 
 or three small bundles, and put them to your carp, with four 
 or five whole onions, tv/enty pickled oysters, and three 
 anchovies. Then pour upon your carp as much claret wine 
 as will only cover him, and season your claret well with salt, 
 cloves, and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons : that 
 done, cover your pot, and set it on a quick fire, till it be suffi- 
 ciently boiled ; then take out the carp, and lay it with the 
 broth into the dish, and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of 
 the best fresh butter, melted and beaten with half a dozen 
 spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and 
 some of the herbs shred ; garnish your disli with lemons, and 
 so serve it up, and much good do you. — Dr. T. 
 
 * The haunts of river carp are, in the winter months, the broadest and most 
 quiet parts of the river; but in summer they lie in deep lioles, 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, etc. Fond 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 v»'orms, 
 grasshoppers (though not at top,) ox brains, the pith of an ox's backbone, green 
 peas, 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 a 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. 
 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 and 
 milk.— H. 
 
154 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 [Remaeks o?t the Caep.— Walton's natural history of the carp is 
 marked by many singular errors, into which, as usual, he was led hy 
 such writers of naturalist romance as Gesner, Bacon, Dubravius, 
 Aristotle, &c. The old Angler's remarks on fishing for carp are very 
 good, and may be followed without much deviation. I shall set his 
 natural history right, and add to his instructions a few more on carp 
 fishing. The Linnsean designation for this fine-looking fish is Cyprinus 
 Carols, Mr. Blaine, in his " Encyclopscdia of Rural Sports/' describes 
 it very accurately thus : — " Yellowish olive carp, with wide dorsal fin, 
 with the third ray serrated behind. It stands at the head of a numerous 
 family, characterised by a small mouth, which is without teeth, their 
 ofiice being supplied by a bony apparatus within the throat, both above 
 and below, which, acting against each other, comminate the food j the 
 gill membrane is three-rayed, and there is one dorsal fin only. The 
 common carp appears to be a native of the lakes, ponds, and some of 
 the large rivers of the southern parts of Europe. The year 1514 is 
 mentioned as the period when Leonard Mascal, a gentleman of Sussex, 
 naturalized the tench amongst us ; and although there is little reason to 
 doubt that this gentleman did actually bring carp with him from the 
 South, or import some, yet there is sufficient evidence from the ' Boke 
 of St. Alban's' (the earliest work on angling extant), published by 
 Wynkyn de Worde, as early as 1496, that the}^ were then known in 
 England. The stately authoress, Juliana Barnes (Berners, or de Berners), 
 calls it a * daynteous fish/ although scarce. This being the case, the old 
 distich (quoted by Walton in the first page of his chapter on the carp), 
 * Of carp, hops,' &c., loses its metre and its point together." I think it is 
 fairly proved that the carp is a fish exceedingly tenacious of life in 
 water and out of it. In damp moss it can be kept many days alive. In 
 its own element it may live to the age of one hundred years, but I do 
 not think it often attains that age ; and I am of opinion that it never 
 exceeds it. Mr. Blaine, however, says, — " The age to which carp attain 
 is very great, and several weU-authenticated instances are adduced of 
 its considerably exceeding a century, at least. Many of those which 
 were introduced into the ponds at Versailles, etc., in the reign of Louis 
 the Fourteenth (say 1690), are either still living, or at least were so a 
 very short time before the French Revolution (of 1830). Dr. Smith, in 
 his ' Tour to the Continent,' mentions them, and observes that they were 
 grown white through age. Buifon assures us that he had seen, in the 
 fosses of the Ponchartrain, carp which w^ere known to be of the age of 
 one hundred and fifty years." Carp in our rivers very rarely reach the 
 weight of six pounds, and as seldom twelve pounds in ora* ponds. I have 
 frequently seen at Mr. Grove's shop, in New Bond-street, carp of the 
 weight of twenty pounds ; and I think I once saw one that weighed 
 twenty-eight pounds. But they were all Dutch fish. Mr. Blaine 
 remarks, " The usual length of the carp in our country is from about 
 twelve to fifteen or sixteen inches ; but we have seen them here much 
 longer, weighing twenty pounds. In warmer climates, they grow to 
 twenty, thirty, or forty pounds." Walton says, the carp breeds several 
 times in the year. I do not think so. Blaine sensibly explains the 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 155 
 
 cause of the errors of those writers who assert that carp spawn half-a- 
 dozen thnes during the warm months of the year. He says, — " The 
 reproduction of carp has occasioned some dispute in later times : to our 
 surprise, Mr. Daniel {' Rural Sports') says, ' they spawn several times in 
 the year.' If at each time six hundred and twenty-one thousand are 
 produced, which is the numher of ova stated to have been counted in 
 one roe, what then would be the annual produce ?" Aristotle and Pliny, 
 deahng in fable also, after the custom of their times, assert that they breed 
 six times in the year, and the over-credulous Walton, influenced by their 
 testimony, says, " carp and loaches are observed to breed several months 
 in one year, which pikes and most other fish do not. And this is the 
 rather to be beheved, because you shall scarce, or never take a male carp 
 without a m.elt, or a female without a roe, or spawn, and for the most 
 part very much. We think it not improbable [It is not only probable, 
 but the fact] that carp do not deposit the whole of their spawn at once ; 
 and, indeed, from some observations made by ourselves on a pond stored 
 with carp only (where we could every day by a casting-net take as many 
 as we pleased, and after subjecting them to examination, we could return 
 them without injury), we have been led to suppose that these fish do not 
 complete the spawning process at one time : on the contrary, we think 
 it not improbable that they eject portions of ova only, at several distinct 
 periods, and that some weeks even intervene between the first and last 
 ejections."' I assure the reader, that none of our river fish deposit their 
 ova at a single sitting, no more than hens or other female birds do. The 
 ova are not all mature at the same time. Those near the vent are the 
 first matured and expelled. Examine the roe of any female fish, and you 
 will find the ova of the lower part larger than those of the upper ; more 
 particularly so a short period before spawning time. The larger the 
 collection of ova, the longer they require for ripening, and consequently, 
 the longer the process of deposition lasts. A grilse or young salmon, in 
 its second year, will deposit its ova in two or three days, because the 
 quantity is small ; whereas, a large, mature, female salmon, with several 
 pounds of ova, cannot deposit the whole of it in less than a fortnight. 
 
 The carp is the wariest of all fresh-water fish, and none but the 
 wariest angler can catch it of large size. A correspondent not long since 
 wrote to me for advice. He said, he had a pond, in which were many 
 large carp ; and although he had angled for them in due season — from 
 February to October — during seven years, he had not succeeded in cap- 
 turing them. I advised him to hne with hurdles the bank of the pond 
 at the spots where he meant to fish — to ground-bait those spots with 
 red worms, gentles, and especially with sweet paste, for three or four 
 days — to then take his rod, and supporting it on a bifurcated prop (cut 
 off" the branch of a tree,) inserted in the bank behind the hurdles, to place 
 on his line a hook broken off at the bend, that is, without barb or sharp 
 point — to bait this harmless hook with sweet paste, and to sink it nearly 
 to the bottom of the akeady ground-baited water. The carp will soon 
 take this bait ; and finding they can do so with impunity, they will 
 become bolder hourly. Replacing the bait every time it is nibbled ofi; 
 and contmuing to do so for three or four days, commence then angling 
 
156 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 in earnest : with the same rod and line, but v/ith a barbed hook, baited 
 exactly as before, come behind the hurdle, and, with very light float, 
 angle cautiously. My correspondent acted on my advice, and succeeded 
 in catching as many of the large carp as he wanted. This method can- 
 not be conveniently practised in rivers, unless in parts belonging to the 
 angler. In river-fishing, red worms, gentles, graiiis, pastes, green peas, 
 and cherries, are used as baits for carp. The foot-line should be of the 
 best round fine gut, and the hook need not be larger than a Iso. 9. 
 Fish about a foot from the bottom. In fishing with paste, strike quickly 
 but gently ; in fishing with worms or gentles, do not strike until five 
 or six seconds have elapsed after your perception of a bite. Prepared 
 salmon-roe is an excellent bait for carp. 
 
 I shall here give a list of the best angling pastes, and show how they 
 are made. 
 
 Simple paste for dace and roach is made by kneading top^ether, in 
 clean hands, equal quantities of the pith of old and new bread. It must be 
 kneaded until it is perfectly white and tcugh. To render it more adhesive 
 round the hook in rough streams, work up with it a few fibres of raw cotton, 
 
 A coloured paste is made by washing flour in cold water, until the 
 farinaceous particles disappear, and leave behind little more than simple 
 gluten. Colour with vermilion to the hue of sahnon-roe, and preserve 
 it for use in balls immersed in water. When angling with it, keep it in 
 a wet bag. 
 
 Sweet paste is an amalgamation of bread crumb and good white 
 honey. Work it into an adhesive mass. Of this paste both Blaine and 
 Salter say, " that it is a most killing bait for carp during the m.onths of 
 July and August, and indeed as long afterwards as the fishing-season 
 lasts. As regards carp, this bait has a very peculiar claim on those 
 anglers who cannot be at their posts early and late, where the carp-fisher 
 ought to be in most cases : this paste obviates, in some measure, that 
 necessity, as it is one of the few baits which carp will take in favourable 
 weather, even at mid-day. Chub may be taken with it sometimes very 
 well, and roach will seldom r(3fusc it."* 
 
 Prepared greaves is an excellent bait for barbel, and not a bad one 
 for chub. It is prepared by saturating it in warm water, and working 
 and washing it until it becomes tough and nearly white. A good paste 
 may be made by moistening bread-crumb with the liquor in which the 
 greaves have been softened, and then working the crumb into an adhesive 
 mass. An admixture of a little raw cotton will be an improvement. 
 
 Cheese-paste, for chub and barbel, is made by working soft, pale- 
 coloured cheese and stale bread-crumb together. These last two pastes, 
 with bullock's brains and spinal chord, are the best autumn and v/inter 
 baits for barbel and chub. 
 
 Ground-baiting will greatly contribute to the success of the bottom- 
 fisher. When you fish with v/orms, ground-bait overnight with large 
 clay balls, in the interior of which you have placed worms. Do not be 
 sparing of them ; and ever and anon, v/hilst you are fishing, drop in one 
 of these balls over your baited hook. When fishing with gentles, ground- 
 bait with clay balls filled with gentles. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 157 
 
 One cf the best gromid-baits for chub, carp, roach, and dace, in still 
 waters, is made by an admixture, kneaded to tolerable adhesiveness, of 
 wet bread-pith, bran, and oatmeal. Small balls thrown in whilst you 
 are angling for those fish, will attract them to the vicinity of your hook. 
 You must angle with plain or sweet jjaste. 
 
 For rivers in which many sorts of coarse fish — barbel, chub, bream, 
 &c. — abound, the best general ground-bait is made by kneading together 
 bran, meal, and clay, and dividing the mass into balls the size of the fist, 
 and placing inside them — stuffing them as it were with — worms and 
 gentles. They will make their way through the balls after the latter 
 have been thrown into the water, and prove a great attraction to fish. 
 Invariably place on your hooks better baits than those you ground-bait with. 
 
 "Worms should be v.ell scoured, cleansed, and rendered tough and 
 lively, before they are used. To do this, put them in fresh moss, freed 
 from thorns and any hard substances, for a couple of days ; then examine 
 them, and remove all sickly or dead ones. Place the others in a small 
 depth of light pure mould, over which you must put a good portion of 
 clean, fresh, moist moss. Add every third day a little cream or fresh 
 milk, and you will keep the worms alive, healthy, wiry, and lively for 
 several weeks ; examine them occasionally, and eject invalids. 
 
 Gentles are best preserved, in summer, in moist sand ; in winter, in 
 layers of hght mould, placed in a long, narrow wooden trough. The 
 mould should be kept moist, or sunk about a foot beneath the earth. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE BREAM J AND HOW TO CATCH HIM. 
 
 [JFourt]^ ©a^.] 
 
 Pjsc. The Bream, being at a full growth, is a large and 
 stately fish : he v/ill breed both in rivers and ponds ; but 
 loves Best to live in ponds, and where, if he likes the water, 
 and air, he will grow not only to be very large, but as fat as 
 a hog : he is by Gesner taken to be more pleasant or sweet 
 than wholesome : this fish is long in growing, but breeds ex- 
 ceedingly in a water that pleases him ; yea, in many ponds so 
 fast as to overstore them, and starve the other fish. 
 
 He is very broad, with a forked tail, and his scales set in 
 excellent order ; he hath large eyes, and a narrow sucking 
 mouth ; he hath two sets of teeth, and a lozenge-like bone, a 
 bone to help his grinding. The melter is observed to have two 
 large melts; and the female, two large bags of eggs or spawn. 
 
158 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Gesner reports, that in Poland a certain and a great num- 
 ber of large breams were put into a pond, which in the next 
 following winter were frozen up into one entire ice, and not 
 one drop of water remaining, nor one of these fish to be 
 found, though they were diligently searched for ; and yet the 
 next spring, when the ice was thawed, and the weather warm, 
 and fresh water got into the pond, he affirms they all appeared 
 again. This Gesner affirms ; and I quote my author because 
 it seems almost as incredible as the resurrection to an atheist : 
 but it may win something, in point of believing it, to him that 
 considers the breeding or renovation of the silk-worm, and of 
 many insects. And that is considerable, which Sir Francis 
 Bacon observes in his " History of Life and Death," fol. 20, 
 that there be some herbs that die and spring every year, and 
 some endure longer. 
 
 But though some do not, yet the French esteem this fish 
 highly, and to that end have this proverb, " He that hath 
 breams in his pond is able to bid his friend welcome." And 
 it is noted, that the best part of a bream is his belly and 
 head.^ 
 
 Some say that breams and roaches will mix their eggs and 
 melt together, and so there is in many places a bastard breed 
 of breams, that never come to be either large or good, but 
 very numerous. 
 
 * The barbel and chub are bad edibles ; but not so bad as the bream, which 
 I consider the most tasteless of all river-fish. The largest bream are caught in 
 the Oundle and the Ouse, in Huntingdonshire. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 159 
 
 The baits good to catch, this Bream are many. 1. Paste 
 made of brown bread and honey, gentles, or the brood of 
 wasps that be young, and then not unlike gentles, and should 
 be hardened in an oven, or dried on a tile before the fire, to 
 make them tough ; or there is at the root of docks or flags, 
 or rushes in watery places, a worm not unlike a maggot, at 
 which tench will bite freely. Or he will bite at a grass- 
 hopper with his legs nipped off, in June or July, or at several 
 flies under water, which may be found on flags that grow 
 near to the water-side. I doubt not but that there be 
 many other baits that are good ; but I will turn them all 
 into this most excellent one, either for a carp or bream, in 
 any river or mere : it was given to me by a most honest and 
 excellent angler ; and hoping you will prove both, I will im- 
 part it to you. 
 
 1. Let your bait be as big a red v/orm as you can find, 
 without a knot ; get a pint or quart of them in an evening 
 in garden walks, or chalky common, after a shower of rain, 
 and put them with clean moss well washed and picked, and 
 the water squeezed out of the moss as dry as you can, into 
 an earthen pot or pipkin set dry, and change the moss fresh 
 every three or four days, for three weeks or a month together ; 
 then your bait will be at the best, for it will be clear and 
 lively. 
 
 2. Having thus prepared your baits, get your tackling 
 ready and fitted for this sport. Take three long angling rods, 
 and as many and more silk, or silk and hair lines, and as 
 many large swan or goose -quill floats. Then take a piece of 
 lead, and fasten them to the low ends of your lines ; then 
 fasten your link-hook also to the lead, and let there be about 
 a foot or ten inches between the lead and the hook ; but 
 be sure the lead be heavy enough to sink the float or quill a 
 little under the water, and not the quill to bear up the lead, 
 for the lead must lie on the ground. Note, that your link 
 next the hook may be smaller than the rest of your line, if 
 you dare adventure, for fear of taking the pike or pearch, 
 who will assuredly visit your hooks, till they be taken out, 
 as I will show you afterward, before either carp or bream 
 will come near to bite. Note also, that when the worm is 
 well baited, it will crawl up and down as far as the lead will 
 give leave, which much enticeth the fish to bite without 
 suspicion. 
 
 3. Having thus prepared your baits, and fitted your tack- 
 
160 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 ling, repair to the river, where yoii have seen them swim in 
 skulls or shoals, in the summer time, in a hot afternoon, 
 about three or four of the clock, and watch their going forth 
 of their deep holes and returning, which you may well discern, 
 for they return about four of the clock, most of them seeking 
 food at the bottom, yet one or two will lie on the top of the 
 water, rolling and tumbling themselves whilst the rest are 
 under him at the bottom, and so you shall perceive him to 
 keep sentinel ; then mark where he plays most, and stays 
 longest, whicli commonly is in the broadest and deepest place 
 of th.e river, and there, or near thereabouts, at a clear bottom 
 and a convenient landing-place, take one of your angles ready 
 fitted as aforesaid, and sound the bottom, which should be 
 about eight or ten feet deep, two yards from the bank is the 
 best. Then consider with yourself whether that water will 
 rise or fall by the next morning, by reason of any water-mills 
 near, and according to your discretion take the depth of the 
 place, where you mean after to cast your ground bait, and to 
 fish, to half an inch, that the lead lying on near the ground- 
 bait, the top of the float may only appear upright half an incli 
 above the water. 
 
 Thus you having found and fitted for the place and depth 
 thereof, then go home and prepare your ground- bait, which 
 is, next to the fruit of your labours, to be regarded. 
 
 THE GR0U]S'D-BAIT. 
 
 You shall take a peck, or a peck and a half, according to 
 the greatness of the stream and deepness of the water where 
 you mean to angle, of sweet gross-ground barley malt, and 
 boil it in a kettle ; one or two warms is enough, then strain 
 it through a bag into a tub, the liquor whereof hath often done 
 my horse much good, and when the bag and malt is near 
 cold, take it down to the water side about eight or nine of the 
 clock in the evening, and not before ; cast in two parts of 
 your ground-bait, squeezed hard between both your hands; it 
 will sink presently to the bottom, and be sure it may rest in 
 the very place where you mean to angle ; if the stream run 
 hard or move a little, cast your malt in handfuls a little the 
 higher, upwards the stream. You may, between your hands, 
 close the malt so fast in handfuls, that the water will hardly 
 part it with the fall. 
 
 Your ground thus baited and tackling fitted, leave your bag 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 161 
 
 with the rest of your tackling and ground-bait near the 
 sporting-place all night, and in the morning about three 
 or four of the clock, visit the water-side, but not too near, 
 for they have a cunning watchman, and are watchful them- 
 selves too. 
 
 Then gently take one of your three rods, and bait your 
 hook ; casting it over your ground-bait, and gently and 
 secretly draw it to you, till the lead rests about the middle of 
 the ground-bait. 
 
 Then take a second rod, and cast in about a yard above, 
 and your third a yard below the first rod ; and stay the rods 
 in the ground : but go yourself so far from the water-side, 
 that you perceive nothing but the top of the floats, which 
 you must watch most diligently. Then when you have a 
 bite, you shall perceive the top of your float to sink suddenly 
 into the water: yet, nevertheless, be not too liasty to run to 
 your rods, until you see that the line goes clear away, then 
 creep to the water-side, and give as much line as you possibly 
 can : if it be a good carp or bream, they will go to tlie farther 
 side of the river : then strike gently, and hold your rod at a 
 bent, a little while ; but if you both pull together, you are 
 sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold 
 will break : and after you have overcome them, they will 
 make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The 
 carp is far stronger and more mettlesome than the bream. 
 
 Much more is to be observed in this kind of fish and 
 fishing, but it is far better for experience and discourse than 
 paper. Only, thus much is necessary for you to know, and to 
 be mindful and careful of, that if the pike or pearch do breed 
 in that river, they will be sure to bite first, and must first be 
 taken. And for the most part they are very large ; and will 
 repair to your ground-bait, not that they will eat of it, but 
 will feed and sport themselves among the young fry that 
 gather about and hover over the bait. 
 
 The way to discern the pike and to take him, if you mis- 
 trust your bream-hook, — for I have taken a pike a yard long 
 several times at my bream-hooks, and sometimes he hath had 
 the luck to share my line, — may be thus : 
 
 Take a small bleak, or roach, or gudgeon, and bait it, and 
 set it alive among your rods, two feet deep from the cork, 
 with a little red worm on the point of the hook ; then take 
 a, few crumbs of white bread, or some of the ground-bait, and 
 sprinkle it gently amongst your rods. If Mr. Pike be there, 
 
 L 
 
162 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 jbhen the little fisli will. skip out of the water at his appear- 
 ance, but the live-set bait is sure to be taken. 
 
 Thus continue your sport from four in the morning till 
 eight, and if it be a gloomy windy day, they will bite all day 
 long. But this is too long to stand to your rods at one place, 
 and it will spoil your evening sport that day, which is this : 
 
 About four of the clock in the afternoon, repair to your 
 baited place ; and as soon as you come to the water-side, cast 
 in one half of the rest of your ground-bait, and stand off : 
 then whilst the fish are gathering together, for there they will 
 most certainly come for their supper, you may take a pipe of 
 tobacco ; and then in with your three rods, as in the morning : 
 you will find excellent sport that evening, till eight of the 
 clock ; then cast in the residue of your ground-bait, and next 
 morning by four of the clock visit them again for fonr hours, 
 which is the best sport of all ; and after that, let them rest 
 till you and your friends have a mind to more sport. 
 
 From St. James's-tide until Bartholomew-tide is the best ; 
 when they have had all the summer's food, they are the fattest. 
 
 Observe lastly, that after three or four days' fishing together 
 your game will be very shy and wary, and you shall hardly 
 get above a bite or two at a baiting ; then your only way is 
 to desist from your sport about two or three days ; and in 
 the meantime, on the place you late baited, and again intend 
 to bait, you shall take a tuft of green but short grass, as big 
 or bigger than a round trencher ; to the top of this turf, on 
 the green side, you shall with a needle and green thread, 
 fasten one by one as many little red worms as will near 
 cover all the turf ; then take a round board or trencher, 
 make a hole in the middle thereof, and through the turf, 
 placed on the board or trencher, with a string or cord 
 as long as is fitting, tied to a pole, let it down to the bottom 
 of the water, for the fish to feed upon without disturbance 
 about two or three days ; and after that you have drawn it 
 away, you may fall to and enjoy your former recrea- 
 tion.'^ — B.A. 
 
 * The haunts of the bream, a fish which tlie angler seldom meets with, are 
 the deepest and broadest parts of gentle, soft streams, with sandy, clayey- 
 bottoms : and the broadest and most quiet places of ponds, and where there 
 are weeds. They spawn about the beginning of July ; a little before which 
 time they are best in season, though some think them best in September. The 
 baits for the bream are red w^orms, small lob or marsh worms, gentles, ancl 
 grasshoppers. In general they are to be fished for as carp. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 163 
 
 [A Few Remaeks on the Biieam. — Walton has written more sen- 
 sibly as a naturalist, and more artistically as an artist, on the bream, 
 than on any other fish hitherto treated of by him. He seems to have a 
 liking for this worthless fish ; thinks it not only handsome, but courageous 
 and well-flavoured. It is neither ; and very few modern anglers prize 
 it either as an edible, or as a fish affording much sport. It is called by 
 naturalists Cifprinus Brama. It is remarkable for the smallness of its 
 dorsal fin, and the largeness of its anal one — there being no fewer than 
 twenty-seven rays in the latter. Its tail is exceedingly forked, and it 
 has a forked, rather large fin between the dorsal fin and tail. It is 
 exceedingly hog-backed, and very deep and thin in the body. It has a 
 very small head, and very prominent eyes. It affects deep, still waters, 
 with soft half muddy, half clayey bottoms. It is in good season in 
 spring, and worms then are the best baits for it. Daniel points out two 
 good modes of fishing with them. The first is, " after plumbing the 
 depth, put one or more shot a foot below the float, to balance it, which 
 is a way to take the shyest fish ; the bait a large red worm, which must 
 be laid in, and let sink very gradually to the ground-bait. When the 
 fish bites, strike gently that very instant."*^ 1'he second method is, 
 employing " the running line, with a bullet and hole through it, and a 
 small shot to hinder the bullet falling on the hook ; let this run on the 
 bottom with the current into holes, and equally as for bream it wiU be 
 found to answer for all other fish that bite at the bottom." The last 
 species of tackle corresponds with the modern ledger-line, of which I 
 shall have to speak fully when I come to Chap. XIV., which treats of 
 the barbel. An extract from Blaine, accompanied by an original sentence 
 or two, will complete the measure of information required to enable any 
 one to angle successfully for the bream. That elaborate and able 
 sporting writer says, " Bream will likewise take caddis-bobs and grubs, 
 and all other usual larv£e. In the large rivers of the midland counties, 
 as well as in the great pieces of water called broads, meres, fleets, &c., 
 the salmon-roe is an excellent summer bait, and will be seldom refused 
 by bream : they will likewise take natural flies; as the house-fly, flesh-fly, 
 stone -fly, during the day ; and in the evening they seldom refuse the 
 various moths. In dipping with these baits, the utmost possible caution 
 must be observed by the angler to keep himself concealed; for the 
 moment bream discover any one near, they sink to the bottom imme- 
 diately ; though, as they very soon appear again, the mischief may 
 
 usually be repaired The bream is not always a quick biter, 
 
 and when it is, its small mouth sometimes produces a kind of suction, 
 particularly if the bait be a full-sized one: it is, therefore, necessary to 
 strike with some caution, and the proper degree of it will be taught by 
 a few successful, and a few unsuccessful bites." I have frequently 
 caught bream with the artificial fly. They will take brown palmers, 
 the fly called ** the governor," and in the evening yellow and white artificial 
 moths. — Ed.] 
 
 L li 
 
164 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TENCH ; AND ADYICE HOW TO ANGLE 
 FOR' HIM. 
 
 [Jpourt]^ Bag.] 
 
 Pisc. The Tench, the physician of fishes, is observed to 
 love ponds better than rivers, and to love pits better than 
 either : yet Camden observes, there is a river in Dorsetshire 
 that abounds with tenches, but doubtless they retire to the 
 most deep and quiet places in it. 
 
 This fish hath very large fins, very small and smooth 
 scales, a red circle about his eyes, which are big and of a gold 
 colour, and from either angle of his mouth there hangs down 
 a little barb. In every tench's head there are two little 
 stones which foreign physicians make great use of, but he is 
 not commended for wholesome meat, though there be very 
 much use made of them for outward applications. Rondeletius 
 says, that at his being at Home, he saw a great cure done by 
 applying a tench to the feet of a very sick man. This, he 
 says, was done after an unusual manner, by certain Jews. 
 And it is observed, that many of those people have many 
 secrets yet unknown to Christians ; secrets that have never 
 yet been written, but have been (since the days of their 
 Solomon, who knew the nature of ail things, even from the 
 cedar to the shrub) delivered by tradition, from the father 
 to the son, and so from generation to generation, without 
 writing ; or (unless it were casually), without the least com- 
 municating them to any other nation or tribe ; for to do 
 that they account a profanation. And yet it is thought 
 that they, or some spirit worse than they, first told us 
 I that lice swallowed alive, were a certain cure for the yellow- 
 jaundice. This, and many other medicines, were discovered 
 by them, or by revelation ; for, doubtless, we attained them 
 not by study. 
 
 Well, this fish, besides his eating, is very useful both dead 
 
 and alive for the good of mankind. But I will meddle no 
 
 more with that ; my honest humble art teaches no such 
 
 ■ boldness ; there are too many foolish meddlers in physic and 
 
 I divinity, that think themselves fit to meddle with hidden 
 
 I secrets, and so bring destruction to their followers. But I'll 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 165 
 
 not meddle with them, any farther than to wish them wiser ; 
 and shall tell you next, for I hope I may be so bold, that^ 
 the tench is the physician of fishes, for the pike especially ; 
 and that the pike, being either sick or hurt, is cured by the 
 touch of the Tench. And it is observed, that the tyrant 
 pike will not be a wolf to his physician, but forbears to 
 devour him though he be never so hungry. 
 
 This fish, that carries a natural balsam in him to cure 
 
 -^^^u./' -s:;^. 
 
 
 K~^''v^> --^Cv 
 
 .•"- — ^ 
 
 
 
 -— - 
 
 
 
 
 
 V^i^--' 
 
 himself and others, loves yet to feed in very foul water, and 
 amongst weeds. And yet I am sure he eats pleasantly, and 
 doubtless, you will think so too, if you taste him. And I 
 shall therefore proceed to give you some few, and but a few, 
 directions how to catch this Tench, of which I have given 
 you these observations. 
 
 He will bite a paste made of brown bread and honey, or at 
 a marsh- worm, or a lob-worm ; he inclines very much to any 
 paste with which tar is mixed : and he will bite also at a 
 smaller worm, with his head nipped off, and a cod-worm put 
 on the hook before that worm ; and I doubt not but that he 
 will also in the three hot months, — for in the nine colder he 
 stirs not much, — bite at a flag worm, or at a green gentle ; 
 but I can positively say no more of the tench,* he being a 
 
 » The haunts of the tench are nearly the same with those of the carp. They 
 delight more in ponds than in rivers; and lie imder weeds, near sluices, and 
 at pond-heads. They spawn about the beginning of July ; and are best in 
 season from the beginning of September to the end of 3Iay. They ?will bite 
 all the hot months ; but are taken best in April and May. There are no 
 better baits for this fish than a middle-sized lob-worm, or red-worm, well 
 scoured ; a gentle ; a young wasp grub, boiled ; or a green worm shook from 
 
166 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 fish I .have not often angled for ; but I wish my honest scholar 
 maj, and be ever fortunate when he fishes. 
 
 [Obseevations 025" THE Tench. — Walton thinks unfavourably of this 
 iish as a table delicacy. It makes, however, a far better dish than either 
 chub, bream or barbel. Its medicinal properties I do not believe in, 
 and I am convinced that application of its slimy exterior to either fish 
 or flesh wounds will not heal them. If the voracious pike spares it, and 
 I very much doubt whether he does, 'tis not out of gratitude for cures 
 performed. Some instinct not to be accounted for prevents the pike 
 from making of the tench a favourite prey. It is a pond-fish, and 
 thrives best in water with muddy and weedy bottoms. It spawns in May 
 and June, amongst the roots and subaqueous stems of plants, and is very 
 soon in condition. Linnaeus names it Cyprinus Tineas and Dr. Fleming 
 describes this " mucous bluish olive carp " as having " the back, dorsal, 
 and ventral fins, dusky; the head, sides, and belly, yellowish green; 
 body thick in proportion to its length ; a minute beard on each side of 
 the mouth; gape ascending; dorsal fin, eleven rays; pectoral, seventeen; 
 ventral, nine ; and anal, ten rays. The tail of the tench is not forked, 
 but squared. It grows to a large size, frequently to eight or nine 
 pounds, particularly in the sluggish rivers and i)onds of Holland and 
 Germany. The best baits for tench are middle-sized red worms, 
 brandlings, flag, and marsh worms. I should never fish for them with 
 any kind of paste. They will take gentles, caddies, wasp-grubs, and 
 caterpillars. Yon must fish for them quite close to the bottom. They 
 bite best after gentle warm rains, and in summer while the rain is 
 actually falling. At this season, they are found among weed-beds, and 
 by the sides of them. Captain Williamson, in his " Vade-Mecum," very 
 properly remarks, " Tench do not swallow a bait very quickly, some- 
 times holding it in their mouths for a while ; therefore give them good 
 time, and let them either keep the float down, or, as is often the case, 
 let them rise with the bait, so as to lay your float on the water. Tliis is 
 an excellent sign, and warrants your striking, but rather gently, lest the 
 fish be only sucking the bait, for he will seldom return after it is drawn 
 from his mouth. Your tench-rod should be strong, winch-line stout, 
 and foot-line of the best, round, but fine gut. Use number eight and 
 nine hooks ; in deep running waters smallish cork floats, but in still 
 deeps and ponds quill floats. If the bottom of the water be muddy, fish 
 an inch or two from it ; if it be sandy or gravelly, let your bait touch 
 it.— Ed.] 
 
 the boughs of trees. Use a strong grass, or gut ; and a goose-qHill float with- 
 out a cork, except in rivers, where the cork is always to be preferred. Fish 
 very near the ground. And if you bait with gentles, throw in a few at the 
 taking every fish, which will dra\)r them to your hook, and keep them together. 
 — H. 
 
167 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE PEARCH ; AND DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH 
 FOR HIM. 
 
 [jFottrt!; War).] 
 
 Pisc. The Pearch is a very good and a very bold biting 
 fish. He is one of the fishes of prey that, like the pike and 
 trout, carries his teeth in his mouth, which is very large ; 
 and he dare venture to kill and devour several other kinds 
 of fish. He has a hooked or hog back, which is armed with 
 sharp and stiff bristles, and all his skin armed or covered 
 over with thick dry hard scales, and hath, which few other 
 fish have, two fins on his back. He is so bold that he will 
 invade one of his own kind, which the pike will not do wil- 
 lingly, and you may therefore easily believe him to be a 
 bold biter. 
 
 The pearch is of great esteem in Italy, saith Aldrovandus, 
 and especially the least are there esteemed a dainty dish. 
 And Gesner prefers the pearch and pike above the trout, or 
 any fresh- water fish : he says the Germans have this proverb, 
 " More wholesome than a pearch of Phine ;" and he says 
 the river pearch is so wholesome that physicians allow him 
 to be eaten by wounded men, or by men in fevers, or by 
 women in childbed. 
 
 He spawns but once a year, and is, by physicians, held 
 very nutritive ; yet, by many, to be hard of digestion. They 
 abound more in the river Po, and in England, says Ponde- 
 letius, than other parts, and have in their brain a stone which 
 is in foreign parts sold by apothecaries, being there noted to 
 be very medicinabie against the stone in the reins. These 
 be a part of tlie commendations which some jDhilosophical 
 brains have bestowed upon the fresh-water pearch ; yet they 
 commend the sea-pearch, which is known by having but one 
 fin on his back, — of which, they say, we English see but a 
 few, — to be a much better fish. 
 
 The pearch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been 
 credibly informed, to be almost two feet long ; for an honest 
 informer told me such a one was not long since taken by 
 Sir Abraham Williams, a gentleman of worth, and a brother 
 
168 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 of the angle, that yet lives, and I wish he may : this was a 
 deep bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured a pike 
 of lialf his own length ; for I have told you he is a bold fish, 
 such a one as, but for extreme hunger, the pike will not 
 devour ; for to affright the pike, and save himself, the pearch 
 will set up his fins, much like as a turkey-cock will some- 
 times set up his tail. 
 
 But, my scholar, the pearch is not only valiant to defend 
 himself, but he is, as I said, a bold-biting fish, yet he will 
 not bite at all seasons of the year ; he is very abstemious in 
 winter, yet will bite then in the midst of the day, if it be 
 warm : and note, that all fish bite best about the midst of a 
 warm day in winter, and he hath been observed by some not 
 usually to bite till the mulberry-tree buds, that is to say, till 
 extreme frosts be past the spring, for when the mulberry-tree 
 blossoms many gardeners observe their forward fruit to be 
 past the danger of frosts, and some have made the like 
 observation on the pearch' s biting. 
 
 But bite the pearch will, and that very boldly : and as one 
 has wittily observed, if there be twenty or forty in a hole, 
 they may be at one standing all catched one after another, 
 they being, as he says, like the wicked of the world, not 
 afraid, though their fellows and companions perish in their 
 sight. And you may observe, that they are not like the 
 solitary pike, but love to accompany one another, and march 
 together in troops. 
 
 And the baits for this bold fish are not many : I mean, he 
 will bite as well at some or at any of these three, as at any 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 169 
 
 or all others whatsoever, a worm, a minnow, or a little frog, 
 of which you may find many in hay-time ; and of worms, the 
 dunghill-worm, called a brandling, I take to be best, being 
 well scoured in moss or fennel ; or he will bite at a worm 
 that lies under cow-dung, with a bluish head. And if you 
 rove for a pearch with a minnow, then it is best to be alive, 
 you sticking your hook through his back fin, or a minnow 
 with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up 
 and down about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still 
 keeping him to about that depth by a cork, which ought not 
 to be a very little one ; and the like way you are to fish for 
 the pearch, with a small frog, your hook being fastened 
 through the skin of his leg, towards the upper part of it ; 
 and lastly, I will give you but this advice, that you give the 
 pearch time enough when he bites, for there was scarce ever 
 any angler that has given him too much. And now I think 
 best to rest myself, for I have almost spent my spirits with 
 talkino: so Ion 2:. 
 
 Yen. Nay, good master, one fish more, for you see it 
 rains still, and you know our angles are like money put to 
 usury, they may thrive, though we sit still, and do nothing 
 but talk and enjoy one another. Come, come, the other fish, 
 good master. 
 
 Pisc. But scholar, have you nothing to mix with this 
 discourse, which now grows both tedious and tiresome 1 Shall 
 I have nothing from you, that seem to have both a good 
 memory, and a cheerful spirit 1 
 
 Yen. Yes, master, I will speak you a copy of verses that 
 were made by Doctor Donne, and made to show the world 
 that he could make sol^ and smooth verses when he thought 
 smoothness worth his labour ; and I love them the better 
 because they allude to rivers, and fish and fishing. They 
 be these : — 
 
 Come Uve with me, and be my love, 
 
 And we will some new pleasures prove, 
 
 Of golden sands and crystal brocks, 
 
 With silken lines and silver hooks. 
 
 There will the river whisp'ring run, 
 Warm'd by thy eyes more than the sun ; 
 And there th' enamell'd fish will stay, 
 Begging themselves they may betray. 
 
 "When thou wilt swim in that live batl;, 
 Each fish, which every channel hath. 
 Most amorously to thee will swim. 
 Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. 
 
170 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 If tlioii to be so seen be'st loath, 
 By sun or moon, thou darkenest both ; 
 And if mine eyes have leave to see, 
 I need not their light, having thee. 
 
 Let others freeze with anglicg-reeds. 
 And cut their legs with shells and weeds, 
 Or treacherously poor fish beset, 
 With strangling snares, or windowy net : 
 
 Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest, 
 The bedded fish in banks outwrest ; 
 Let curious traitors sleave silk flies. 
 To witch poor wandering fishes' eyes : 
 
 * For thee thou need'st no such deceit. 
 For thou thyself art thine own bait : 
 That fish that is not catch'd thereby 
 Is wiser far, alas ! than I. 
 
 Pisc. Well remembered, honest scholar ; I tliank you for 
 these choice verses, which I have heard formerly, but had 
 quite forgot, till they were recovered by your happy memory. 
 Well, being I have now rested myself a little, I will make 
 you some requital, by telling you some observations of the 
 eel, for it rains still, and because, as you say, our angles are 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 171 
 
 as money put to use, that thrives when we play, therefore ., 
 
 we'll sit still and enjoy ourselves a little longer under this ^i 
 honeysuckle hedge. ■^' 
 
 [A FEW WOEDS ABOUT THE Peech. — The good old father of us all — 
 Izaak of venerated memory — hath well and truly written in the pre- 
 ceding chapter of the perch. 1 wish he had left out the fourth 
 paragraph ahout Sir Abraham Williams' perch, " almost two foot long." 
 No perch ever attained that length in this country, and there is not one 
 angler in five thousand that ever saw an English perch twelve inches 
 long. Pennant speaks of one weighing nine pound caught in the 
 Serpentine; and in an obscure angling book, mention is made of one 
 caught near Oxford, of the alleged length of twenty-nine inches. Such 
 giants have disappeared from the depths of our waters long ago. I have 
 seen pond-fed perch of four and five pounds in weight, but for one 
 perch caught by me, or others of my acquaintance, of two pounds 
 weight, I have seen hundreds of less than ten ounces. I like the fish 
 much. He is a daring fellow, of burly beauty; no dainty epicure, 
 though epicures consider him when dished a dainty, and is satisfied with 
 a plentiful repast, in fresh water, of worms and small fish ; and in tide- 
 ways, or brackish water, with a meal of fresh shrimps. Give him three 
 dishes, and he will not ask you for entremets or liors d^oRiivres. His 
 Latin name is Perca Jlumatilis, and Fleming thus describes him : — 
 First dorsal fin longer than the second; length about a foot; back 
 arched greenish black; sides with fine transverse black bands; belly 
 reddish white ; ventral, anal, and caudal fins red ; irides golden. Each 
 dorsal fin has fourteen rays ; the pectoral twelve. I am a great admirer 
 of Thames perch. They are beautifully coloured, and they are less round- 
 shouldered than those of other waters. The first dorsal-fin of the perch 
 is very large, bristling with strong, pointed spines, which are to him a 
 
 > 
 
 * Although perch, like trout, delight in clear swift rivers, with pebbly, 
 gravelly bottoms, they are often found in sandy, clayey soils ; they love a 
 moderately deep water, and frequent holes by the sides of or near little streams, 
 and the hollows under banks. The perch spawns about the beginning of 
 March : the best time of the year to angle for him is from the beginning of 
 May till the end of June, yet you may continue to fish for him till the end of 
 September ; he is best taken in cloudy, windy weather, and, as some say, from 
 seven to ten in the forenoon, and from two to seven in the afternoon. Other 
 baits for the perch are loaches, miller's thumbs, stickle-backs , small-lob, and 
 marsh, and red-worms, well scoured ; horse-beans, boiled ; cad-bait, oak- worms, 
 bobs, and gentles. Many of these fish are taken in the rivers about Oxford ; 
 and the author of the " Angler's Sure Guide," says, he once saw the figure of a 
 perch, drawn witli a pencil on the door of a house near that city, which was 
 twenty-nine inches long ; and was informed it was the true dimensions of a 
 living perch (" Angler's Sure Guide," p. 155). The largest perch are taken 
 with a minnow, hooked with a good hold through the upper lip ; for the perch, 
 by reason of the figure of his mouth, cannot take the bait crosswise, as the pike 
 will. When you fish thus, use a large cork float, and lead your fine about nine 
 inches from the bottom, otherwise the minnow will come to the top of the 
 water ; but in the ordinary way of fishing, let your bait liang within about six 
 inches of the ground.— H. 
 
172 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 good defensive armour. It saves him from the attacks of pike and other 
 enemies. Fish of prey are generally solitary. The perch is a remark- 
 able exception, for although fiercely predatory, he is very socially 
 gregarious. The lion hunts alone, so does the pike ; the wolf hunts in 
 packs, the perch in shoals. The largest perch are caught by sinking 
 and roving with a live minnow or gudgeon, or by spinning with a dead 
 one. I have taken them well by spinning wdth Flinn's flexible fish- 
 baits, and sometimes I have caught them with large, gaudy artificial 
 flies. There is no better way of fishing for perch than with the pater- 
 noster line — a gear consisting of three hooks, whipped on strong three- 
 inch lengths of gut, or hog's bristles, projecting twelve or fifteen inches 
 apart from a very stout salmon-gut foot-line. On the hook nearest the 
 bottom I would put a worm ; on the one next to that a live minnow, or 
 middle-sized gudgeon : and on the uppermost hook a fresh shrimp, 
 small frog, a gentle, caddis, wasp-grub, or caterpillar. At the extreme 
 end of the foot-line, a perforated bullet should be attached. Bj^ its 
 means your bait will be kept down, and will move slowly, or otherwise, 
 according to the flow of the water. Strike rather sharply as soon as you 
 feel a bite. Fish for perch from February to November, in deep gravelly 
 streams, by the sides of the buttresses of bridges, piles, camp-sheds, in 
 eddies, below w^eirs, and in back waters, in docks, near sluices, and in 
 deep holes in the middle of strong currents. In a "Handbook of 
 Angling," I write, — " If you fancy perch-poaching, get a very large, 
 wide-mouthed glass bottle, and half fill it with pure water, into which 
 put a dozen of bright, lively minnows ; give them air by inserting the 
 barrel of a quill, open at each end, through the bung of the bottle, 
 which sink in a pond, or the whereabouts of perch in a river. The 
 bottled minnows will attract perch to them. In about twenty-four hours 
 or more after you have sunk your decoy, come with a paternoster-line, 
 baited with live minnows or small gudgeons, and you cannot but catch 
 several of the assembled and prowling perch." In the spring months, 
 fish for perch from seven to ten, a.m., and from two o'clock, p.m., to 
 dusk. In summer, from sunrise to nine a.m., and in the afternoon, from 
 four to sunset. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS OF THE EEL, AND OTHER FISH THAT WANT SCALES ; 
 AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM. 
 
 [jFourt^ ©ap.] 
 
 Pisc. It is agreed by most men, that the eel is a most 
 dainty fish ; the Eomans have esteemed her the Helena of 
 their feasts, and some the queen of palate-pleasure. But 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 173 
 
 most men differ about tlieir breeding : some say they breed 
 by generation as other fish do, and others, that they breed, as 
 some worms do, of mud ; as rats and mice, and many other 
 living creatures are bred in Egypt, by the sun's heat, when 
 it shines upon the overflowing of the river Nilus ; or out of 
 the putrefaction of the earth, and divers other ways. Those 
 that deny them to breed by generation as other fish do, ask, 
 if any man ever saw an eel to have a spawn or melt 1 and 
 they are answered, that they may be as certain of their 
 breeding as if they had seen spawn : for they say, that they 
 are certain that eels have all parts, fit for generation, like 
 other fish,* but so small as not to be easily discerned, by 
 reason of their fatness ; but that discerned they may be ; and 
 that the he and the she-eel may be distinguished by their fins. 
 And Eondeletius says he has seen eels cling together like 
 dew-worms. 
 
 And others say, that eels, growing old, breed other eels out 
 of the corruption of their own age ; which. Sir Francis Bacon 
 says, exceeds not ten years. And others say, that as worms 
 are made of glutinous dew-drops, which are condensed by 
 the sun's heat in those countries, so eels are bred of a par- 
 ticular dew, falling in the months of May or June on the 
 banks of some particular ponds or rivers, apted by nature for 
 that end ; which in a few days are, by the sun's heat, turned 
 into eels ; and some of the ancients have called the eels that 
 are thus bred the offspring of Jove. I have seen, in the 
 beginning of July, in a river not far from Canterbury, some 
 parts of it covered over with young eels, about the thickness 
 of a straw ; and these eels did lie on the top of that water, 
 as thick as motes are said to be in the sun ; and I have heard 
 the like of other rivers, as namely, in Severn, where they are 
 
 * That fishes are furnished with parts fit for generation cannot be doubted, 
 since it is a common practice to castrate them. See the method of doing it in 
 " Fhilos. Trans." vol. xlviii. part, ii., for the year 1754, page 870. — H. 
 
 [I am surprised at the anatomical ignorance of Sir J, Hawkins, and at that 
 of the writer in the " Philosophical Transactions." No river-fish have external 
 organs of generation, and cannot therefore be castrated. Eels have ova and 
 milt like other fresh-water fish, but in minute portions. They are migratory in 
 rivers running into the sea. They migrate to deposit their spawn in salt-water, 
 and immigrate to fresh-water to grow in it. The salmon migrates to sea for a 
 different purpose — to grow and fatten in salt-water ; and immigrates to fresh 
 to procreate its species in the shallows. I am of opinion that eels are ovipa- 
 rous, and I know, of my own knowledge, that Mr. Andrew Young, of Invershin, 
 Sutherlandshire, has bred them artifically from impregnated spawn, procured 
 from living male and female specimens. — Ed.] 
 
174« THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 called yelvers ; and in a pond, or mere, near nnto Stafford- 
 shire,' where, about a set time in summer, such small eels 
 abound so much that many of the poorer sort of people that 
 inhabit near to it, take such eels out of this mere with sieves 
 or sheets ; and make a kind of eel-cake of them, and eat it 
 like as bread. And Gesner quotes venerable Bede,""' to say, 
 that in England there is an island called Ely, by reason of the 
 innumerable number of eels that breed in it. But that eels 
 may be bred as some worms, and some kind of bees and wasps 
 are, either of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, seems 
 to be made probable by the barnacles and young goslings bred 
 by the sun's heat and the rotten j)lanks of an old ship, and 
 hatched of trees ; both which are related for truths by Du 
 Bartas and Lobel,t and also by our learned Camden, and 
 laborious Gerard, J in his Herbal. 
 
 It is said by Rondeletius, that those eels that are bred in 
 rivers that relate to or be near to the sea, never return to 
 the fresh waters (as the salmon does always desire to do), 
 when they have once tasted the salt water ; and I do the 
 more easily believe this, because I am certain that powdered 
 beef is a most excellent bait to catch an eel. And though 
 Sir Francis Bacon will allow the eel's life to be^but ten years, 
 yet he, in his History of Life and Death, mentions a lamprey 
 iDelonging to the Koman emperor, to be made tame, and so 
 kept for almost threescore years ; and that such useful and 
 pleasant observations were made of this lamprey, that Crassus 
 the orator, who kept her, lamented her death. And we read 
 in Dr. Hake will, that Hortensius was seen to weep at the 
 death of a lamprey that he had kept long and loved exceed- 
 ingly.§ 
 
 * The most universal scholar of his time : he was born at Durham about 671, 
 and bred under St. John of Beverley. He was a man of great virtue, and re- 
 markable for a most sweet and engaging disposition : he died 734, and lies 
 buried at Durham. 
 
 t Matthias de Lobel, or L'Obel, an eminent physician and botanist of the 
 sixteenth century, was a native of Lisle, in Flanders. He was a disciple of 
 Eondeletius, and, being invited to London by King James the First, published 
 there his" Historia Plantarum," and died in the year 1616. He was the author 
 of several books connected with medico-botany. 
 
 t The person here mentioned is John Gerard, the first of our English botanists : 
 he was by profession a surgeon ; and published, in 1597, a " Herbal," in a large 
 folio, dedicated to the lord treasurer Burleigh ; and, two years after, a " Cata- 
 logue of Plants, Herbs," &c., to the number of eleven hundred, raised and 
 naturalised by himself in a large garden near his house in Holborn. The latter 
 is dedicated to Sir Walter JRaleigh. 
 
 § The author, vol. i. p. 212, has cited from Pliny an instance of the fondness 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 175 
 
 It is granted by all, or most men, that eels, for a-boiit six 
 months, that is to say, the six cold months of the year, stir 
 not up and down, neither in the rivers, nor in the pools in 
 which they usually are, but get into the soft earth or mud ; 
 and there many of them together bed themselves, and live 
 without feeding upon anything, as I have told you some 
 swallows have been observed to do iu hollow trees, for those 
 cold six months ; and this the eel and swallow- do, as not being 
 able to endure w^inter weather : for Gesner quotes Albert us 
 to say, that in the year 1125, that year's winter being more 
 cold than usually, eels did by nature's instinct get out of the 
 water into a stack of hay in a meadow upon dry ground, and 
 there bedded themselves, but yet at last a frost killed them. 
 And our Camden relates, that in Lancashire fishes were 
 digged out of the earth with spades, where no water was near 
 to the place. I shall say little more of the eel, but that, as it 
 is observed, he is impatient of cold ; so it hath been observed, 
 that in warm weather an eel has been known to live ^\e days 
 out of the water. 
 
 And lastly, let me tell you that some curious searchers into 
 the natures of fish observe, that there be several sorts or kinds 
 of eels, as the silver eel, and green or greenish eel, with 
 which the river of Thames abounds, and those are called 
 grigs ; and a blacldsh eel, whose head is more flat and bigger 
 than ordinary eels ; and also an eel whose fins are reddish, 
 and but seldom taken in this nation, and yet taken sometimes : 
 these several kinds of eels are, say some, diversely bred ; as 
 namely, out of the corruption of the earth, and some by dew, 
 and other ways, as I have said to you : and yet it is affirmed 
 by some for certain, that the silver eel is bred by generation, 
 but not by spawning as other fish do, but that her brood come 
 alive from her, being then little live eels, no bigger nor longer 
 than a pin : and I have had too many testimonies of this to 
 doubt the truth of it myself ; and if I thought it needful 
 I might prove it, but I think it is needless. 
 
 And this eel, of which I have said so much to you, may 
 
 of Antonia, a woman, for a tame lamprey, which the tenderness of her sex 
 might perhaps excuse ; but the sagacity and docihty of these creatures seem 
 less wonderful than the weakness of such men as Crassus and Hortensius, in 
 becoming mourners for the death of an eel. The former of these two persons 
 was, for this his pusillanimity, reproached in the senate of Rome by Domitius, 
 in these words: "Foolish Crassus! you wept for your miu-aena" (or lamprey). 
 *' That is more," retorted Crassus, " than you did for your two wives." (Lord 
 Bacon's " Apophthegms.") — H. 
 
176 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 be caught with divers kinds of baits ; as namely, with 
 powdered beef, with a lob or garden-worm, with a minnow, 
 or gut of a hen, chicken, or the guts of any fish, or with 
 almost anything, for he is a greedy fish :* but the eel may be 
 caught especially with a little, a very little lamprey, which 
 some call a pride, and may in the hot months be found many 
 of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps in 
 other rivers, yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in a 
 dunghill. 
 
 Next note, that the eel seldom stirs in the day, but then 
 hides himself; and therefore he is usually caught by night, 
 with one of these baits of which I have spoken : and may be 
 then caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the 
 bank, or twigs of a tree ; or by throwing a string across the 
 stream with many hooks at it, and those baited with the 
 aforesaid baits, and a clod, or plummet, or stone, thrown into 
 the river with this line, that so you may in the morning find 
 it near to some fixed place ; and then take it up with a drag- 
 hook, or otherwise. But these things are, indeed, too common 
 to be spoken of ; and an hour's fishing with an angler will 
 teach you better, both for these and many other common 
 things in the practical part of angling, than a week's discourse. 
 I shall therefore conclude this direction for taking the eel, by 
 telling you, that in a warm day in summer I have taken 
 many a good eel by sniggling, and have been much pleased 
 with that sport. 
 
 And because you, that are but a young angler, know not 
 what sniggling is, I will now teach it to you. You remember 
 I told you, that eels do not usually stir in the day time ; for 
 then they hide themselves under some covert ; or under 
 boards or planks about fl.ood-gates or weirs or mills ; or in 
 holes on the river banks : so that you, observing your time 
 in a warm day, when the water is lowest, may take a strong 
 
 * To this truth I myself can bear witness. When I dwelt at Twickenham, 
 a large canal adjoined to my house, which I stocked with fish. I liad from 
 time to time broods of ducks, which, with their young ones, took to the water. 
 One dry summer, when the canal was very low, we missed many young ducks, 
 but could not find out how they went. Ilesolving to take advantage of the 
 lowness of the water to clean the canal, a work which liad not been done for 
 thirty years before, I drained and emptied it, and found in the mud a great 
 number of large eels. Some of them I reserved for tlie use of my family ; which 
 being opened by the cook surprised us all ; for in the stom.aclis of several of 
 them were found, undigested, the necks and heads of young ducks, which, 
 doubtless, were those of the ducks we had missed, — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 177 
 
 small hook, tied to a strong line, or to a string about a yard 
 long : and then into one of these holes or between any boards 
 about a mill or under any great stone or plank or any place 
 where you think an eel may hide or shelter herself, you may, 
 with the help of a short stick, put in your bait, but leisurely, 
 and as far as you may conveniently ; and it is scarce to be 
 doubted, but if there be an eel, within the sight of it, the eel 
 will bite instantly, and as certainly gorge it ; and you need not 
 doubt to have him if you pull him not out of the hole too 
 quickly, but pull him out by degrees ; for he, laying folded 
 double in his hole, will, with the help of his tail, break all, 
 unless you give him time to be wearied with pulling : and so 
 get him out by degrees, not pulling too hard. 
 
 ,.-^t^^^R^^'-C. 
 
 And to commute for your patient hearingthis long direction, 
 I shall next tell you how to make this Eel a most excellent 
 dish of meat. 
 
 First, wash him in water and salt, then pull off his skin 
 below his vent or navel, and not much further ; having done 
 that, take out his guts as clean as you can, but wash him not : 
 then give him three or four scotches with a knife, and then 
 put into his belly and those scotches, sweet herbs, and anchovy, 
 and a little nutmeg grated, or cut very small ; and your herbs 
 and anchovies must also be cut very small, and mixed with 
 good butter and salt : having done this, then pull his skin 
 over him all but his head, which you are to cut off, to the end 
 you may tie his skin about that part where his head grew ; 
 and it must be so tied as to keep all his moisture within his 
 
178 .THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 skin : and having done this, tie him with tape or packthread 
 to a spit, and roast him leisurely, and baste him with water 
 and salt till his skin breaks, and then with butter ; and having 
 roasted him enough, let what was put into his belly and what 
 he drips, be his sauce. — S. F. 
 
 When I go to dress an eel thus, I wish he were as long and 
 big as that which was caught in Peterborough river in the 
 year 1667, which was a yard and three-quarters long. If you 
 will not believe me, then go and see at one of the coffee- 
 houses in King-street, in Westminster. 
 
 But now let me tell you, that though the eel thus dressed 
 be not only excellent good, but more harmless than any other 
 way ; yet it is certain, that physicians account the eel dan- 
 gerous meat : I will advise you, therefore, as Solomon says of 
 honey, " Hast thou found it, eat no more than is sufficient, 
 lest thou surfeit ; for it is not good to eat much honey." And 
 let me add this, that the uncharitable Italian bids us " give 
 eels and no wine to our enemies." 
 
 And I will beg a little more of your attention to tell you, 
 Aldrovandus, and divers physicians, commend the eel very 
 much for medicine, though not for meat. But let me tell 
 you one observation, that the eel is never out of season ; as 
 trouts, and most other fish are at set times : at least most 
 eels are not."^ 
 
 * The haunts of the eel are, weeds, under roots, stumps of trees, holes, and 
 clefts of the earth, both in the banks and at the bottom, and in the plain mud, 
 where they lie with only their heads out, watching for prey. They are also 
 found under great stones, old timber, about flood-gates, weirs, bridges, and old 
 mills. They delight in still waters, and in those that are foul and muddy ; 
 though the smaller eels are to be met with in all sorts of rivers and soils. 
 Although the manner in which eels, and indeed all fish, are generated, is suffi- 
 ciently settled, as appears by the foregoing notes; there yet remains a question 
 undecided by naturalists ; and that is, W^hether the eel be an oviparous or a 
 viviparous fish ? Walton inclines to the latter opinion. The following relation 
 from Bowlker may go near to determine the question : " Being acquainted 
 with an elderly woman, who had been wife to a miller near fifty years, and 
 much employed in dressing of eels, I asked her if she had ever found any spawn 
 or eggs in those eels she opened? She said she had never observed any; but 
 that she had sometimes found living eels in them, about the bigness of a small 
 needle ; and particularly, that she once took out ten or twelve, and put them 
 upon the table, and found them to be alive; which was confirmed to me by the 
 rest of the family. The time of the year when this happened was, as they 
 informed me, about a fortnight or three weeks after Michaelmas ; which makes 
 me of opinion that they go down to the sea, or salt-water, to prepare them- 
 selves for the work of propagating and producing their young. To this I must 
 add another observation of the same nature, that was made by a gentleman of 
 fortune not far from Ludlow, and in the commission of the peace for the county 
 of Salop ; who going to visit a gentleman, his friend, was shown a very fine 
 large eel that was going to be dressed, about whose sides and belly he observed 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 179 
 
 I might here speak of many other fish, whose shape and 
 nature are much like the eel, and frequent both the sea and 
 fresh rivers j as namely, the lamprel, the lamprey, and the 
 lamperne : as also of the mighty conger, taken often in 
 Severn, about Gloucester : and might also tell in what high 
 esteem many of them are for the curiosity of their taste. But 
 these are not so proper to be talked of by me, because they 
 make us anglers no sport ; therefore I will let them alone, as 
 the Jews do, to whom they are forbidden by their law. 
 
 And, scholar, there is also a Flounder, a sea-fish which 
 wdll wander \ery far into fresh rivers, and there lose himself 
 and dwell : and thrive to a hand's breadth, and almost twice 
 so long : a fish without scales, and most excellent meat : and 
 a fish that affords much sport to the angler, with any small 
 worm, but especially a little bluish worm gotten out of marsh- 
 grovmd or meadows, which should be well scoured.'"' But 
 
 a parcel of little creeping things, which at first made him suspect it had been 
 kept too long ; but upon nearer inspection, they were found to be perfect little 
 eels, or elvers. Upon this it was immediately opened in the sight of several 
 other gentlemen, and, in the belly of it, they found a lump about as big as a 
 nutmeg, consisting of an infinite number of those little creatures, closely wrapped 
 up together ; which, being put into a bason of water, soon separated, and swam 
 about the bason. This he has often told to several gentlemen of credit in his 
 neighbourhood, from some of whom I first received this account : but I have 
 lately had the satisfaction of having it from liis own mouth, and therefore I 
 think this may serve to put the matter out of all doubt, and may be sufiicient 
 to prove that eels are of the viviparous kind." Taking it for granted then that 
 eels do not spawn, all we have to say in this place is, that though, as our author 
 tells us, they are never out of season, yet, as some say, they are best in winter, 
 and worst in May : and it is noted to be of eels, that the longer they live the 
 better they are ("Angler's Sure Guide," p. 164). Of baits for the eel, the best 
 are lob-worms, loach, minnows, small pope or pearch with the fins cut off, 
 pieces of any fish, especially bleak, as being very lucid, with which I have 
 taken very large ones. As the angling for eels is no very pleasant amusement, 
 and is always attended with great trouble and the risk of tackle, many, while 
 they angle for other fish, lay lines for the eel, which they tie to weeds, flags, 
 &c., with marks to find them by ; or you may take a long packthread-line, with 
 a leaden weight at the end, and hooks looped on at a yard distance from each 
 other : fasten one end to the flags, or on the shore, and throw the lead out, and 
 let the line lie some time ; and in this way you may probably take a pike. — IT. 
 
 [Note. — I do not think angling for eels worthy of the accomplished Piscator. 
 When a boy, I used to catch them with night-lines baited with large worms, or 
 better with loach, which is the best night-line bait for perch, trout, and eels. 
 When the rivers were flooded, I used to " bob" for eels, with a large bunch of 
 worms, transversely threaded through difierent parts on worsted, and attached 
 to about a yard and a half of whipcord. The rod should be very stout—iu 
 fact, a small pole twelve feet in length. When the eels bite, their teeth get 
 entangled in the worsted, and you must suddenly and strongly whip them up 
 ashore. — Ed.] 
 
 * The taking flounders with a rod and line is a thing so accidental, that it is 
 
 m2 
 
180 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 this, though it be most excellent meat, yet it wants scales, 
 and is, as I told yon, therefore an abomination to the Jews. 
 
 But, scholar, there is a fish that they in Lancashire boast 
 very much of, called a Char ; taken there (and I think there 
 only), in a mere called Winander Mere : a mere, says Camden, 
 that is the largest in this nation, being ten miles in length, 
 and (some say) as smooth in the bottom as if it were paved 
 with polished marble. This fish never exceeds fifteen or 
 sixteen inches in length ; and is s2)otted like a trout : and 
 has scarce a bone, but on the back. But this, though I do 
 not know whether it make the angler sport, yet I would have 
 you take notice of it, because it is a rarity, and of so high 
 esteem with persons of great note. 
 
 JSTor would I have you ignorant of a rare fish called a 
 GuiNiAD ; of which I shall tell you what Camden and others 
 speak. The river Dee (which runs by Chester), springs in 
 Merionethshire; and, as it runs toward Chester, it runs 
 through Pemble-Mere, which is a large water : and it is 
 observed, that though the river Dee abounds with salmon, 
 and Pemble-Mere with the guiniad, yet there is never any 
 salmon caught in the mere, nor a guiniad in the river. And 
 now my next observation shall be of the Barbel. 
 
 CHAPTEU XIV. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS OF THE BAEBEL ; AND DIRECTIONS HOW TO PISH 
 FOR HIM. 
 
 Pisc. The Barbel is so called, says Gesner, by reason of 
 his barb or wattles at his mouth, which are under his nose or 
 chaps. He is one of those leather-mouthed fishes, that I told 
 you of, that does A^ery seldom break his hold if he be once 
 
 hardly worth the mention. The same may be said of smelts, which, in the 
 Thames, and other great rivers, are caught with a bit of any small fish, but 
 chiefly of their own species. In the month of August, about the year 1720, 
 such vast quantities of smelts came up the Thames, that women, and even 
 children became anglers for them ; and as I have been told by persons who 
 well remembered it, in one day, between London-bridge and Greenwich, not 
 fewer than two thousand persons were thus employed. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 181 
 
 hooked : but he is so strong, that he will often break both 
 rod and line, if he proves to be a big one. 
 
 But the barbel, though he be of a fine shape, and looks 
 big, yet he is not accounted the best fish to eat, neither for 
 his wholesomeness nor his taste : but the male is reputed 
 much better than the female, whose spawn is very hurtful, 
 as I \vill presently declare to you. 
 
 They flock together, like sheep, and are at the worst in 
 April, about which time they spawn, but quickly grow to be 
 in season. He is able to live in the strongest swifts of the 
 water, and in summer they love the shallowest and sharpest 
 streams ; and love to lurk under weeds, and to feed on gravel 
 against a rising ground, and will root and dig in the sands 
 with his nose like a hog, and there nest himself : yet some- 
 times he retires to deep and swift bridges, or flood-gates, or 
 weirs, where he will nest himself amongst piles or in hollow 
 places, and take such hold of moss or weeds, that be the 
 water never so swift, it is not able to force him from the 
 place that he contends for. This is his constant custom in 
 summer, when he and most living creatures sport themselves 
 in the sun : but at the approach of winter, then he forsakes 
 the swift streams and shallow waters, and by degrees retires 
 to those parts of the river that are quieter and deeper : in 
 which places, and I think about that time, he spawns, and, as 
 I have formerly told you, with the help of the melter, hides 
 his spawn or eggs in holes, which they both dig in the gravel, 
 and then they mutually labour to cover it with the same 
 sand, to prevent it from being devoured by other fish. 
 
 There be such store of this fish in the river Danube, that 
 E-ondeletius says, they may in some places of it, and in some 
 months of the year, be taken by those that dwell near to the 
 river, with their hands, eight or ten load at a time : he says, 
 they begin to be good in May, and that they cease to be so 
 in August ; but it is found to be otherwise in this nation : 
 but thus far we agree with him, that the spawn of a barbel, 
 if it be not poison, as he says, yet that it is dangerous meat, 
 and especially in the month of May ; which is so certain, 
 that Gesner and Gasius declare it had an ill eflect upon 
 them, even to the endangering of their lives.* 
 
 * Though the spawn of the barbel is known to be of a poisonous nature, yet 
 it is often taken by country people medicinally ; who find it at once, a most 
 powerful emetic and cathartic. And, notwithstanding what is said of the 
 
182 THE COMPLETE AIs^GLER. 
 
 This fish is of a fine cast and handsome shape, with small 
 scales, which are placed after a most exact and curious 
 manner, and, as I told you, may be rather said not to be ill, 
 than to be good meat : the chub and he have, I think, both 
 lost part of their credit by ill cookery, they being reputed 
 the worst or coarsest of fresh- water fish. But the Barbel 
 
 affords an angler choice sport, being a lusty and a cunning 
 fish ; so lusty and cunning as to endanger the breaking of 
 the angler's line, by running his head forcibly towards any 
 covert or hole or bank, and then striking at the line, to break 
 it off, with his tail, as is observed by Plutarch in his book 
 " De Industria Animalium ;" and also so cunning, to nibble 
 and suck off your worm close to the hook, and yet avoid the 
 letting the hook come into his mouth. 
 
 The barbel is also curious for his baits ; that is to say, that 
 they be clean and sweet ; that is to say, to have your worms 
 well scoured, and not kept in sour and musty moss, for he is 
 a curious feeder ; but at a well scoured lob- worm he will bite 
 as boldly as at any bait, and especially if, the night or two 
 before you fish for him, you shall bait the places where you 
 
 wholesomeness of the flesh,' with some constitutions it produces the same effects 
 as the spawn. About the mouth of September, in the year 1754, a servant of 
 mine, who had eaten part of a barbel, though as I had cautioned him, he ab- 
 stained from the spawn, was seized with such violent purging and vomiting, as 
 had like to have cost him his life. — H. 
 
 [Note. — I doubt very much the truth of the alleged noxious properties either 
 of the roe or the flesh of barbel when in condition, in the month of July, 
 August, September, and October. Their edible qualities are bad — that is, 
 tasteless. Dr. Bloch says, " the barbel, when not overgrown, is a sufficiently 
 delicate fish ;" and adds, that " himself, together with his whole family, had 
 eaten the roe or spawn without any bad effect." I believe the latter part of 
 the doctor's assertion, but I cannot subscribe to the former part of it. All the 
 cooking in the world cannot render the flesh of barbel " sufficiently delicate.'* 
 The Thames puntmen tell me, the only way of rendering barbel a passable 
 relish is to fry slices of it with good rashers of fat bacon. I am inclined to 
 dgree with them.— Ed.] 
 
THE COMPLETE AN GLEE. 183 
 
 intend to fish for him, with big worms cut into pieces ;* and 
 note, that none did ever overbait the place, nor fish too early 
 or too late for a barbel. And the barbel will bite also at 
 gentles, which not being too much scoured, but gTeen, are a 
 choice bait for him ; and so is cheese, which is not to be too 
 hard, but kept a day or two in a wet linen cloth to make it 
 tough : with this you may also bait the water a day or two 
 before you fish for the barbel, and be much the likelier to 
 catch store ; and if the cheese were laid in clarified honey 
 a short time before, as namely, an hour or two, you are still 
 the likelier to catch fish : some have directed to cut the 
 cheese into thin pieces, and toast it, and then tie it on the 
 hook with fine silk : and some advise to fish for the barbel 
 with sheep's tallow and soft cheese beaten or worked into a 
 paste, and that it is choicely good in August, and I believe 
 it ; but doubtless the lob-worm well scoured, and the gentle 
 not too much scoured ; and cheese ordered as I have directed, 
 are baits enough, and I think will serve in any month, 
 though I shall commend any angler that tries conclusions, 
 and is industrious to improve the art. And now, my honest 
 scholar, the long shower and my tedious discourse are both 
 ended together ; and I shall give you but this observation, 
 that when you fish for barbel, your rod and line be both long 
 and of good strength, for, as I told you, you will find him a 
 heavy and a dogged fish to be dealt withal, yet he seldom or 
 never breaks his hold if he be once strucken. And if you 
 would know more of fishing for the umber or barbel, get 
 into favour with Doctor Sheldon, whose skill is above others ; 
 and of that the poor that dwell about him have a comfortable 
 experience. 
 
 And now let us go and see what interest the trouts will 
 pay us for letting our angle-rods lie so long and so quietly 
 in the water, for their use. Come, scholar, which will you 
 take up 1 
 
 Yen. Which you think fit, master. 
 
 Pisc. Why, you shall take up that, for I am certain, by 
 viewing the line, it has a fish at it. Look you, scholar ! well 
 done ! Come, now take up the other too : well ! now you 
 may tell my brother Peter, at night, that you have caught a 
 leash of trouts this day. And now let's move towards our 
 
 * All this paragraph deserves the attention of the reader. The observatioua 
 made in it prove that Walton was an expert barbel fisher. — Ed. 
 
184 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 lodging, and drink a draught of red cow's milk as we go ; 
 and give pretty Maudlin and her honest mother a brace of 
 trouts for their supper. 
 
 Ven. Master, I like your motion very well ; and I think it 
 is now about milking-time ; and yonder they be at it. 
 
 Pisc. God speed you, good woman ! I thank you both for 
 our songs last night : I and my companion have had such 
 fortune a-fishing this day, that we resolve to give you and 
 Maudlin a brace of trouts for supper; and we will now taste 
 a draught of your red cow's milk. 
 
 MiLK-W. Marry, and that you shall with all my heart ; 
 and I will still be your debtor when you come this way. If 
 you will but speak the word, I w411 make you a good syllabub 
 of new verjuice ; and then you may sit down in a haycock, 
 and eat it ; and Maudlin shall sit by and sing you the good 
 old song of the " Hunting in Chevy Chase," or some other 
 good ballad, for she hath store of them ; Maudlin, my honest 
 Maudlin, hath a notable memory, and she thinks nothing too 
 good for you, because you be such honest men. 
 
 Yen. We thank you ; and intend once in a month, to call 
 upon you again, and give you a little warning ; and so, good 
 night ; good night. Maudlin. And now, good master, let's 
 lose no time ; but tell me somewhat more of fishing ; and, if 
 you please, first, something of fishing for a gudgeon. 
 
 Pisc. I will, honest scholar. 
 
 [Remarks on the Baebel. — Very little can be added to improve 
 this excellent, and practically and prettily written chapter — practical 
 for the greater part of it, and very pleasant towards its close. The river 
 Lea, Walton^s pet river, abounded in fine barbel in his day, and is not 
 devoid of them now. So did the Thames, and it still does so. The 
 best rivers in England £br barbel, are the Thames and the Trent ; and 
 the best mode of fishing for the bearded, fluvial grenadier, is by means 
 of the ledger -line. I'll tell you how it is made. On your foot-line of 
 strong gut, about eighteen inches above the hook, fasten a number four 
 shot, and twelve inches above that another shot of the same size. 
 Between the shots the line should consist of gimp ; and between them 
 there must be a perforated bullet — freely so, to allow the gimp to run 
 through easily. Instead of shots, double knots will answer. Your hook 
 should be a number six, and your bait a large w^ell-scom'ed lob-worm, 
 or better, two middle-sized ones. Yoiu* winch line should run freely 
 off the winch. Pull in your bullet to within a yard of the top of the 
 rod, and then fling it to the spot which has been already ground-baited 
 with lob-worms. When the bullet sinks, it will rock to and fro in the 
 stream, and your w^orms will keep moving with it. When the bait is 
 seized, the barbel will run with it until it is checked by the bullet coming 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 185 
 
 iu contact, and being arrested by the upper shot or bullet on the foot 
 line. The angler immediately feels the check, and strikes smartly as he 
 does so. Indeed, it often happens that the result of this check is the 
 hooking of the fish, or at any rate the part hooking of him. The lower 
 shot, or knot, prevents the bullet from running down on the bait. In 
 fishing with the ledger-line, you cannot ground-bait too profusely for 
 three or four nights before you begin to fish, and whilst you are doing so 
 throw in, every half hour or so, a large ball of clay stuffed with worms^ 
 letting it drop by the spot at which your hook-bait lies. The worms for 
 ground-bait should not be scoured, but those for hook-baits should be 
 perfectly so. If you fish with one worm, put it on your hook thus : 
 insert the point of the hook a little below the head into the throat of the 
 worm, and then work it carefully up and beyond the shank, until not 
 more than half an inch of the tail part projects at the point of the 
 hook. You must take care in threading the worm, not to perforate it 
 with the hook's point after the first perforation. When you use two 
 worms on the hook at the same time — a practice I warmly advocate for 
 perch and trout fishing, as well as for barbel — commence putting on the 
 first worm as before, but bring the hook out at its middle, and then draw 
 the worm above the shank of the hook : take then the second worm, and 
 entering the hook about an inch, or half an inch, according to size, above 
 the tail, work the worm up the hook until its head reaches within one- 
 eighth of an inch of the point. Draw down the upper worm, until the 
 tails of both come into close contact, and you will then have the best 
 vermicular bait that can be used for large fish. If you angle with gentles, 
 you must ground-bait with gentles, and you must fish with as many as 
 you can put on a triangle of number six, seven or eight hooks. Barbel like 
 a large bait, and in fishing for them with prepared cheese, greaves, 
 salmon-roe, or bullock's pith, you must put on your hook of each the size 
 of a large hazel nut. In worm fishing, the best hooks are those that are 
 smoothly round in the bend; in fishing with gentles, pastes, &c., the best 
 are Kirby or Carlisle's "sneck-bend." The latter keep on fragile or fran- 
 
 TEDDINQTON WEIR, 
 
186 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 
 
 gible baits better than the former. Worms are early summer baits; pastes 
 autumn and early winter ones. 
 
 The barbel is one of the largest of the carp tribe, and it is known to 
 naturalists by the names, Cyprinus Barhus, and Barhus vulgaris; it has 
 two beards, or wattles, at each side of the upper jaw, which is much 
 longer than the lower one. It not unfrequently attains three feet in 
 length, and is often caught in the Thames and Trent, weighing ten, 
 twelve, and occasionally fourteen pounds. They are plentiful in all the 
 deep running waters of those large rivers, from Twickenham to Sonning 
 in the former, and several miles above and below Nottingham in the 
 latter. It is a handsome and very powerful fish ; olive-coloured on the 
 back, and silver-hued on the belly. Its fins are large, especially the 
 pectoral ones, and by their means it can stem the most rapid currents, 
 and fight fiercely, when hooked, with the angler. In playing this fish, 
 the line should always be kept taut, for if it be relaxed the fish will make 
 for the bottom, or some stronghold, and seize between his leathern lips a 
 root, or any substance he can with tenacity adhere to. Being a flat- 
 bellied fish, he feeds close to the bottom, and should be angled for with 
 the bait lying upon it. In the summer months fish early and late for the 
 barbel in deep streams. As soon as light frosts set in, barbel retire to 
 still sheltered waters, and should be angled for only in the forenoon 
 and afternoon. They do not bite well in long-continued dry weather, but 
 do after heavy rains. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE GUDGEON, THE RUFFE, AND THE BLEAK; 
 AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM. 
 
 [dTourt^ 39ap«] 
 PiSC. The Gudgeon is reputed a fish of excellent taste, 
 
 and to he vety ^v^hofesome : 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 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 187 
 
 in summer. He is commended for a fish of excellent nourish- 
 ment : 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 a most excellent fish to enter a young angler, being easy 
 to be taken with a small red-worm, on or 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, 
 they gather together, and get into the deep parts of the 
 water, and are to be fished for there, with your hook always 
 touching the ground, if you fish for him witli 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 
 
 * In fishing for gudgeons, have'a rake, and every quarter of an hour rake the 
 bottom of the river, and the fish will flock thither in shoals. — H. 
 
 [This note of Sir J. Hawkins is imperfect and obscure. In fi shing for gud- 
 geon from a punt, it will not be necessary to rake the bottom of the river so 
 long as you have bites. When they cease, the gravel must be raked up ; in 
 doing wliich,the water is muddied, and worms and larvae very likely are stirred 
 up. The gudgeon by instinct swim towards the spot, and as the water clears, 
 take the angler's bait dropped thereon. As soon as nibbling ceases again, the 
 punt is to be removed up or down stream a little, and the rake must once more 
 be used. The process must be repeated, not " every quarter of an hour," but 
 every time your bait ceases to be attacked. The cessation is caused by your 
 having caught all the gudgeons on the spot, or by there not having been any 
 there at all. Continual raking and continual change of ground are requisite 
 to secure successful gudgeon- angling — a sort of pis-aller piscatorial pastime. 
 —Ed.] 
 
188 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Ruffe, a fish that is not known to be in some rivers : he is 
 much like the pearch for his shape, and taken to be better 
 than the pearch, 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 as 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 catcli files in the air, by which he lives, so 
 does the bleak at the top of the water. Ausonius would have 
 him called 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 he 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 f that is, six or eight very small hooks tied along the 
 
 * A rosary, or string of beads, is used by the Roman-Catholic devotees to 
 assist them in numbering their pater-nosters, or prayers,- a line with many 
 hooks at small distances from each other, though it little resembles a string of 
 beads, is thence called a pater-noster line. — H. 
 
 [Every tenth bead on a rosary is larger than the others, so that when the 
 devotee comes to it with his lingers, touching this large bead at the end of each 
 tenth pater-noster, or Lord's prayer, he knows without the trouble of counting 
 or looking, that he has repeated the prayers ten times. A rosary consists of 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 189 
 
 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 Rye 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 w^ith a 
 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 hern that did 
 constantly frequent one place, caught with a hook baited 
 with a big minnow or small gudgeon. The line and hook 
 must be strong, and tied to some loose stafi*, so big as she 
 cannot fly away with it, a line not exceeding two yards. 
 
 several links of ten beads in each, between two larger beads. Rosaries are 
 especially used by Roman Catholics Avhen saying penitential prayers, enjoined 
 by the confessor before he can grant absolution. For instance, so many pater- 
 nosters and Ave Marias, or Hail Maries, for some particular sin confessed. 
 Pater-noster lines are now generally used for perch-fishing. They seldom have 
 more than three hooks, projecting, by means of being whipped on a pig's 
 bristle, from the foot-line at least one foot apart. The hook nearest the bottom 
 should be baited with a worm, the next with a live gudgeon or minnow, and 
 that nearest the surface of the water with a gentle. Tike are frequently fished 
 for with a very strong pater-noster, mounted with large hooks, each of which 
 is to be baited with a live gudgeon, dace, roach, or small trout. This line is 
 sunk by means of a bullet. See remarks at the end of Chapter XII. — Ed.] 
 
 * Sir J. Hawkins says, this practice was common in England in his time. It 
 is not so now. However, it frequently liappens that when a fly-fisher is walk- 
 ing along the banks, or through the fields, with his rod held perpendicularly, 
 and his artificial flies streaming behind in the air, that they are taken by swal- 
 lows, swifts, martins, and several of the fly-catching tribe of birds. If artificial 
 flies deceive fish, why should they not deceive birds ? — Ed. 
 
 ^iLJ 
 
190 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IS OF NOTHING, OR THAT WHICH IS NOTHING WORTH. 
 
 [JFourtI) Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. My purpose was to give you some directions concern- 
 ing roach and dace, and some other inferior fish, which make 
 the angler excellent sport, for you know there is more 
 pleasure in hunting the hare than in eating her ; but I will 
 ""forbear at this time to say any more, because you see yonder 
 come our brother Peter and honest Coridon : but I will promise 
 you, that as you and I fish, and walk to-morrow towards 
 London, if I have now forgotten anything that I can then 
 remember, I will not keep it from you. 
 
 Well met, gentlemen : this is lucky that we meet so just 
 together at this very door. Come, hostess, where are you? 
 Is supper ready ? Come, first give us drink, and be as quick 
 as you can, for I believe we are all very hungry. Well, 
 brother Peter, and Coridon, to you both ; come drink, and 
 then tell me what luck of fish : we two have caught but ten 
 trouts, ofwhich my scholar caught three ; look, here's eight, 
 and a brace we gave away : we have had a most pleasant day 
 for fishing and talking, and are returned home both weary 
 and hungry, and now meat and rest will be pleasant. 
 
 Pet. And Coridon and I have had not an unpleasant day, 
 and yet I have caught but fiye trouts : for indeed we went to 
 a good honest ale-house, and there we played at shovel-board 
 half the day ; all the time that it rained we were there, and 
 as merry as they that fished; and I am glad we are now with 
 a dry house over our heads, for hark how it rains and blows. 
 Come, hostess, give us more ale, and our supper with what 
 haste you may : and when we have supped, let us have your 
 song, Piscator, and the catch that your scholar promised us ; 
 or else Coridon will be dogged. 
 
 Pisc. JSTay, I will not be worse than my word ; you shall 
 not want my song, and I hope I shall be perfect in it. 
 
 Yen. And I hope the like for my catch, which I have 
 ready too : and therefore let's go merrily to supper, and then 
 have a gentle touch at singing and drinking ; but the last 
 with moderation. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 191 
 
 CoK. Gome, now for your song ; for we have fed heartily. 
 Come, hostess, lay a few more sticks on the fire. And now 
 sing when you will. 
 
 Pisc. Well then, here's to you, Coridon ; and now for my 
 song. 
 
 the gallant fisher's life, 
 
 It is the best of any ! ---""^ 
 
 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, 
 And 'tis beloved by many : 
 Other joys 
 Are but toys ; 
 Only this 
 Lawful is ; 
 For our skill 
 Breeds no ill. 
 But content and pleasure. 
 
 In a morning up we rise 
 Ere Aurora's peeping ; 
 Drink a cup to wash our eyes ; 
 Leave the sluggard sleeping. 
 Then we go 
 To and fro 
 With our knacks 
 At our backs 
 To such streams 
 As the Thames, 
 If we have the leisure. 
 
 When we please to walk abroad 
 
 For our recreation. 
 In the fields is our abode, 
 Full of delectation : 
 
 Where in a brook, 
 
 With a hook. 
 
 Or a lake, 
 
 Fish we take ; 
 
 There we sit 
 
 For a bit, 
 Till we fish entangle. 
 
 We have gentles in a horn. 
 
 We have paste and worms too ; 
 We can watch both night and morn, 
 SuJBfer rain and storms too. 
 None do here 
 Use to swear ; 
 Oaths do fray 
 Fish away : 
 We sit still 
 And watch our quill ; 
 Fishers must not wrangle. 
 
192 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 If the sun's excessive heat 
 Make our bodies swelter, 
 To an osier-hedge we get 
 For a friendly shelter ; 
 
 Where in a dike, 
 
 Perch or pike, 
 
 Koach or dace. 
 
 We do chase ; 
 
 Bleak or gudgeon, 
 
 Without grudging : ^ 
 
 We are still contented. 
 
 Or we sometimes pass an hour 
 
 Under a green willow. 
 That defends us from a shower — 
 Making earth our pillow : 
 
 Where we may 
 
 Think and pray, 
 
 Before death, 
 
 Stops our breath : 
 
 Other joys 
 
 Are but toys, 
 And to be lamented. — Jo. Chalkhill. 
 
 Yen. Well sung, master : this day's fortune and pleasure, 
 and this night's company and song, do all make me more and 
 more in love with angling. Gentlemen, my master left me 
 alone for an hour this day ; and I verily believe he retired 
 himself from talking with me, that he might be so perfect 
 in this song : was it not, master ? 
 
 Pisc. Yes, indeed ; for it is many years since I learned it, 
 and having forgotten a part of it, I was forced to patch it up 
 by the help of mine own invention, who am not excellent at 
 poetry, as my part of the song may testify : but of that I will 
 say no more, lest you should think I mean by discommending 
 it to beg your commendations of it. And therefore, without 
 replications, let us hear your catch, scholar, which I hope will 
 be a good one ; for you are both musical, and have a good 
 fancy to boot. 
 
 Yen. Marry, and that you shall j and as freely as I would 
 have my honest master tell me some more secrets of fish and 
 fishing as we walk and fish towards London to-morrow. But, 
 master, first let me tell you, that very hour which you were 
 absent from me, I sat down under a willow tree by the water- 
 side, and considered what you had told me of the owner of 
 that pleasant meadow in which you had then left me ; that he 
 had a plentiful estate, and not a heart to think so ; that he 
 had at this time many law-suits depending, and that they 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 193 
 
 both damped liis mirth and took up so much of his time and 
 thoughts, that he himself had not leisure to take the sweet 
 content that I, who pretended no title to them, took in his 
 fields :'^* for I could sit there quietly ; and looking on the 
 water, see some fishes sport themselves in the silver streams, 
 others leaping at files of several shapes and colours ; looking 
 on the hills, I could behold them spotted with woods and 
 groves ; looking down the meadows, could see, here a boy 
 gathering lilies and lady-smocks, and there a girl cropping 
 culverkeys and cowslips, all to make garlands suitable to this 
 present month of May : these, and many other field-flowers, 
 so perfumed the air, that I thought that very meadow like 
 that field in Sicily of which Diodorus speaks, where the 
 perfumes arising from the place make all dogs that hunt 
 in it to fall off", and to lose their hottest scent. I say, as I 
 thus sat, joying in my own happy condition, and pitying this 
 poor rich man that owned this and many other pleasant 
 groves and meadows about me, I did thankfully remember 
 what my Saviour said, that the meek possess the earth ; or 
 rather, they enjoy what the others possess and enjoy not ; for 
 anglers and meek quiet- spirited men are free from those high, 
 those restless thoughts, which corrode the sweets of life ; and 
 they, and they only, can say, as the poet has happily ex- 
 pressed it : 
 
 Hail blest estate of lowliness ! 
 
 Happy enjoyments of such minds 
 As, rich in self-contentedness. 
 
 Can, like the reeds in roughest winds, 
 By yiekling make that blow but small, 
 At which proud oaks and cedars fall. 
 
 There came also into my mind, at that time, certain verses 
 in praise of a mean estate and an humble mind ; they were 
 written by Phineas Fletcher, an excellent divine, and an 
 excellent angler, and the author of excellent piscatory eclogues, 
 
 * There is so much fine and useful morality included in this sentiment, that 
 to let it pass would be inexcusable in one who pretends to illustrate the 
 author's meaning, or display his excellence. The precept which he evidently 
 meant to inculcate, is a very comfortable one, viz., that some of the greatest 
 pleasures human nature is capable of, lie open and in common to the poor as 
 well as the rich. It is not necessary that a man should have the fee-simple of 
 all the land in prospect from Windsor Terrace or liichmond Hill, to enjoy the 
 beauty of those two delightful situations ; nor can we imagine that no one but 
 Lord Burlington was ever delighted in the view of his most elegant villa at 
 Chiswick, now his grace the Duke of Devonshire's. — H. 
 
194 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 in which you shall see the picture of this good man's mind, 
 and I wish mine to be like it.* 
 
 No empty hopes, no courtly fears liim fright ; 
 No begging wants his middle fortune bite : 
 But sweet content exiles both misery and spite. 
 
 His certain life, that never can deceive him, 
 Is full of thousand sweets and rich content ; 
 
 The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him, 
 With coolest shade, till noontide's heat be spent. 
 
 His life is neither toss'd in boisterous seas 
 
 Or the vexatious world, or lost in slothful ease ; 
 Pleased and full bless' d he lives, when he his God can please. 
 
 His bed, more safe than soft, yields quiet sleeps. 
 While by his side his faithful spouse hath place ; 
 
 His little son into his bosom creeps, 
 The lively picture of his father's face ; 
 
 His humble house or poor state ne'er torment him — 
 
 Less he could like, if less his Grod had lent him ; 
 And when he dies, green turfs do for a tomb content him. 
 
 Gentlemen, these were a part of the thoughts that then 
 possessed me. And I here made a conversion of a piece of an 
 old catch, and added more to it, fitting them to be sung by 
 anglers. Come, master, you can sing well ; you must sing a 
 part of it as it is in this paper. 
 
 Peter. Ay marry, sir, this is music indeed; this has 
 cheered my heart, and made me to remember six verses in 
 praise of music, which I will speak to you instantly. 
 
 Music ! miraculous rhetoric, that speakest sense 
 
 Without a tongue, excelling eloquence ; 
 
 With what ease might thy errors be excused, 
 
 Wert thou as truly loved as thou'rt abused ! 
 
 But though dull souls neglect, and some reprove thee, 
 
 I cannot hate thee, 'cause the angels love thee. 
 
 Ven. And the repetition of these last verses of music has 
 called to my memory what Mr. Ed. Waller,t a lover of the 
 angle, says of love and music. 
 
 * It would be great injustice to the memory of this person, whose name is 
 now hardly known, to pass him by without notice. He was the son of Giles 
 Fletcher, doctor of laws, and ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the Duke of 
 Muscovy ; a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and the author of a fine alle- 
 gorical poem, intitled, " The Purple Island," printed at Cambridge, with other 
 of his poems, in 4to. 1633 ; from whence the passage in the text, with a little 
 variation, is taken. — H. 
 
 t As the author's concern for the honour of angling induced him to enume- 
 rate such persons of note as were lovers of that recreation, the reader will allow 
 me to add Mr. John Gay to the number. Any one who reads the first canto 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 195 
 
 Whilst I listen to thy voice, 
 
 Chloris, I feel my heart decay : 
 That powerful noise 
 
 Calls my fleeting soul away : 
 O suppress that magic sound, 
 Which destroys without a wound ! 
 
 Peace, Chloris, peace, or singing die, 
 That together you and I 
 
 To heaven may go ; 
 
 For all we know 
 Of what the blessed do above 
 Is — that they sing, and that they love. 
 
 Pisc. Well remembered, brother Peter : these verses came 
 seasonably, and we thank you heartily. Come, we will all 
 join together, my host and all, and sing my scholars catch 
 over again, and then each man drink the other cup, and to 
 bed, and thank God we have a dry house over our heads. 
 
 Pisc. Well now, good night to everybody. 
 
 Peter. And so say I. 
 
 Yen. And so say I. 
 
 Cor. Good night to you all, and I thank you. 
 
 of his " Georgic," intitled " Rural Sports," and observes how beautifully and 
 accurately he treats the subject of fly-fishing, would conclude the author a pro- 
 ficient : but that it was his chief amusement, I have been assured, by an intimate 
 friend of mine, who has frequently fished with him in the river Kennet, at 
 Amesbury in Wilts, the seat of his grace the Duke of Queensberry. 
 
 The reader will excuse the following addition to this note, for the sake of a 
 beautiful description of the material used in fly-making, which is quoted from 
 the above-mentioned poem : — 
 
 " To frame the httle animal, provide 
 
 All the gay hues that wait on female pride : 
 
 Let nature guide thee ; sometimes golden wire 
 
 The shining bellies of the fly require ; 
 
 The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail. 
 
 Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail ; 
 
 Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings. 
 
 And lends the growing insect proper wings ; 
 
 Silks of all colours must their aid impart. 
 
 And every fur promote the fisher's art : 
 
 So the gay lady, with expensive care, 
 
 Borrows the pride of land, of sea, of air ; 
 
 Purs, pearls, and plumes, the glittering thing displays. 
 
 Dazzles our eyes, and easy hearts betrays."— H. 
 
 [Note. — Very few gaudy flies are necessary for artificial flies for the common 
 trout. Sombre-hued are generally the best. All the materials, except silk, for 
 making them are produced in this country, feathers and furs, except the yellow 
 monkey's and bear's fur. It is only for salmon-fly materials that we are obliged 
 to have recourse to the gaudy feathers of the birds of the New World, and of 
 those of Africa and Asia. The common cock of diflerent colours, the starling , 
 the mallard, the partridge, the pheasant, the green and grey plover, the wren, 
 grouse, tom-tit, red-wing, landrail, dotterel, furnish the usual feathers. The 
 water-rat, squirrel, hedgehog, seal, spaniel, hare, cow, pig, furnish furs or woolly 
 substances, which, together with mohair and floss-silk of different colours, are 
 the general substances of which the bodies of trout-flies are fashioned. — Ed.] 
 
 n2 
 
196 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. Good-morrow, brother Peter, and the like to yoii, 
 honest Coridon : come, my hostess says there is seven shillings 
 to pay : let us each man drink a pot for his morning's draught, 
 and lay down his two shillings ; that so my hostess may not 
 have occasion to repent herself of being so diligent, and using 
 us so kindly. 
 
 Peter. The motion is liked by everybody ; and so, hostess, 
 here's your money : we anglers are all beholding to you, it 
 will not be long ere I'll see you again. And now, brother 
 Piscator, I wish you and my brother your scholar a fair day 
 and good fortune. Come, Coridon, this is our way. 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 OP EOACH AND DACE, AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM ; 
 AND OF CADIS. 
 
 [jfim Bap.] 
 
 Ven. Good master, as we go now towards London, be still 
 so courteous as to give me more instructions : for I have 
 several boxes in my memory, in which I will keep them all 
 very safe, there shall not one of them be lost. 
 
 Pisc. Well, scholar, that I will, and I will hide nothing 
 from you that I can remember, and can think may help you 
 forward towards a perfection in this art. And because we 
 have so much time, and I have said so little of roach and 
 dace, I will give you some directions concerning them. 
 
 Some say the Koach is so called from rutilus, which they 
 say signifies red fins. He is a fish of no great reputation for 
 his dainty taste ; and his spawn is accounted much better 
 than any part of him. And you may take notice, that as the 
 carp is accounted the water-fox for his cunning ; so the roach 
 is accounted the water-sheep, for his simplicity or foolishness. 
 It is noted, that the roach and dace recover strength, and 
 grow in season, a fortnight after spawning ; the barbel and 
 chub in a month : the trout in four months ; and the salmon 
 in the like time, if he gets into the sea, and after into fresh 
 water. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 197 
 
 Koaches be accounted much better in the river than in a 
 pond, though ponds usually breed the biggest. But there is 
 a kind of bastard small roach, that breeds in ponds, with a 
 very forked tail, and of a very small size ; which some say is 
 bred by the bream and right roach ; and some ponds are 
 stored with these beyond belief; and knowing-men, that 
 know their difference, call them ruds ; they differ from the 
 true roach as much as a herring from a pilchard. And these 
 bastard breed of roach are now scattered in many rivers ; but 
 I think not in the Thames, which I believe afford the largest 
 and fattest in this nation, especially below London Bridge.* 
 
 * I know not what roaches are caught below bridge, but above I am sure 
 they are very large, for on the 15th of September, 1754, at Hampton, I caught 
 one that was fourteen inches and an eighth from eye to fork, and in weight 
 wanted but an ounce of two pounds. The season for fishing for roach in the 
 Thames begins about the latter end of August, and continues much longer 
 than it is either pleasant or safe to fish. It requires some skill to hit the time 
 of taking them exactly ; for all the summer long they live on the weed, which 
 they do not forsake for the deeps till it becomes putrid, and that is sooner or 
 later, according as the season is wet or dry ; for you are to know, that much 
 rain hastens the rotting of the weed: I say it requires some skill to hit the- 
 time ; for the fishermen who live in all the towns along the river, from Chiswick 
 to Staines, are about this time nightly on the watch, as soon as the fish come 
 out, to sweep them away with a drag-net ; and our poor patient angler is left 
 baiting tlie ground, and adjusting his tackle, to catch those very fish, which 
 perhaps, the night before had been carried to Billingsgate. The Thames, as» 
 well above as below London-bridge, was formerly much resorted to by the 
 London anglers, and which is strange to think on, considering the unpleasant- 
 ness of the station, they were used to fish near the starlings of the bridge. This 
 will account for the many fishing-tackle shops that were formerly in Crooked- 
 lane, which leads to the bridge. In the memory of a person, not long since 
 living, a waterman that plied at Essex-stairs, his name John Reeves, got a 
 comfortable living by attending anglers with his boat ; his method was, to 
 watch when the shoals of roach came down from the country, and when he had 
 found them, to go round to his customers and give them notice. Sometimes 
 they settled opposite the Temple, at others, at Blackfriars or Queenhithe, but 
 most frequently about the Chalk-liills, near London-bridge. His hire was two 
 shillings a tide. A certain number of persons who were accustomed thus to 
 employ him, raised a sum sufficient to buy him a waterman's coat and silver 
 badge, the impress whereof was, himself with an angler in his boat, and he had 
 annually a new coat to the time of his death. — H. Sir J. Hawkins adds as 
 follows : — " Before I dismiss the subject of Thames fishing, I will let the reader 
 know, that formerly the fishermen inhabiting the banks of the Thames, were 
 used to inclose certain parts of the river with what they called stops, but which 
 were in effect, weirs, or kidels, by stakes driven into the bed thereof, and to 
 these they tied wheels, creating thereby a current, which drove the fish into 
 those traps. This practice, though it may sound oddly to say so, is against 
 Magna Charta, and is expressly prohibited by the twenty-third chapter of that 
 statute : in the year 1757, the Lord Mayor Dickenson sent the water-baififf" up 
 the Thames in a barge well manned and furnished with proper implements, 
 who destroyed all those inclosures on this side of Staines, by pulling up the 
 stakes and setting them adrift." — H. 
 [Roach has long disappeared from all parts of the Thames in the vicinity of 
 
198 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 The roacli is a leather-mouthed fish, and has a kind of saw- 
 like teeth in his throat. And lastly, let me tell you the 
 roach makes an angler capital sport, especially the great 
 roaches about London, where I think there be the best roach 
 anglers. And I think the best trout anglers be in Derby- 
 shire : for the waters there are clear to an extremity. 
 Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this Eoach 
 
 in winter with paste or gentles ; in April, with worms or 
 cadis ; in the very hot months with little white snails, or 
 with flies under water, for he seldom takes them at the top, 
 though the dace will. In many of the hot months, roaches 
 may also be caught thus ; take a May~fly or ant-fly, sink him 
 with a little lead to the bottom, near to the piles or posts of 
 a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir, I mean any deep 
 place where roaches lie quietly, and then pull your fly up 
 very leisurely, and usually a roach will follow your bait to 
 the very top of the water, and gaze on it there, and run at it 
 and take it, lest the fly should fly away from him. 
 
 I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley-bridge, and 
 great store of roach taken, and sometimes a dace or chub ; 
 and in August you may fish for them with a paste made only 
 
 London. I would not advise any one to fish for roach nearer than at Kichmond : 
 a few may be taken at Kew or Isle worth, but Richmond is one of the best 
 spots, just at the flow and ebb of the tide. 
 
 The river is now preserved from Isleworth to Staines by an excellent society, 
 sanctioned by each successive Lord Mayor, who is ex-officio conservator of the 
 Thames from the Medway to Staines, and called the *' Thames Angling Pre- 
 servation Society." The object of the Society, to the increase of whose funds 
 all anglers should contribute, is to suppress poaching and illegal netting, and 
 so augment the breed of fish. They have been hitherto successful to a great 
 extent. The preservation of the River is taken up at Staines by the " Thames 
 Trout Club," and continued to Maidenhead weir. This Club is also deserving 
 of support, as is also one high up the river near Goring. — Ed.J 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 199 
 
 of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet ; 
 and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands, till 
 it be both soft and tough too ; a very little water, and time 
 and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent 
 paste : but when you fish with it, you must have a small 
 Look, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and 
 the fish too ; if one may lose that which he never had. With 
 this paste you may, as I said, take both the Roach and Dace 
 or Dare, for they be much of a kind in matter of feeding, 
 
 cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore, take 
 this general direction for some other baits which may concern 
 you to take notice of They will bite almost at any fly, but 
 especially at ant-flies ; concerning which, take this direction, 
 for it is very good : 
 
 Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, 
 in which place you shall find them in the month of June, or 
 if that be too early in the year, then doubtless you may find 
 them in July, August, and most of September ; gather them 
 alive with both their wings, and then put them into a glass 
 that will hold a quart or a pottle ; but first put into the glass 
 a handful or more of the moist earth out of which you gather 
 them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said hillock, 
 and then put in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings : 
 lay a clod of earth over it, and then so many as are put into 
 the glass without bruising, will live there a month or more, 
 and be always in a readiness for you to fish with ; but if you 
 would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot, 
 or barrel of three or four gallons, which is better, then wash 
 your barrel with water and honey, and having put into it a 
 quantity of earth and grass roots, then put in your flies, and 
 
200 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year : these in any 
 stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for roach or dace, or 
 for a chub ; and your rule is, to fish not less than a handful 
 from the bottom. 
 
 I shall next tell you a winter bait for a roach, a dace, or 
 chub, and it is choicely good. Abovit All-hallowtide and so 
 till frost comes, when you see men ploughing up heath 
 ground, or sandy-ground or greenswards, then follow the 
 plough, and you shall find a white worm as big as two 
 maggots, and it hath a red head : you may observe in what 
 ground most are, for there the crows will be very watchful 
 and follow the plough very close ; it is all soft, and full of 
 whitish guts ; a worm, that is, in Norfolk and some other 
 counties, called a grub ; and is bred of the spawn or eggs of 
 a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground 
 under cow or horse-dung, and there rests all winter, and in 
 March or April comes to be first a red, and then a black 
 beetle. Gather a thousand or two of these, and put them 
 with a peck or two of their own earth, into some tub or firkin, 
 and cover and keep them so warm that the frost or cold air 
 or winds kill them not : these you may keep all winter, and 
 kill fish with them at any time ; and if you put some of them 
 into a little earth and honey, a day before you use them, you 
 will find them an excellent bait for bream, carp, or indeed for 
 almost any fish. 
 
 And after this manner you may also keep gentles all 
 winter ; which are a good bait then, and much the better for 
 being lively and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles 
 thus : take a piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick, hang 
 it in some corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay : 
 and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel and 
 scour themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever 
 you incline to fish ; and these gentles may be thus created 
 till after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gentles to 
 fish with all the year, then get a dead cat or a kite, and let it 
 be fly-blown ; and when the gentles begin to be alive and to 
 stir, then bury it and them in soft moist earth, but as free 
 from frost as you can ; and these you may dig up at any time 
 when you intend to use them : these will last till March, and 
 about that time turn to be flies. 
 
 But if you will be nice to foul your fingers, which good 
 anglers seldom are, then take this bait : get a handful of well- 
 made maltj and put into a dish of water ; and then wash and 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 201 
 
 rub it betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free 
 from liusks as you can ; then put that water from it, and put 
 a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something 
 that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to 
 boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become some- 
 what soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger 
 and thumb ; and when it is soft, then put your water from it, 
 and then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of 
 the corn upward, with the point of your knife take the back 
 part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of inward 
 husk on the corn, or else it is marred ; and then cut off that 
 sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear, 
 and so pull off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you, 
 and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so 
 your hook may enter ; and if your hook be small and good, 
 you will find this to be a very choice bait either for winter 
 or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the place 
 where your float swims. 
 
 And to take the roach and dace, a good bait is the young 
 brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their heads in blood ; 
 especially good for bream, if they be baked or hardened in 
 their husks in an oven, after the bread is taken out of it, or 
 hardened on a fire shovel ; and so also is the thick blood of 
 sheep, being half dried on a trencher, that so you may cut it 
 into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook, and a 
 little salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the 
 worse but better : this is taken to be a choice bait if rightly 
 ordered. 
 
 There be several oils of a strong smell that I have been 
 told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I 
 could say much ; but I remember I once carried a small 
 bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir Henry Wotton, they 
 were both chymical men, as a great present ; it was sent and 
 received, and used with great confidence ; and yet upon 
 inquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir 
 Henry, which, with the help of this and other circumstances, 
 makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk 
 of : not but that I think fishes both smell and hear, as I have 
 expressed in my former discourse ; but there is a mysterious 
 knack, which, though it be much easier than the philosopher's 
 stone, yet it is not attainable by common capacities, or else 
 lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chymical man, 
 that, like the Eosicrucians, will not yet reveal it. But let me 
 
202 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 nevertheless tell you, that camphor,* put with moss into your 
 / worm-bag with your worms, makes them, if many anglers be 
 ..^---vnot very much mistaken, a tempting bait, and the angler more 
 fortunate. But I stepped by chance into this discourse of 
 oils and fishes smelling ; and though there might be more 
 said, both of it and of baits for roach and dace and other float 
 fish, yet I will forbear it at this time,t and tell you in the 
 
 * AH scented baits are now justly repudiated. Perfuming a worm or any 
 other bait will do harm and not good. — Ed. 
 
 t Roach delight in gravelly or sandy bottoms ; their haunts, especially as 
 winter approaches, are clear, deep, and still waters : at other times they lie in 
 and near weeds, and under the shade of boughs. They spa•^^^l about the latter 
 end of May, when they are scabby and unwholesome, but they are again in 
 order in about three weeks : the largest are taken after Michaelmas, and their 
 prime season is in February or March. The baits for roach, not already men- 
 tioned, are cad-bait and oak-worms for the spring ; in May, ant's-eggs, and 
 paste made of the crumbs of a new roll, both white and tinged with red, which 
 is done by putting vermilion into the water wherewith you moisten it ; this 
 paste will do for the winter also. The largest roach in this kingdom are taken 
 in the Thames, where many have been caught of two pounds and a half 
 weight ; but roach of any size are hardly to be come at without a boat. The 
 haunts of dace are gravelly, sandy, and clayey bottoms ; deep holes that are 
 shaded ; water lily leaves, and under the foam caused by an eddy : in hot 
 weather they are to be found on the shallows, and are then best taken with an 
 artificial fly, grasshoppers, or gentles, as hereafter directed. 
 
 Dace spawn about the latter end of March, and are in season about three 
 weeks after ; they are not very good till about Michaelmas, and are best in 
 February. Baits for dace, other than those mentioned by Walton, are the oak- 
 worm, red-worm, brandling, gilt-tail, and indeed any worm bred on trees or 
 bushes, that is not too big for his mouth : almost all kinds of flies and cater- 
 pillars. Though dace are often caught with a float as roach, yet they are not 
 so properly float-fish ; for they are to be taken with an artificial gnat, or ant- 
 fly, or indeed, almost any other small fly in its season ; but in the Thames, 
 above Richmond, the largest are caught with a natural green or dun grass- 
 hopper, and sometimes with gentles ; with both which you are to fish, as with 
 an artificial fly ; they are not to be come at till about September, when the 
 weeds begin to rot ; but when you have found where they lie, which in a warm 
 day is generally on the shallows, 'tis incredible what havoc you may make : 
 pinch off the first joint of the grasshopper's legs, put the point of the hook in at 
 the head, and bring it out at the tail ; and in this way of fishing you will 
 catch chub, especially if you throw under the boughs. It is true, there is less 
 certainty of catching in this way than with a float or ground-bait : for which 
 reason, I would recommend it only to those who live near the banks of that 
 delightful river, between Windsor and Isleworth, who have or can command a 
 boat for that purpose, and can take advantage of a still, warm, gloomy day ; 
 and to such it will aff'ord much more diversion than the ordinary inartificial 
 method of fishing in the deeps for roach and dace. In fishing at bottom for 
 roach and dace, use for ground-bait, bread soaked about an hour in water, and 
 an equal quantity of bran ; knead them to a tough consistence, and make them 
 up into balls, with a small pebble in the middle; and throw these balls in 
 where you fish ; but be sure you throw them up the stream, for otherwise they 
 will draw the fish beyond the reach of your line. Fish for roach within six, 
 and for dace, within three inches of the bottom. — H. 
 
 [The remarks contained in the above note, written upwards of sixty years, 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 203 
 
 next place how you are to prepare your tackling ; concerning 
 which I will, for sport's sake, give you an old rhyme out of 
 an old fish-book which will prove a part, and but a part, of 
 what you are to provide. 
 
 My rod and my line, my float and my lead, 
 
 My hook and my plummet, my whetstone and knife, 
 
 My basket, my baits both living and dead, 
 My net, and my meat (for that is the chief) : 
 
 Then I must have thread, and hairs green and small, 
 
 With mine angling-purse — and so you have all. 
 
 But you must have all these tackling, and twice so many 
 more, with which, if you mean to be a fisher, you must store 
 yourself; and to that purpose, I will go with you either to 
 Mr. Margrave, who dwells amongst the booksellers in St. 
 Paul's Churchyard, or to Mr. John Stubs, near to the Swan 
 in Golden-lane ; they be both honest men, and will fit an 
 angler with what tackling he lacks. 
 
 Yen. Then, good master, let it be at for he is 
 
 nearest to my dwelling ; and I pray let us meet there the 
 ninth of May next, about two of the clock, and I'll want 
 nothing that a fisher should be furnished with. 
 
 Pisc. Well, and I'll not fail you (God willing) at the time 
 and place appointed. 
 
 Ven. I thank you, good master, and I will not fail you: 
 and, good master, tell me what baits more you remember, for 
 it will not now be long ere we shall be at Tottenham High- 
 cross, and when we come thither, I will make you some 
 requital of your pains, by repeating as choice a copy of verses 
 as any we have heard since we met together ; and that is a 
 proud word, for we have heard very good ones. 
 
 Pisc. Well, scholar, and I shall be then right glad to hear 
 them ; and I will, as we walk, tell you whatsoever comes in 
 my mind, that I think may be worth your hearing. You may 
 make another choice bait thus : take a handful or two of the 
 best and biggest wheat you can get, boil it in a little milk, 
 like as frumity is boiled ; boil it so till it be soft, and then fry 
 it very leisurely with honey, and a little beaten saffron dis- 
 solved in milk j and you will find this a choice bait, and good. 
 
 show that roach and dace fishing was well understood then. Much improve- 
 ment has taken place since in the methods of taking these interesting little 
 fish, and in the gear necessary for their successful capture. An explanation of 
 them would be too long for a note, therefore I shall give it at the end of this 
 chapter. — Ed.] 
 
204 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 I think, for any fish, especially for roach, dace, chub, or gray- 
 ling : I know not but that it may be as good for a river carp, 
 and especially if the ground be a little baited with it. 
 And you may also note that the spawn'^' of most fish is a 
 
 * Barker, who wrote very briefly but well about angling before Walton, 
 seems to have been the first to discover that the ova of the salmon tribe were 
 capital baits for several fresh-water fish. Indeed, they are a natural bait, 
 because when salmon and salmonidse are in the act of spawning, or depositing 
 their ova for the purpose of procreation, they are watched, not only by varieties 
 of their own genus and species, but by other fish, which devour the ova that 
 are washed away from the spawning beds by the current, and frequently dart 
 into the beds themselves to feed upon the spawn. It requires the united efforts 
 of the spawning fish to beat them off". Barker advises angling with the roe or 
 spawn in its raw state, which is very inconvenient and defective. To remedy 
 this it is now preserved, and the recipe for doing so is given underneath. 
 Barker, writing to Lord Montague, his patron, says : — 
 
 " Noble Lord, — I have found an experience of late, which you may angle 
 with, and take great store of this kind of fish. First, It is the best bait for a 
 trout that I have seen in all my time ; and will take great store, and not fail, 
 if they be there. Secondly, It is a special bait for dace or dare, good for chub 
 or bottlin, or grayling. The bait is the roe of a salmon or trout ; if it be a 
 large trout that the spawns be anything great, you may angle for the trout 
 with the bait as you angle with the brandling, taking a pair of scissors, and 
 cut so much as a large hazel nut, and bait your hook, so fall to your sport ; 
 there is no doubt of pleasure. If I had known it but twenty years ago, I 
 would have gained a hundred pounds only with that bait. I am bound in 
 duty to divulge it to your honour, and not to carry it to my grave with me. I 
 do desire that men of quality should have it that delight in that pleasure. The 
 greedy angler will murmur at me, but for that I care not. 
 
 " For the angling for the scale-fish, they must angle either with cork or 
 quill, plumming their ground, and with feeding with the same bait, taking 
 them asunder, that they may spread abroad, that the fish may feed and come 
 to your place : there is no doubt of pleasure, angling with fine tackle ; as 
 single hair lines, at least five or six lengths long, a small hook, with two or 
 three spawns. The bait will hold one week ; if you keep it on any longer, you 
 must hang it up to dry a little : when you go to your pleasure again, put the 
 bait in a little water, it will come in kind again." 
 
 Eecipe roR Preserving Salmon-roe. — It should be taken from the female 
 salmon a few days before she spawns, and the process of preservation should 
 commence immediately. As soon as the roe is taken from the fish, it must be 
 put in a capacious earthen pan, and cold water poured upon it. After a few 
 minutes' immersion, pour off the cold water, and pour in tepid water. Wash 
 the ova, and separate them delicately with your fingers, breaking none if you 
 can help it. Remove from them all skin. Pour off the water, and add some 
 more clean and warm. Continue to do so until the roe becomes quite clean, 
 and freed from all film. The water must not be too hot — a little more than 
 milk-warm. The last washing must be with cold water, which being drained 
 off, place the roe in a hair sieve until it be dry. To every pound of completely 
 cleansed roe put two ounces of ordinary salt, mixing well with the fingers, so 
 that each ovum be salted. Drain off the brine afterwards by placing the roe 
 in a sieve or cullender for a few hours. Place it, or rather spread it, on a 
 shallow dish, set half horizontally at a moderate distance from the fire, and 
 keep stirring with the handle of a wooden ladle, so that each pea of roe may 
 dry separately, and that there be no adhesion between any. When dry set it 
 to cool, and when quite cold pot it. Press it gently but closely down in 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 205 
 
 very tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile, 
 and cut into fit pieces. Nay, mulberries, and those black- 
 berries which grow upon briars, be good baits for chubs or 
 carps : with these many have been taken in ponds, and in 
 some rivers where such trees have grown near the water, and 
 the fruits customarily dropped in it. And there be a hundred 
 other baits, more than can be well named, which, by constant 
 baiting the water, will become a tempting bait for any fish 
 in it. 
 
 You are also to know, that there be divers kinds of cadis, 
 or case-worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several 
 distinct counties, and in several little brooks that relate to 
 bigger rivers ; as namely, one cadis called a piper, whose 
 husk or case is a piece of reed about an inch long, or longer, 
 and as big about as the compass of a two-pence. These worms 
 being kept three or four days in a woollen bag, with sand at 
 the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day, will in three or 
 four days turn to be yellow ; and these be a choice bait for 
 the chub or chavender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is 
 a large bait. 
 
 There is also a lesser cadis- worm, called a cock-spur, being 
 in fashion like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end ; and the 
 case or house, in which this dwells, is made of small husks 
 and gravel and slime, most curiously made of these, even so 
 as to be wondered at, but not to be made by man no more 
 than a king-fisher's nest can, which is made of little fishes' 
 bones, and have such a geometrical interweaving and connec- 
 tion, as the like is not to be done by the art of man : this 
 kind of cadis is a choice bait for any float-fish ; it is much 
 less than the piper-cadis, and to be so ordered ; and these 
 may be so preserved, ten, fifteen, or twenty days, or it may 
 be longer. 
 
 There is also another cadis, called by some a straw- worm, 
 and by some a rufi*-coat, whose house or case is made of little 
 pieces of bents, and rushes, and straws, and water- weeds, and 
 
 earthen pots, over which tie a piece of linen or bladder, on to which you have 
 melted a layer of lard. To bait with salmon-roe, take a fine needle, threaded 
 with fine red silk, knotted at the end. Pass the needle and silk through as 
 many roe as will cover your hook from the point to beyond the shank. Insert 
 the roe at the knotted end of the silk, on the point of your hook, and then 
 wind the others side by side in the bend and up the shank of the hook a little 
 beyond the arming. There fasten your silk, and cut away the end of it. Two 
 or three roe will be sufficient for small fish ; from six to a dozen for the middle 
 and large-sized ones. — Ed. 
 
206 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 T knoYf not what, which are so knit together with condensed 
 slime, that they stick about her husk or case, not unlike the 
 bristles of a hedgehog ; these three cadises are commonly 
 taken in the beginning of summer, and are good indeed to 
 take any kind of fish, with float or otherwise. I might tell 
 you of many more, which as these do early, so those have 
 their time also of turning to be flies later in summer ; but I 
 might lose myself and tire you by such a discourse : I shall 
 therefore but remember you, that to know these and their 
 several kinds, and to what flies every particular cadis turns, 
 and then how to use them, first as they be cadis, and after as 
 they be flies, is an art, and an art that every one that pro- 
 fesses to be an angler has not leisure to search after, and, if 
 he had. is not capable of learning. 
 
 I will tell you, scholar, several countries have several kinds 
 of cadises, that indeed difler as much as dogs do ; that is to 
 say, as much as a very cur and a greyhound do. These be 
 usually bred in the very little rills, or ditches, that run into 
 bigger rivers : and I tl/link, a more proper bait for those very 
 rivers than any other. I know not how or of what, this 
 cadis receives life, or what coloured fly it turns to ; but doubt- 
 less they are the death of many trouts ; and this is one killing 
 way: 
 
 Take one, or more if need be, of these large yellow cadis : 
 pull ofl" his head, and with it pull out his black gut ; put the 
 body, as little bruised as is possible, on a very little hook, 
 armed on with a red hair, which will show like the cadis head : 
 and a very little thin lead, so put upon the shank of the hook 
 that it may sink presently. Throw this bait, thus ordered, 
 which will look very yellow, into any great still hole where a 
 trout is, and he will presently venture his life for it, it is not 
 to be doubted, if you be not espied ; and that the bait first 
 touch the water before the line. And this will do best in 
 the deepest water. 
 
 Next let me tell you, I have been much pleased to walk 
 quietly by a brook with a little stick in my hand, with which 
 I might easily take these, and consider the curiosity of their 
 composure : and if you shall ever like to do so, then note, 
 that your stick must be^a little hazel or willow, cleft, or have 
 a nick at one end of it ; by which means you may with ease 
 take many of them in that nick out of the water, before you 
 have any occasion to use them. These, my honest scholar, 
 are some observations told to you as they now come suddenly 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 207 
 
 into my memory, of wliicli you may make some use ; but for 
 the practical part, it is that that makes an angler : it is dili- 
 gence, and observation, and practice, and an ambition to be 
 the best in the art, that must do it.'^ I will tell you, scholar, -, 
 I once heard one say, "I envy not him that eats better meat \ 
 than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes 
 than I do ; I envy nobody but him, and him only, that j 
 catches more fish than I do." And such a man is like to 
 prove an angler; and this noble emulation I wish to you and 
 all young anglers. 
 
 [Roach and Dace Fishing. — The text of the preceding chapter 
 contains much useful information on angling for roach and dace, and on 
 the procuring and preserving of gentles and other baits. I shall not have 
 a great deal to add to it. Tliere are no better elementary exercises for 
 
 * The author has now done describing the several kinds of fish, excepting 
 the few little ones that follow, with the different methods of taking them, but 
 has said little or nothing of float-fishing ; it may not be amiss here to lay 
 down some rules about it. Let the rod be light and stiff, and withal so smart 
 in the spring, as to strike at the tip of the whalebone ; from fourteen to 
 fifteen feet is a good length. In places where you sometimes meet with barbel, 
 as at Shepperton and Hampton, in Middlesex, the fittest line is one of six or 
 seven hairs at top ; and so diminishing ibr two yards, let the rest be strong 
 Indian grass, to within about half a yard of the hook, which may be whipped 
 to a fine grass or silk-worm cut ; and this line will kill a fish of six pounds 
 weight. But for mere roach and dace fishing, accustom yourself to a single- 
 hair line, with which an artist may kill a fish a pound and a half weight. For 
 your float, in slow streams, a neat round goose-quill is proper ; but for deep or 
 rapid rivers, or in an eddy, the cork, shaped like a pear, is indisputably the 
 best ; which should not, in general, exceed the size of a nutmeg ; let not the 
 quill, which you put through it, be more than half an inch above and below 
 the cork; and this float, though some prefer a swan's quill, has great advantage 
 over a bare quill ; for the quill being defended from the water by the cork, 
 does not soften, and the cork enables you to lead your line so heavily, as that 
 the hook sinks almost as soon as you put it into the water ; whereas, when you 
 lead but lightly, it does not get to the bottom till it is near the end of your 
 swim. In leading your lines, be careful to balance them so nicely, that a very 
 small touch will sink them ; some use for this purpose lead shaped like a 
 barley-corn, but there is nothing better to lead with than shot, which you must 
 have ready cleft always with you; remembering that when you fish fine, it is 
 better to have on your line a great number of small than a few large shot. 
 WJiip the end of the quill round the plug with fine silk, well waxed ; this will 
 keep the water out of your float, and preserve it greatly. In fishing with a 
 float, your line must be about a foot shorter than your rod ; for if it is longer, 
 you cannot so well command your hook when you come to disengage your 
 fish.— H. 
 
 [I give the above note because it contains some instructions by which the 
 angler may make a few necessary articles. Residents in towns need not make 
 them, as they will find them at the fishing-tackle sliops ready made, cheaper 
 and better than they can be made by amateur hands. Nothing can exceed 
 the excellence of the floats sold at the shops, and cork floats are sold cheaply 
 of every size, shape and colour. Hair bottom lines are almost obsolete, for gut 
 can be found finer and stronger than hair. — Ed.] 
 
208 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 young anglers, than those that can be gone through in fishing for roach 
 and dace. He that succeeds in bottom -fishing well for roach, and in fly- 
 fishing for dace, will soon, if he have ambition, be able to cope with the 
 largest of the carp tribe, with the salmon, and his numerous family, from 
 the sea-trout to the grayling. I cannot conceive why Walton should 
 have written, " that the roach is accounted the water- sheep for his sim- 
 plicity^and foolishness." In my opinion, the roach, next to the carp, is 
 the " ^cutest"' member of the race. Under water he is tormentingly shy, 
 and unless you tempt him with the most delicate baits, and the very 
 finest tackle, you will have no chance of alluring him. Roach fishing 
 requires the smallest hooks, the thinnest foot-line, and a very long, very 
 light, and moderately elastic rod. Your float of prepared quUl should 
 yield to a next to imperceptible nibble. See what the late Mr. Blaine 
 says of this bashful and pretty fish. — " The best season for roach fishing 
 is from autumn until the following spring. In May they usually spawn; 
 occasionally it is both earlier and later : after they have spawned, they 
 continue out of season for several weeks, hardly recovering until the latter 
 end of July, which is not to be wondered at when we consider the debili- 
 tating effect of such a quantity of ova, the grains of which, in a single 
 fish, have been reckoned, and were found to amount to fifty-four thousand, 
 which must consequently require a very copious supply of milt from the 
 male to fecundate. Roach angling offers much interest to the piscatory 
 zealots, w^ho are shut out from the higher pursuits of fly-fishing. The 
 roach is an elegant fish when taken, and we have shown that it requires 
 some skill to deceive it, while its game qualities are such that it contests 
 the matter with the angler to the last, so as to yield no small triumph 
 when landed. We have seen a roach of a pound weight in a strong 
 current in the Thames, raise the blood to the face of an angler of fair 
 fame. They also, when in condition, bite freely ; but we consider the 
 principal hold they have, or ought to have on the angler, is, their great 
 plenty, the numerous methods that may be employed to take them, to 
 which may be added, the time of the year that sport may be obtained 
 with them, which is, when few other fish yield any. From the bottom 
 of the water, every inch of the way up to the surface, they may be fished 
 for in various manners; and when they are sunning themselves at the top, 
 they will take a fly with the best. No fish whatever exerts the capabilities 
 of the angler so much as this : even the grayling (whose versatihty in 
 yielding sport is great also) must nevertheless give place to the roach, a 
 precedence which, we think, will always rank it as a distinguished mem- 
 ber in the piscatory list ; and this opinion, from one devotedly fond of 
 fly-fishing, may be considered as something in favour of its tribe and 
 qualities." The best baits for roach are, clean simple or sweet pastes, and 
 good small gentles; and in the spring months, small well-scoured brand- 
 lings and little red worms. In summer and autumn they will take arti- 
 ficial flies, little red, brown, and black hackles, small duns, the black gnat, 
 and red and brown artificial ant-flies. They will take these flies best, if 
 they be sunk four or six inches under water. A thin strip of light yellow 
 kid leather, wound from the tail of the artificial fiy, nearly as far as the 
 barb of the hook, will be an improvement. Foot-lines for roach are fre- 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 209 
 
 quently made of single horse-hair of a hght brown colour. Perhaps 
 they are the best, but as gut can be had finer than horse-hair and much 
 stronger, I think it preferable. Between the float and the top of the 
 rod there should not be more than a yard of line, and it should descend 
 from the rod's point perpendicularly. Prompt striking, with an oblique 
 twist, of the wrist is necessary. 
 
 The dace is a merry little fellow, reckless and gamesome, and therefore 
 I like him much. He bites at the bottom more freely than the roach, 
 and takes an artificial fly on the surface far more eagerly. He is the very 
 best fish to initiate the youthful Cotton into the art and mysteries of that 
 by far the most pleasant of piscatory practices — fly-fishing. They fre- 
 quent shallows, rapids, and eddies, and in them they w411 take well the 
 artificial flies recommended for roach. In the late summer and early 
 autumn months they prefer deep, still, sheltered waters, and then must 
 be angled for with paste and gentles. In spring and early summer they 
 take small worms with avidity. There are plenty of them in the Lea, 
 and the Colne is famous for them of large size. In the latter river the}^ 
 take the artificial fly as eagerly as trout or grayling. In the shallows at 
 Isleworth, Twickenham, Kichmond, Teddington, Thames Ditton, Hamp- 
 ton, Sunbury, Walton, HalUford, Weybridge, Shepperton, Laleham, 
 Chertsey, Penton Hook, Staines, and indeed, in all the streams up to 
 Henley and beyond it. With an excellent extract from Blaine, and one 
 from Captain Williamson, I shall conclude the subject of dace fishing. 
 Blaine truly says, "Dace bottom-fishing is not very different from that for 
 roach, and the one is frequently taken when trying for the other, particu- 
 larly in the autumn, when both retire for a while into the deep currents 
 of rivers. Thus it is that roach and dace fishing is at that time a com- 
 mon sport, as it were, but does not continue long so ; for dace, during 
 the dead winter months, retreat to still deeps, and are not so easily 
 tempted to bite then as roach. Dace are also often taken, with barbel, 
 in the autumn months, \vhich shows that they are then beginning to 
 feed low, and are very seldom tempted by the fly at the surface after- 
 wards. The tackle for dace bottom-angling should be similar to that for 
 roach, and the baits also should be the same. To roach fishing, therefore, 
 we refer our reader for the necessary information ; but it may be ob- 
 served, that when dace are purposely fished for, without reference to the 
 taking of roach, a larger hook and larger bait may be used; and if the 
 water be strong, for instance, as a mill-race, etc. etc., employ a gut-line 
 and cork float. During the spring season, worms of most kinds (but the 
 red in particular), caddies, larva) of beetles, or grubs and bobs of all sorts, 
 as well as small caterpillars, are proper baits ; for they all form, at this 
 period, the natural food of dace. In this way they will take small water- 
 snails also. In the hot summer months, gentles take the lead; in autumn, 
 greaves and pastes, particularly salmon-roe, are killing. Like roach, 
 they are more frequently taken at the bottom than at mid-w^ater; a 
 tripping-bait is, therefore, the best for them in general cases, but during 
 the summer months it is not always necessary to fish so deep. On the 
 contrary, caddies, bobs, and worms, are often taken by them more 
 readily in currents at nine or ten inches from the ground, or even a little 
 
 O 
 
210 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 below mid-water at great depths. In shallows of two or three feet 
 deep only, particularly in such as lie in the angle of two sharp streams, 
 or where a swift brook enters a river, or between the race- courses of mill- 
 wheels, where there is a sort of still back-water, set the bait to within 
 four inches of the ground. In these spots dace are usually found waiting 
 for the worms and insects that may be brought down, and which, as the 
 eddy whirls them into the still, by its circular impetus, present them- 
 selves to the fish in the most tempting form. To imitate this, use a 
 light line with a very fine cork, or large quill float, drop it within the 
 edge of the current, so as to gain from it the circular motion for the 
 bait you offer, which may be worm, gentle, or caddis, etc. By this 
 method dace after dace may be taken, as fast nearly as you drop in the 
 line ; and we have ourselves, in such situations, basketed two or three 
 dozen at a time. In most other cases, however, they are not so sta- 
 tionary as roach, and it is necessary to shift the fishing gromid often to 
 meet with them. Dace bite sharp, and must be struck quickly; they 
 also plunge violently at first, and should the tackle be very fine, they must 
 be guardedly played, or they may endanger it." Ground-baiting for dace 
 over-night is not absolutely necessary, but follow Captain Williamson's 
 advice, viz. : "In dace-fishing throw in now and then some balls made 
 of brown (by roasting) oatmeal and treacle, or some coarsely ground 
 malt." The roach is called Cyprinus Rutilus^ from the red colour of its 
 fins ; the dace Cyprinus Alhurnus, from the bright hue of its scales and 
 belly. I recommend the latter to the patient pursuit of the incij^ient 
 fly-fisher ; the former to the steady perseverance of the young bottom- 
 fisher.— Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OP THE MINNOW OR PENK, OF THE LOACH, AND OF THE BULL-HEAD 
 OR miller's THUMB. 
 
 l£\ix\) ©ay.] 
 
 Pisc. There be also three or four other little fish that I 
 had almost forgot, that are all without scales, and may for 
 excellency of meat be compared to any fish of greatest value 
 and largest size. They be usually full of eggs or S23awn all 
 the months of summer ; for they breed often, as it is observed 
 mice, and many of the smaller four-footed creatures of the 
 earth do ; and as those, so these, come quickly to their full 
 growth and perfection. And it is needful tliat they breed 
 both often and numerously, for they be, besides other accidents 
 of ruin, both a prey and baits for other fish. And first, I 
 shall tell you of the Minnow or Penk. 
 
THE COMPI.ETE ANGLER. 
 
 211 
 
 The minnow hath, when he is in perfect season, and not 
 sick, whicli is only presently after spawning, a kind of 
 dappled or waved colour, like to a panther, on his sides, in- 
 clining to a greenish and sky-colour, his belly being milk 
 white, and his back almost black or blackish. He is a sharp 
 biter at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent 
 sport for young anglers, or boys, or women that love that 
 recreation, and in the spring they make of them excellent 
 minnow-tansies ; for being washed well in salt, and their 
 heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not 
 washed after, they prove excellent for that use ; that is, being 
 fried with yolks of eggs, the flowers of cowslips, and of prim- 
 roses, and a little tansy ; thus used they make a dainty dish 
 of meat. 
 
 The Loach is, as I told you, a most dainty fish ; he breeds 
 and feeds in little and clear swift brooks or rills, and lives 
 there upon the gravel, and in the sharpest streams : he grows 
 not to be above a finger long, and no thicker than is suitable 
 to that length. This loach is not unlike the shape of the eel ; 
 he has a beard or wattles like a barbel. He has two fins at 
 his sides, four at his belly, and one at his tail ; he is dappled 
 with many black or brown spots, his mouth is barbel-like 
 under his nose. This fish is usually full of eggs or spawn ; 
 and is by Gesner, and other learned physicians, commended 
 for great nourishment, and to be very grateful both to the 
 palate and stomach of sick persons : he is to be fished for 
 with a very small worm at the bottom, for he very seldom or 
 
 MINNOW, liOACH, AND MIL-EB 3 THUMB. 
 
 o2 
 
212 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 never rises above tlie gravel, on which I told you he usually 
 gets his living. 
 
 The Miller's-Thumb, or Bull-head, is a fish of no pleasing 
 shape. 
 
 He is by Gesner compared to the sea-toad-fish, for his 
 similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much 
 greater than suitable to his body ; a mouth very wide, and 
 usually gaping ; he is without teeth, but his lips are very 
 rough, much like to a file. He hath two fins near to his 
 gills, which be roundish or crested ; two fins also imder the 
 belly ; two on the back ; one below the vent ; and the fin of 
 his tail is round. Nature hath painted the body of this fish 
 with whitish, blackish, and brownish spots.* They be usually 
 full of eggs or spawn all the summer, I mean the females ; 
 and those eggs swell their vents almost into the form of a 
 dug. They begin to spawn about April, and, as I told you, 
 spawn several months in the summer. And in the winter, 
 the minnow, and loach, and bull-head, dwell in the mud, as 
 the eel doth ; or we know not where, no more than we know 
 where the cuckoo and swallow, and other half-year birds, 
 which first appear to us in April, spend their six cold, winter, 
 melancholy months. This fish does usually dwell, and hide 
 himself, in holes, or amongst stones in clear water ; and in 
 very hot days will lie a long time very still, and sun himself, 
 and will be easy to be seen upon any flat stone, or any 
 gravel ; ax which time he will suffer an angler to put a hook, 
 baited with a small worm, very near unto his mouth ; and he 
 never refuses to bite, nor indeed to be caught with the worst 
 of anglers. Matthiolust commends him much more for his 
 taste and nourishment, than for his shape or beauty. 
 
 * Since Walton wrote, there has been brought into England, from Germany, 
 a species of small fish, resembling carp in shape and colour, called " crusians," 
 v/ith which many ponds are now plentifully stocked. There have also been 
 brought hither from China those beautiful creatures, gold and silver fish : the 
 first are of an orange colour, with very shining scales, and finely variegated 
 with black and dark brown ; the silver fish are of the colour of silver tissue, 
 with scarlet fins, with which colour they are curiously marked in several parts 
 of the body. These fish are usually kept in ponds, basins, and small reservoirs 
 of water, to which they are a delightful ornament. And it is now a very 
 common practice to keep them in a large glass vessel like a punch-bowl, with 
 fine gravel strewed at the bottom ; frequently changing the water, and feeding 
 them with bread and gentles. Those who can take more pleasure in angling 
 for than in beholding them (which I confess I could never do), may catch 
 them with gentles ; but though costly, they are but coarse food. — H. 
 
 t Petrus Andreas Matthiolus, of Sienna, an eminent physician of the 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 213 
 
 There is also a fish called a Sticklebag, a fish without 
 scales, but hath his body fenced with several prickles. I 
 know not where he dwells in winter, nor what he is good for 
 in summer, but only to make sport for boys and women- 
 anglers, and to feed other fish that be fish of prey, as trout 
 in particular, who will bite at him as at a penk, and better, 
 if your hook be rightly baited with him ; for he may be so 
 baited as, his tail turning like the sail of a windmill, will 
 make him turn more quick than any penk or minnow can. 
 For note, that the nimble turning of that, or the minnow, is 
 the perfection of minnow fishing. To which end, if you put 
 your hook into his mouth, and out at his tail, and then, 
 having first tied him with white thread a little above his 
 tail, and placed him after such a manner on your hook, as he 
 is like to turn, then sew up his mouth to your line, and he 
 is like to turn quick, and tempt any trout ; but if he do not 
 turn quick, then turn his tail a little more or less towards 
 the inner part, or towards the side of the hook, or put the 
 minnow, or sticklebag, a little more crooked or more straight 
 on your hook, until it will turn both true and fast, and then 
 doubt not but to tempt any great trout that lies in a swift 
 stream.* And the loach that I told you of will do the 
 like : no bait is more tempting, provided the loach be not 
 too big. 
 
 And now, scholar, with the help of this fine morning, and 
 your patient attention, I have said all that my present memory 
 will afibrd me, concerning most of the several fish that are 
 usually fished for in fresh waters. 
 
 Yen. But, master, you have, by your former civility, made 
 me hope that you will make good your promise, and say 
 something of the several rivers that be of most note in this 
 nation ; and also of fish-ponds, and the ordering of them ; 
 and do it, I pray, good master, for I love any discourse of 
 rivers, and fish and fishing ; the time spent in such discourse 
 passes away very pleasantly. 
 
 sixteenth century, famous for his commentaries on some of the writings of 
 Dioscorides. 
 
 * See remarks on spinning for trout at the close of chap. 5. — Ed. 
 
 ^^^^^ 
 
2U 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF SEVERAL RIVERS, AND SOME OBSERVATIONS OF FISH. 
 
 [JFift!) Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. Well, scliolar, since the ways and weather do both 
 favour us, and that we yet see not Tottenham Cross, you 
 shall see my willingness to satisfy your desire. And first, 
 for the rivers of this nation, there be, as you may note out 
 of Doctor Heylin's Geography, and others, in number 325, 
 but those of chiefest note he reckons and describes as fol- 
 loweth : 
 
 1. The chief is Thamesis, compounded of two rivers, Thame 
 and Isis, whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond Thame 
 in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Glou- 
 cestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire j 
 the issue of which happy conjunction is the Thamesis, or 
 Thames ; hence it flieth between Berks, Buckinghamshire, 
 Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex : and so weddeth himself 
 to the Kentish Med way, in the very jaws of the ocean. This 
 glorious river, feeleth the violence and benefit of the sea more 
 than any river in Europe, ebbing and flowing twice a day, 
 more than sixty miles ; about whose banks are so many fair 
 towns and princely palaces that a German* poet thus truly 
 spake : 
 
 *'Tot campos," etc. 
 
 We saw so many woods and princely bowers, 
 Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers, 
 So many gardens dress'd with curious care. 
 That Thames with royal Tiber may compare. 
 
 2. The second river of note is Sabrina, or Severn ; it hath 
 its beginning in Plynlimmon-hill in Montgomeryshire, and 
 his end seven miles from Bristol, washing, in the mean space, 
 the walls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester, and 
 divers other places and palaces of note. 
 
 * Who this German poet was I cannot find ; but the verses, in the original 
 Latin, are in " Heylin's Cosmography," p. 240, and are as follow: — 
 Tot campos, sylvas, tot regia tecta, tot hortos, 
 Artifici exeultos dextra, tot vidimus arces ; 
 Ut nunc Ausonio, Thamesis, cum Tibride certet. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER, 215 
 
 3. Trent, so called from thirty kind of fishes""* that are 
 found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers ; who, 
 ha^dng its fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the 
 counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester, and York, aug- 
 menteth the turbulent current of Humber, the most violent 
 stream of all the isle. This Humber is not, to say truth, a 
 distinct river, having a spring-head of his own, but it is 
 rather the mouth or aestuarian of divers rivers here conliuent, 
 and meeting together, namely, your Derwent, and especially 
 of Ouse and Trent ; and (as the Danow, having received into 
 its channel trie river Dravus^ Savus, Tibiscus, and divers 
 others) changeth his name into this of Humberabus, as the 
 old geographers call it. 
 
 4. Med way, a Kentish river, famous for harbouring the 
 royal navy. 
 
 5. Tweed, the north-east bound of England ; on whose 
 northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town of 
 Berwick. 
 
 6. Tyne, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible coal- 
 pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus compre- 
 hended in one of Mr. Drayton's sonnets. 
 
 Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd ; 
 
 And stately Severn for her shore is praised ; 
 The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown' d ; 
 
 And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is raised. 
 
 Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee ; 
 
 York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; 
 The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be ; 
 
 And Kent will say, her IMedway doth excel. 
 
 Cotswold commends her Isis to the Thame ; 
 
 Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood ; 
 Our western parts extol their Willy's fame ; 
 
 And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood, f 
 
 These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and my 
 old deceased friend, Michael Drayton; and because you say 
 you love such discourses as these, of rivers and fish and fish- 
 ing, I love you the better, and love the more to impart them 
 to you ; nevertheless, scholar, if I should begin but to name 
 
 * Some say because it has thirty (trcnte) tributaries. It is more likely that 
 tlie Trent had that number of streams, great and small, running into it, than 
 that it ever produced thirty different varieties offish. — Ed. 
 
 t The Danes, in the time of King Alfred, entered the Lea ; and ascending it 
 in their small ships to a distance of twenty miles, built a castle on its banks 
 near Hertford or Ware : hence the allusion, " Danish blood." — Ed. 
 
216 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 tlie several sorts of strange fisli that are usually taken in 
 many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might beget 
 wonder in you, or unbelief, or both ; and yet I will venture 
 to tell you a real truth concerning one lately dissected by Dr. 
 Wharton, a man of great learning and experience, and of 
 equal freedom to communicate it ; one that loves me and my 
 art ; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the 
 choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good 
 man, that dares to do anything rather than tell an untruth, 
 did, I say, tell me he had lately dissected one strange fish, and 
 he thus described it to me : 
 
 " The fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length ; 
 his mouth wide enough to receive, or take into it, the head 
 of a man ; his stomach seven or eight inches broad. He is of 
 a slow motion, and usually lies or lurks close in the mud, and 
 has a moveable string on his head, about a span or near unto 
 a quarter of a yard long, by the moving of which, with his 
 natural bait, when he lies close and unseen in the mud, he 
 draws other fish so close to him that he can suck them into 
 his mouth, and so devours and digests them." 
 
 And, scholar, do not wonder at this, for besides the credit 
 of the relator, you are to note, many of these, and fishes that 
 are of the like and more unusual shapes, are very often taken 
 on the mouths of our sea-rivers, and on the sea-shore. And 
 this will be no wonder to any that have travelled Egypt ; 
 where 'tis known, the famous river Nilus does not only breed 
 fishes that yet want names, but by the overflowing of that 
 river, and the help of the sun's heat on the fat slime which 
 that river leaves on the banks when it falls back into its 
 natural channel, such strange fish and beasts are also bred, 
 that no man can give a name to, as Grotius, in his " Soj)hom," 
 and others, have observed. 
 
 But whither am I strayed in this discourse. I will end it 
 by telling you, that at the mouth of some of these rivers of 
 ours herrings are so plentiful, as namely, near to Yarmouth 
 in Norfolk, and in the west country, pilchers so very plentiful, 
 as you will wonder to read Avhat our learned Camden relates 
 of them in his "Britannia," p. 178, 186. 
 
 Well, scholar, I will stop here, and tell you what by read- 
 ing and conference I have observed concerning fish-ponds. 
 
217 
 
 CHAPTEH XX. 
 
 OF FISH-PONDS, AND HOW TO ORDER THEM. 
 
 [jfim Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. Doctor Lebault, the learned Freucliman, in liis large 
 discourse of Maison Rustique,'^ gives this direction for making 
 of fish-ponds ; I shall refer you to him to read at large, but 
 I think I shall contract it, and yet make it as useful. 
 
 He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, and 
 made the earth firm where the head of the pond must be, 
 that you must then, in that place, drive in two or three rows 
 of oak or elm piles, which should be scorched in the fire, or 
 half-burnt, before they be driven into the earth ; for being 
 thus used, it preserves them much longer from rotting : and 
 having done so, lay faggots or bavins of smaller wood be- 
 twixt them, and then earth betwixt and above them, and 
 then having first very well rammed them and the earth, use 
 another pile in like manner as the first were : and note, that 
 the second pile is to be of or about the height that you intend 
 to make your sluice or flood-gate, or the vent that you intend 
 shall convey the overflowings of your pond in any flood that 
 shall endanger the breaking of the pond-dam. 
 
 Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers about it, 
 or both, and then cast in bavins in some places, not far from 
 the side, and in the most sandy places, for fish both to spawn 
 upon, and to defend tliem and the young fry from, the many 
 fish, and also from vermin that lie at watch to destroy them, 
 especially the spawn of the carp and tench, when 'tis left to 
 the mercy of ducks or vermin. 
 
 He and Dubravius, and all others advise, that you make 
 choice of such a place for your pond, that it may be refreshed 
 with a little rill, or with rain-water, running or falling into 
 it ; by which, fish are more inclined both to breed, and are 
 also refreshed and fed the better, and do prove to be of a 
 much sweeter and more pleasant taste. 
 
 * This book, translated into English by Richard Surflet, and corrected by 
 Gervase Markham, is extant, under the title of " The Country Farm." London, 
 
 1616, folio. 
 
218 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 To wh icli end it is observed, that such pools as be large, aud 
 have most gravel and shallows where fish may sport them- 
 selves, do afford fish of the purest taste. And note, that in 
 all pools, i t is best for fish to have some retiring place ; as 
 namely, hollow banks, or shelves, or roots of trees, to keep 
 them from danger ; and when they think fit, from the ex- 
 treme heat of the summer; as also, from the extremity of 
 cold in winter. And note, that if many trees be growing 
 about your pond, the leaves thereof, falling into the water, 
 make it nauseous to the fish, and the fish to be so to the 
 eater of it. 
 
 'Tis noted that the tench and eel love mud : and the carp 
 loves gravelly ground, and in the hot months to feed on grass. 
 You are to cleanse your pond, if you intend either profit or 
 pleasure, once every three or four years (especially some 
 ponds), and then let it lie dry six or twelve months, both to 
 kill the water- weeds, as water-lilies, candocks, reate, and bul- 
 rushes, that breed there ; and also that as these die for want 
 of water , so grass may grow in the pond's bottom, which carps 
 will eat greedily in all the hot months, if the pond be clean. 
 The lett ing your pond dry, and sowing oats in the bottom, is 
 also goo d, for the fish feed the faster : and being sometimes 
 let dry, you may observe what kind of fish either increases or 
 thrives best in that water ; for they differ much, both in their 
 breeding and feeding. 
 
 Leba ult also advises, that if your ponds be not very large 
 and ro omy, that you often feed your fish by throwing into 
 them chippings of bread, curds, grains, or the entrails of 
 chicke ns or of any fowl or beast that you kill to feed your- 
 selves ; for these afford fish a great relief He says, that 
 frogs and ducks do much harm, and devour both the spawn 
 and t he young fry of all fish, especially of the carp ; and I 
 have, besides experience, many testimonies of it. But Lebault 
 allow s water- frogs to be good meat, especially in some months, 
 if they be fat : but you are to note, that he is a Frenchman ; 
 and w e English will hardly believe him, though we know 
 frogs are usually eaten in his country : however, he advises 
 to d e stroy them and king-fishers out of your ponds. And he 
 adv is es not to suffer much shooting at wild fowl ; for that, he 
 says, affright ens and harms and destroys the fish. 
 
 N ote, that carps and tench thrive and breed best when no 
 other fish is put with them into the same pond ; for all other 
 fish devour their spawn, or at least the greatest part of it. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 219 
 
 And note, that clods of grass thrown into any pond, feed any 
 carps in summer ; and that garden-earth and parsley thrown 
 into a pond recovers and refreshes the sick fish. And note, 
 that when you store your pond, you are to put into it two or 
 three melters for one spawner, if you put them into a breeding 
 pond ; but if into a nurse-pond or feeding pond, in which 
 they will not breed, then no care is to be taken, whether there 
 be most male or female carps. 
 
 It is observed, that the best ponds to breed carps are those 
 that be stony or sandy, and are warm and free from wind, and 
 that are not deep, but have willow trees and grass on their 
 sides, over which the water sometimes flows : and note, that 
 carps do more usually breed in marle-pits, or pits that have 
 clean clay-bottoms, or in new ponds, or ponds that lie dry a 
 winter season, than in old ponds that be full of mud and 
 weeds. 
 
 Well, scholar, I have told you the substance of all that 
 either observation, or discourse, or a diligent survey of Du- 
 bravius and Lebault hath told me : not that they in their long- 
 discourses have not said more ; but the most of the rest are 
 so common observations, as if a man should tell a good arith- 
 metician, that twice two is four. I will therefore put an end 
 to this discourse, and we will here sit down and rest us.^' 
 
 [Mr. Gottlieb Boccius is one of the best practical breeders of river-fish 
 amongst us. He has written a "Treatise on River-Fish," from which, with 
 his permission, I make the following extracts : — 
 
 " The Ponds or Stews. — These ought to be three in number, and it 
 is requisite to make choice of a slight elevation for the first pond. If 
 
 * It is observable that the author has said very little of pond-fishing, 
 which is, in truth, a dull recreation ; and to which I have heard it objected, 
 that fish in ponds are already caught Nevertheless I find, that in the canal at 
 St. James's Park, which, though a large one, is yet a pond, it was, in the reign 
 of Charles II., the practice of ladies to angle. 
 
 "Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides, 
 
 And plays about the gilded barges' sides ; 
 
 The ladies, angling in the crystal lake. 
 
 Feast on the waters with the prey they take : 
 
 At once victorious with their lines and eyes. 
 
 They make the fishes and the men their prize." 
 — Waller, " Poem on St. James's Park," lately improved hy His Majesty.— H . 
 [Pond-fishing is not now " a dull recreation." The very best bottom-fishing 
 and trolling for pike are, at the present day, to be had in our ponds and reser- 
 voirs. Nor is it at all correct to say, " that fish in ponds are already caught" ; 
 for instance, to catch carp with rod and line is an angling feat very difficult to 
 perform. — Ed.] 
 
220 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 possible this should be so situated that it may receive the drainings of a 
 village, or at any rate proximity to a farm is desirable, as all the refuse 
 washings from such places supply food to a large extent. 
 
 " The object in having the first pond higher than the others, is that a 
 supply of water may pass from it to the lower ones in succession : the ponds 
 being connected by a water-course and protected by flood-gates, must have 
 sufficient depth and descent to allow the whole of the water to pass oft* 
 readily to the next in succession. 
 
 " The ponds ought not to be nearer to each other than one hundred 
 yards : the greater the distance between them the better, as each can then 
 have the benefit of the refuse washings of the neighbourhood and adjoin- 
 ing fields, which will of course contribute largely to the support of the 
 stock. Moreover, by having a long water-course between the ponds, 
 when either of them is sluiced off, or as the term is * fished/ that part of 
 the store, which invariably escapes with the fall of water, can be recovered 
 in a much cleaner and consequently more healthy state than those which 
 are left behind in the slam or mud. 
 
 " Clay soils are not genial to fish ; therefore light loamy or gravelly 
 bottoms ought to be chosen for the ponds ; if, however, the clay is not 
 too deep, and by excavating it yellow sand can be reached, then it 
 will leave an equally soft and pure bottom, the sides being of less im- 
 portance. 
 
 " In clay bottoms the fish do not thrive, from want of food, in conse- 
 quence of the water partaking of the racy* quality of the earth, which 
 from its cold and sterile nature does not afford the nutriment requisite 
 for the maintenance of the larvse of insects, worms, and other minute 
 living creatures, in sufficient number, and so keeps the stock lean and 
 unfit for food. 
 
 " In forming ponds, particular care ought to be taken to make the sides 
 shelve gradually for about six yards ; and they are on no account to be 
 deep at the sides, firstly, on account of the sward nom-ishing large quan- 
 tities of insects, etc., the legitimate food of the fish ; secondly, the ponds 
 arc not so easily poached, the shallows being protected by stakes ; and 
 thirdly, protection is afforded to the brood. 
 
 " The only deep that ought to exist at either side should be near the 
 sluice or floodgate, where it should be twelve or eighteen inches deeper 
 than the rest of the pond, in order that when the water is drawn off, the 
 fish may be collected into a close space, and when the sluice is again 
 closed, an accumulation of water may immediately take place, sufficient 
 for the protection of the brood or succeeding store. 
 
 " In the rainy season it is always advisable to let the ponds fill to the 
 full extent of their prescribed boundaries, as this not only brings a large 
 proportion of food from the adjacent grounds, but when the water is 
 again let oft' or recedes, the borders produce luxuriant and tender herb- 
 age, peculiarly adapted for the food of carp, and upon which that fish 
 feeds greedily in rainy weather, and may frequently be observed flounder- 
 
 * Racy is the term for a species of iron-stone sand found in clay strata. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 221 
 
 iiig half out of his watery element in order to obtain his favourite 
 morsel. 
 
 "As all foliage is pernicious, and the decomposition highly injurious to 
 fish, especially to the fry or brood, it must be fully borne in mind that 
 trees or shrubs should never be planted on the borders or margins of the 
 ponds ; but if ornament be required, then only at a sufficient distance, for 
 it is equally necessary to have a free action of air passing over the surface, 
 as it is to have pure and wholesome water, in fact the removal of trees 
 contributes largely to effect both. 
 
 " Fish grown by these directions will not only prove fat, but of a far 
 superior flavour to those taken from common and ill-regulated ponds 
 or stews. 
 
 " If the first pond should get an over-accumulated store of water, it 
 must be let off by the sluice into the second, and so on to the third, and 
 then be suffered to run waste, for no pond ought on any account to 
 overflow or break its boundaries, as by so doing and by conveying the 
 fish to the next pond, it injures that stew by introducing fish of different 
 growths, and so proves ultimately a serious loss ; food would be then 
 insufficient for their joint maintenance, consequently the fish would gain 
 but little in size and weight. 
 
 " If the ponds have an even and well-regulated supply of water, then 
 their depth at the centre need never be more than from three to five feet, 
 shelving to the sides as before stated ; but if only an indifferent supply 
 can be obtained, then they must be twelve or eighteen inches deeper. 
 
 " It is not, hov/ever, desirable to have the ponds so situated that a 
 large quantity of fresh water shall suddenly be able to find its way into 
 them, as it both thickens the whole by moving the mud, and being colder 
 and of other properties, it sickens the store for some time, and checks 
 their thriving. A well-regulated supply and co-equal discharge is to be 
 recommended and must be attended to. 
 
 " Having thus far described the base and positions which the ponds 
 ought to have, I shall proceed to lay down the requisite rules, by 
 attention to which a lucrative rental can be obtained, where an estate is 
 adapted for succession ponds. The first pond should be the smallest of 
 the three, the second next in size, and the third the largest, for the fol- 
 lowing reasons. At the period of fishing, as before stated, a great portion 
 of the brood escapes with the flood, which cannot be prevented j and as 
 another year must elapse before the water or ponds in succession can be 
 fished, too much of the food of the original store would be consumed 
 were not the second pond larger, and so capable of receiving the 
 addition ; it would moreover prove extremely detrimental, as I shall 
 afterwards show. 
 
 " In order to come to the dimensions of the ponds I shall propose the 
 following scale : — No. 1, three acres; No. 2, four acres; No. 3, five acres; 
 making altogether twelve acres of water, which, after the first three years 
 of their stores, will produce an annual income from each pond in rota- 
 tion. 
 
 " To stock the ponds with brood, the following simple calculation is 
 sufficient for direction ; viz., to every acre of water in extent, put in 200 
 
222 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 brood carp, 20 brood tench, and 20 brood jack; thus making 10 percent, 
 each of tench and jack to the carp ; the brood must be all of one season*s 
 spa\vn. Therefore to three acres there will be 600 carp, 60 tench, and 
 60 jack, and the succession ponds are to be stocked in like proportions, 
 the second the year following the first, and the third again a year later, 
 so that each pond then comes round in its turn to be fished 
 
 " In stocking ponds it must be strictly observed that the jack, carp, 
 and tench be all of the same season or spring spawn ; and the period for 
 brooding the pond is towards the end of October, or if the season be open 
 and mild, early in November, for the following reasons. Carp and tench 
 being fish of the same habits, they slam or mud at the same period, 
 lying torpid through the winter months, so that they keep secure from 
 the attacks of the juvenile jack ; the jack at that age finds sufficient 
 food in worms, etc., to subsist upon : as the spring advances, when the 
 carp and tench leave their winter lairs, the jack then in turn become 
 sickly as their spawning season approaches, and consequently do not 
 annoy the carp, much less the tench ; this brings them through April, 
 when the jack spawn, and they remain quiet from that time until the wet 
 season in July. 
 
 " In June both the carp and tench spawn, and although in very small 
 casts for the first season, yet they are far larger than would be beneficial 
 for the stews were no jack in them ; and from this period the jack 
 becomes useful, for as he gets more and more vigorous, so does he keep 
 down the brood and thrive himself: thus b}^ making an easy prey, it 
 seldom if ever occurs that a jack chases a carp of his own age ; the result 
 is, that through the clearance of the brood the stock finds sufficient food 
 to live and thrive upon. 
 
 " There are two species of weeds which are requisite in your ponds, 
 and on which carp and tench spawn ; the one is Fotamogeton natans, 
 or broad-leaved pond-weed, sometimes called tench-weed ; the other is 
 Ranunculus aquatilis or water crow-foot. Against the former, during 
 the period of casting their spawn, they rub themselves, either from an 
 exciting or soothing cause, but they invariably discharge the ova on the 
 crow-foot, which is a long wiry weed, forming at intervals circles of fine 
 leaves : from its toughness and close foliage it protects the spawn and 
 young fry from the attacks of birds of prey. I think it is by means of 
 this weed that wild fowl convey different species of fish from one pond to 
 another, in consequence of the gelatinous nature of the ova causing them 
 to adhere to the feathers of the bird while feeding, and this will account 
 for fish being found in waters where none of the sort had been stored. 
 Wild fowl are particularly fond of spawn ; they destroy much of it, and 
 seek the weeds encumbered with it. It is among these weeds that the 
 fry are partially protected when they emerge from the ova ; for like 
 everything produced from creation's lot, in the early sta^e of life being 
 perfectly helpless, so do they swim, or more properly, float about, for three 
 or four days with the shell of the ova attached to them, showing a simi- 
 larity to the umbilical cord in animals, after which it falls ofl^ and then 
 the brood instinctively move in a shoal to the scours, for the protection 
 against other fish afforded by the shallow water, as well as on account of 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 223 
 
 its bein<2: warmer and of lighter weight to their small frames. It is dur- 
 ing the first movement from the egg that fish of prey, especially eels, are 
 so destructive to the spawn-casts; and I have seen a male trout trailing over 
 and around the layer, open-mouthed, hunting away every other fish that 
 should make its appearance, solely to gratify his voracious appetite. To 
 a casual observer it would appear as if he protected the fry, but this is not 
 the case, as he does not even permit the spawner to approach; and were 
 protection the object, every trout stream would be swarming with millions 
 of fry, whereas it is difficult to keep a trout stream in a tolerably well- 
 stocked state."] 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING OP A LINE, AND FOR THE COLOURING 
 OF BOTH ROD AND LINE, 
 
 [jFift!) (last) Bap,] 
 
 Pisc. Well, scholar, I have held you too long about these 
 cadis, and smaller fish, and rivers, and fish-ponds ; and my 
 spirits are almost spent, and so I doubt is your patience : but 
 being, we are now almost at Tottenham, where I first met 
 you, and where we are to part, I will lose no time, but give 
 you a little direction how to make and order your lines, and 
 to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is 
 very needful to be known of an angler ; and also how to paint 
 your rod, especially your top ; for a right grown top is a 
 choice commodity, and should be preserved from the water 
 soaking into it, which makes it in wet weather to be heavy 
 and fish ill-favouredly, and not true ; and also it rots quickly 
 for want of painting : and I think a good top is worth pre- 
 serving, or I had not taken care to keep a top above twenty 
 years. 
 
 But first for your line. Pirst, note, that you are to take care 
 that your hair be round and clear, and free from galls or scabs 
 or frets, for a well-chosen, even, clear, round hair, of a kind 
 of glass-colour, will prove as strong as three uneven scabby 
 haii-s, that are ill-chosen, and full of galls or unevenness. 
 You shall seldom find a black hair but it is round, but many 
 white, are flat and uneven ; therefore, if you get a lock of 
 right, round, clear, glass-colour hair, make much of it. 
 
 And for making your line observe this rule ; first let your 
 
 V 
 
22-i THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 hair be clean washed ere you go about to twist it ; and then 
 choose not only the clearest hair for it, but hairs that be of an 
 equal bigness, for such do usually stretch altogether, and 
 break altogether, which hairs of an unequal bigness never do, 
 but break singly, and so deceives the angler that trusts to 
 them. 
 
 When you have twisted your links, lay them in water for a 
 quarter of an hour at least, and then twist them over again, 
 before you tie them into a line : for those that do not so, 
 shall usually find their line to have a hair or two shrink, and 
 be shorter than the rest at the first fishing with it, which is so 
 niucli of the strength of the line lost for want of first watering 
 it and then re-twisting it ; and this is most visible in a seven- 
 hair line, one of those which hath always a black hair in the 
 middle. 
 
 And for dyeing of your hairs, do it thus : take a pint of 
 vStrong ale, half a pound of soot, and a little quantity of the 
 juice of walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantity of alum ; 
 put these together, in a pot, pan, or pipkin, and boil them half 
 an hour ; and having so done, let it cool ; and being cold, 
 put your hair into it, and there let it lie ; it will turn your 
 hair to be a kind of water or glass-colour, or greenish ; and 
 the longer you let it lie the deeper it will be. You might be 
 taught to make many other colours, but it is to little purpose ; 
 for doubtless the water-colour or glass-coloured hair is the 
 most choice or the most useful for an angler, but let it not be 
 too green. 
 
 But if you desire to colour hair greener, then do it thus : 
 take a quart of small ale, half a pound of alum ; then put 
 these into a pan or pipkin, and your hair into it with them ; 
 then put it upon a fire, and let it boil softly for half an hour; 
 and then take out your hair, and let it dry ; and having so 
 done, then take a pottle of water, and put into it two handfuls 
 of marigolds, and cover it with a tile or what you think fit, 
 and set it again on the fire, where it is to boil again softly for 
 half an hour, about which time the scum will turn yellow ; 
 then put into it half a pound of copperas, beaten small, and 
 with it the hair that you intend to colour ; then let the hair 
 be boiled softly till half the liquor be wasted, and then let it 
 cool three or four hours with your hair in it ; and you are to 
 observe that the more copperas you put into it, the greener it 
 will be ; but, doubtless, the pale green is best : but if you 
 desire yellow hair, which is only good when the weeds rot. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 225 
 
 then put in the more marigolds, and abate most of the 
 copperas, or leave it quite out, and take a little verdigrease 
 instead of it. 
 
 This for colouring your hair. And as for painting your 
 rod, which must be in oil, you must first make a size with 
 glue and water, boiled together unti] the glue be dissolved, 
 aud the size of a lye-colour ; then strike your size upon the 
 wood with a bristle, or a brush, or pencil, whilst it is hot ; 
 that being quite dry, take white-lead, and a little red -lead, 
 and a little coal-black, so much as altogether will make an 
 ash-colour ; grind these all together with linseed oil ; let it be 
 thick, and lay it thin upon the wood with a brush or pencil ; 
 this do for the ground of any colour to lie upon wood. 
 
 For a green, take pink and verdigrease, and grind them 
 together in linseed-oil, as thin as you can well grind it; then 
 lay it smoothly on with your brush, and drive it thin ; once 
 doing, for the most part will serve, if you lay it well ; and if 
 twice, be sure your first colour be thoroughly dry before you 
 lay on a second. 
 
 Well, scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, 
 and we having still a mile to Tottenham High-cross, I will, 
 as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this sweet honey- 
 suckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys 
 that have possest my soul since we two met together. And 
 these thoughts have been told you, that you may also join with 
 me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect 
 gift, for our happiness. And that our present happiness may 
 appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I 
 will beg you to consider with me, how many do, even at this 
 very time lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and 
 tooth-ache ; and this we are free from. And every misery 
 that I miss is a new mercy, and therefore let us be thankful. 
 There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters 
 of broken limbs ; some have been blasted, others thunder- 
 strucken ; and we have been freed from these, and all those 
 many other miseries that threaten human nature ; let us 
 therefore rejoice, and be thankful. Nay, which is a fiir 
 greater mercy, we are free from the unsupportable burthen of 
 an accusing tormenting conscience, a misery that none can 
 bear ; and therefore let us praise him for his preventing 
 grace, and say, every misery that I miss is a new mercy : nay, 
 let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our 
 estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healtliful 
 
 p 
 
226 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 and cheerful like us ; wlio, with the expence of a little money, 
 have eat and drank, and laught, and angled, and sung, and 
 slept securely ; and rose next day, and cast away care, and 
 sung, and laught, and angled again ; which are blessings rich 
 men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, 
 ) scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that 
 X^ he has no leisure to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to 
 get money, and more money, that he may still get more and 
 more money ; he is still drudging on, and says, that Solomon 
 says, "The diligent hand maketh rich :" and it is true indeed; 
 but, he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to 
 make a man happy : for it was wisely said, by a man of great 
 observation, " That there be as many miseries beyond riches, 
 as on this side them :" and yet God deliver us from pinching 
 poverty ; and grant that having a competency, we may be 
 content, and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as 
 think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another 
 abound with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are 
 the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the 
 rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and 
 restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but 
 the outside of the rich man's happiness : few consider him to 
 be like the silk- worm, that, when she seems to play, is, at the 
 very same time, spinning her own bowels, and consuming 
 herself ; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with 
 
 V corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably, uncon- 
 scionably got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and 
 a competence ; and, above all, for a quiet conscience. 
 Let me tell you, scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day, 
 with his friend, to see a country fair ; where he saw ribbons 
 and looking-glasses and nut-crackers and fiddles and hobby- 
 horses and many other gimcracks ; and, having observed 
 them and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete 
 country fair, he said to his friend, "Lord, how many things are 
 ^^^ there in thisworldof whichDiogeneshath no need !" And truly 
 it is so, or might be so, with very many who vex and toil 
 themselves to get what they have no need of Can any man 
 charge God that he hath not given him enough to make his 
 life happy % No, doubtless ; for nature is content with a little. 
 And yet you shall hardly meet with a man that complains not 
 of some want ; though he, indeed, wants nothing but his will ; 
 it rnay be, nothing but his will of his poor neighbour, for not 
 worshipping or not flattering him : and thus when we might 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 227 
 
 be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I liave 
 heard of a man that was angry with himself because he was 
 no taller ; and of a woman that broke her looking-glass 
 because it would not show her face to be as young and hand- 
 some as her next neighbour's was. And I kne vv another to whom 
 God had given health and plenty, but a wife that nature had 
 made peevish, and her husband's riches had made purse-proud ; 
 and must, because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit 
 in the highest pew in the church ; which being denied her, 
 she engaged her husband into a contention for it, and at last 
 into a law-suit with a dogged neighbour who was as rich as 
 he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the other : 
 and this law-suit begot higher oppositions, and actionable 
 words, and more vexations and law-suits ; for you must re- 
 member that both were rich, and must therefore have their 
 will. Well, this wilful, purse-proud law-suit lasted during 
 the life of the first husband ; after which his wife vext and 
 chid, and chid and vext till she also chid and vext herself 
 into her grave : and so the wealth of these poor rich people 
 was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and 
 thankful hearts ; for those only can make us happy. I knew 
 a man that had health and riches, and several houses, all 
 beautiful, and ready furnished, and would often trouble him- 
 self and family, to be removing from one house to another ; 
 and being asked by a friend, why he removed so often from 
 one house to anotlier, replied, "It was to find content in some 
 one of them." But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, 
 If he would find content in any of his houses he must leave 
 himself behind him ; for content will never dwell but in a 
 meek and quiet soul. And this may appear, if we read and 
 consider what our Saviour says in St. Matthev/s gospel ; for 
 he there says, — " Blessed be the merciful, for they shall ob- 
 tain mercy. — Blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall see j 
 God. — Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom ] 
 of heaven." And, " Blessed be the meek, for they shall 
 possess the earth." Not that tlie meek shall not also obtain 
 mercy, and see God, and be comforted, and at last come to 
 the kingdom of heaven ; but in the mean time he, and he 
 only, possesses the earth, as he goes towards that kingdom of 
 heaven, by being humble and cheerful, and content with what 
 his good God has allotted him. He has no turbulent, repin- 
 ing, vexatious thoughts that he deserves better ; nor is vext 
 when he sees others possest of more honour or more riches 
 
 p2 
 
228 THE COMPLETE ANGLEH. 
 
 than his wise God has allotted for his share ; but he possesses 
 what he lias with a meek and contented quietness, such a 
 quietness as makes his very dreams pleasing, both to God and 
 liimself. 
 
 My honest scholar, all this is told to incline you to thank- 
 fulness j and to incline you the more, let me tell you, that 
 though the prophet David was guilty of murder and adultery, 
 and many other of the most deadly sins, yet he was said to be 
 a man after God's own heart, because he abounded more with 
 thankfulness than any other that is mentioued in holy Scrip- 
 ture, as may appear in his book of Psalms ; where there is 
 such a commixture of his corjfessing of his sins and un worthi- 
 ness, and such thankfulness for God's pardon and mercies, as 
 did make him to be accounted, even by God himself, to be a 
 man after his own heart : and let us, in that, labour to be as 
 like him as we can; let not the Ijlessings we receive daily 
 from God make us not to value or not praise him because 
 they be common ; let us not forget to praise him for the 
 innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met 
 / together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant 
 I rivers and meadows and flowers and fountains that we have 
 met with since we met together ? I have been told, that if a 
 man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for 
 but only one hou.r during his whole life, and should, at the 
 first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it 
 was in its full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he 
 would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory 
 of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first 
 ravishing object, to behold all the other various beauties this 
 world could present to him. And this, and many other like 
 blessings, we enjoy daily. And for most of them, because 
 they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises : 
 but let not us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that 
 made that sun and us, and still i:)rotects us, and gives us 
 flowers and showers, and stomachs and meat, and content 
 and leisure to go a-fishing. 
 
 Well, scholar, I have almost tired myself, and, I fear, more 
 than almost tired you; but I now see Tottenham High-cross, 
 and our short walk thither shall put a period to my too long 
 discourse, in which my meaning was and is, to plant that in 
 your mind, with which I labour to possess my own soul : that 
 is, a meek and thankful heart. And to that end, I have 
 -showed you that riches, without them, do not make any man 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 229 
 
 happy. But lefc me tell you, that riches, with them, remove 
 many fears and cares ; and therefore my advice is, that you 
 endeavour to be honestly ricli, or contentedly poor : but be 
 sure that your riches be justly got, or you spoil all. For it is 
 well said by Caussin,'"' "he that loses his conscience, has 
 nothing left that is worth keeping." Therefore be sure you 
 look to that. And, in the next place, look to jour health : 
 and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good 
 conscience ; for health is the second blessing that we mortals 
 are capable of ; a blessing that money cannot buy, and there- 
 fore value it, and be thankful for it. As for money, which 
 may be said to be the third blessing, neglect it not : but note, 
 that there is no necessity of being rich ; for I told you there 
 be as many miseries beyond riches, as on this side them : and 
 if you have a competence, enjoy it with a meek, cheerful, 
 thankful heart. I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave 
 divinef say, that God has two dwellings, one in heaven, and \ 
 the other in a meek and thankful heart. Which Almighty j 
 God grant to me, and to my honest scholar : and so you are 
 welcome to Tottenham High-cross. 
 
 Yen. Well, master, I thank you for all your good direc- 
 tions ; but for none more than this last, of thankfulness, 
 which I hope I shall never forget. :{: And pray let's now rest 
 
 * Nicholas Caupsin, a native of Troyes, in Champagne, wrote a book called 
 " The Holy Court," of which there is an English translation in folio. He was 
 esteemed a person of great probity, and of such a spirit, that he attempted to 
 displace Cardinal Kichelieu; but that minister proved too hard for him, and 
 got him banished. The sentiment above quoted from him is worthy of 
 Marcus Antoninus, or, if that be not enougli to say, of Dr. Jeremy Taylor 
 himself — H. 
 
 t Dr. Donne, as a reverend and learned friend of mine informs me. — H. 
 
 t The four preceding paragraphs beginning with, " Well, scholar," etc., 
 deserve most attentive perusal. They are entirely worthy of the excellent 
 man who styles angling the " Contemplative Man's Recreation." See how 
 frequently and sincerely he urges upon us meekness and thankfulness — the 
 former towards man, the latter towards God. Cheerfulness, contentment 
 Jiealth, a quiet guileless conscience, are in his eyes tlie greatest of mundane 
 I)Ossessions. He says, " every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me 
 tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the 
 greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us ; who with the expence 
 of a little money, have ate and drank, and laught, and sung, and slept ; and 
 rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laught, and angled again ; 
 which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money." What a 
 genial and more than pretty picture of angling life ! In another passage, he 
 says, the meek man " shall obtain mercy, and see God, and be comforted, and 
 at last come to the kingdom of heaven ; but in the mean time, he, and he only 
 possesses tlie earth as he goes toward that kingdom of heaven, by being humble 
 and cheerful, and content with what his good God has allotted him." Again 
 
230 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 1 ourselves in this sweet shady arbour, which nature herself has 
 
 \ woven with her own fine finger ; 'tis such a contexture of 
 \ woodbines, sweetbriar, jessamine, and ni3'rtle ; and so inter- 
 woven, as will secure us both from the sun's violent heat and 
 from the approaching shower. And being sat down, I will 
 requite a part of your courtesies with a bottle of sack, milk, 
 oranges, and sugar ; which, all put together, make a drink 
 
 ~-iike nectar ; indeed, too good for any but us anglers. And 
 so, master, here is a full glass to you of that liquor : and 
 when you have pledged me I will repeat the verses which I 
 promised you : it is a copy printed among some of Sir Henry 
 Wotton's, and doubtless made either by him or by a lover of 
 angling. Come, master, now drink a glass to me, and then 
 I will pledge you, and fall to my repetition ; it is a description 
 
 i of such country recreations as I have enjoyed since I had the 
 
 I haj)piness to fall into your company. 
 
 Quivering fears, heart- tearing cares, 
 Anxious sighs, untimely tears, 
 
 Fly, fly to courts. 
 
 Fly to fond worldlings' sports. 
 Where strain'd Sardonic smiles are glosing still, 
 And grief is forced to laugh againct her will : 
 
 Where mirth's but mummery, 
 
 And sorrows only real be. 
 
 Fly from our country's pastimes, fly. 
 Sad troops of human misery. 
 
 Come, serene looks, 
 
 Clear as the crystal brooks, 
 Or the pure azured heaven that smiles to see 
 The rich attendance on our poverty ; 
 
 Peace and a secure mind. 
 
 Which all men seek, we only find. 
 
 he says, " And for most of them (the beauties of external nature), because 
 they are so common, most men forget to pay their praises ; but let not us ; 
 because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to him that made that sun and us, and still 
 protects us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and 
 content, and leisure to go a-fishing." After exhibiting a moral and pious 
 philosophy, he descends to the practical ; writing, — " Health is the second 
 blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy ; 
 and therefore value it, and be thankful for it. As for money, which may be 
 said to be the third blessing, neglect it not : but note, that there is no necessity 
 for being rich : for I told you, there be as many miseries beyond riches as on 
 this side of them : and if you have a competence, enjoy it with a meek, 
 cheerful, thankful heart." Good and wise old man ! It was you whom a 
 great and reckless poet designated " a quaint old cruel coxcomb !" Never did 
 a more flagrant misnomer proceed from the nomenclature of a vexed and dis- 
 contented spirit. Here it is no longer " crede Byron" ! — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLES. 231 
 
 Abused mortals ! did you know 
 
 "Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow, 
 
 You'd scorn proud towers, 
 
 And seek them in these bowers ; 
 Where winds, sometimes, our woods perhaps may shake,. 
 But blustering care could never tempest make. 
 
 Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us. 
 
 Saving of fountains that glide by us. 
 
 Here's no fantastic mask nor dance. 
 But of our kids that frisk and prance ; 
 
 Nor wars are seen. 
 
 Unless upon the green 
 Two harmless lambs are butting one the other — 
 "Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother ; 
 
 And wounds are never found. 
 
 Save what the ploughshare gives the ground. 
 
 Here are no entrapping baits, 
 To hasten to too hasty fates, 
 
 Unless it be 
 
 The fond credulity 
 Of silly fish, which (worldling like) still look 
 Upon the bait, but never on the hook ; 
 
 Nor envy, less among 
 
 The birds, for prize of their sweet song. 
 
 Go, let the diving negro seek 
 
 For gems, hid in some forlorn creek : 
 
 We all pearls scorn, 
 
 Save what the dewy morn 
 Congeals upon each little spire of grass, 
 "Which careless shep)herds beat down as they pass ; 
 
 And gold ne'er here appears, 
 
 Save what the yellow Ceres bears. 
 
 Bless'd silent groves, may you be, 
 For ever, mirth's best nursery ! 
 
 May pure contents 
 
 For ever pitch their tents 
 Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains. 
 And peace still slumber by these purling fountains ; 
 
 Which we may every year 
 
 Meet, when we come a-fishing here ! 
 
 Pisc. Trust me, scholar, I tliank you heartily for these 
 verses : they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a lover 
 of angling. Come, now, drink a glass with me, and I will 
 requite you with another very good copy : it is a farewell to 
 the vanities of the world, and some say written by Sir Harry 
 Wotton, who I told you was an excellent angler. But let 
 them be writ by whom they will, he that writ them had a 
 brave soul_, and must needs be possessed with happy thoughts 
 at the time of their composure. 
 
232 THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ! 
 Farewell, ye honour' d rags, ye glorious bubbles ! 
 Fame's but a hollow echo — gold, pure clay — 
 Honour, the darling but of one short day — 
 Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask' d skin — 
 State, but a golden prison, to live in. 
 And torture free-born minds — embroider 'd trains, 
 Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins — 
 And blood allied to greatness is alone 
 Inherited, not purchased, nor our own. 
 
 Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and bii'th, 
 Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. 
 
 I would be great, but that the sun doth still 
 Level his rays against the rising hill — 
 I would be high, but see the proudest oak 
 Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke — 
 I would be rich, but see men (too unkind) 
 Dig in the bowels of the richest mind — 
 I would be wise, but that I often see 
 The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free — 
 I would be fair, but see the fair and proud, 
 Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud — 
 I would be poor, but know the humble grass 
 Still trampled on by each unworthy ass — 
 Rich, hated — wise, suspected — scorn'd, if poor — 
 Great, fear'd — fair, tempted — high, still envied more : 
 I have wish' d all ; but now I wish for neither, 
 Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair — poor I'll be rather. 
 
 Would the world now adopt me for her heir — • 
 Would beauty's queen entitle me the fair — 
 Fame speak me fortune's minion — could I vie 
 Angels with India* — with a speaking eye 
 Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb, 
 As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue 
 To stones by epitaphs — be call'd " great master,'* 
 In the loose rhymes of every poetaster — 
 Could I be more than any man that lives. 
 Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives — 
 Yet I more freely would these gifts resign. 
 Than ever Fortune would have made them mine ; 
 And hold one minute of this holy leisure 
 Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure ! 
 
 * An angel is a piece of coin, value ten shillings. The words to vie angels, 
 are a periphrasis, and signify to compare wealth. In the old ballad of the 
 Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal-green, a competition of this kind is introduced : 
 a young knight, about to marry the beggar's daughter, is dissuaded from so 
 unequal a match by some gentlemen, his relations, who urge the poverty of her 
 father : the beggar challenges them to drop angels with him, and fairly empties 
 the purses of them all. The contest, and its issue, are related in the well- 
 known ballad beginning, — 
 
 " Then spake the blind beggar, * Although I be poore, 
 Yett rayle not against ray child at my own door : 
 Though shee be no decked in velvet and pearle, 
 Yett I will dropp angells with you for my girle.' "— H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 233 
 
 "Welcome, pure thoughts ! welcome, ye silent groves ! 
 
 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves ! 
 
 Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 
 
 My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring : 
 
 A prayer-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, 
 
 In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. 
 
 Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, 
 
 No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears ; 
 
 Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, 
 
 And learn t' affect a holy melancholy : 
 
 And if contentment be a stranger, — then 
 
 I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again. 
 
 Ven. Well, master, these verses be worthy to keep a room 
 in every man's memory. I thank you for them ; and I thank 
 you for your many instructions, which (God willing) I will 
 not forget. And as St. Austin, in his " Confessions" (book iv. 
 chap. 3) commemorates the kindness of his friend Yerecundus, 
 for lending him and his companion a country house ; because 
 there they rested and enjoyed themselves, free from the 
 troubles of the world : so, having had the like advantage, 
 both by your conversation and the art you have taught me, 
 I ought ever to do the like ; for indeed, your company and 
 discourse have been so useful and pleasant, that, I may truly 
 say, I have only lived since I enjoyed them and turned angler, 
 and not before. Nevertheless, here I must part with jou, 
 here in this now sad place where I was so happy as first to 
 meet you : but I shall long for the ninth of May ; for then 
 I hope again to enjoy your beloved company, at the appointed 
 time and place. And now I wish for some somniferous 
 potion, that might force me to sleep away the intermitted 
 time, which will pass away with me as tediously, as it does 
 with men in sorrow ; nevertheless, I will make it as short as 
 I can by my hopes and wishes. And, my good master, I will 
 not forget the doctrine which you told me Socrates taught his 
 scholars, that they should not think to be honoured so much 
 for being philosophers, as to honour philosophy by their vir- 
 tuous lives. You advised me to the like concerning angling, 
 and I will endeavour to do so ; and to live like those many 
 worthy men of which you made mention in the former part 
 of your discourse. This is my firm resolution ; and as a pious 
 man advised his friend, that to beget mortification he should 
 frequent churches, and view monuments, and charnel-houses, 
 and then and there consider, how many dead bodies time had 
 piled up at the gates of death: so when I would beget I 
 content, and increase confidence in the power, and wisdom,! 
 
^34j the complete angler. 
 
 i 
 
 land providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows 
 by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that 
 take no care, and those very many other various little living 
 creatures, that are not only created but fed, man knows not 
 how, by the goodness of the God of nature, and therefore 
 trust in him. This is my purpose ; and so, let everything 
 that hath breath praise the Lord : and let the blessing of 
 St. Peter's master be with mine. 
 
 Pisc. And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust 
 L in his providence, and be quiet, and go a-angling. 
 
 "^ -W.^, "Study to be quiet." — 1 Thess. iv. 11. 
 
 [The concluding chapter of Walton contains a few brief " directions 
 for making of a line, and for the colouring of both rod and line." These 
 directions are of no value now. Walton's lines would neither suit the 
 modern winch^ nor make a x^roper foot line, except for fishing in flooded 
 and discoloured waters. Winch-lines are now made by professed makers, 
 who sell them to the proprietors of fishing-tackle shops, and by the latter 
 they are retailed to the public. These lines are either twisted or plaited 
 by means of hand-machines, and no part or parts of them are joined 
 together by tying or knotting. They are uniformly smooth throughout 
 their length, and of uniform thickness, except winch fly -lines, which taper 
 towards one end, and sometimes in the direction of both ends. T am not 
 favourable to tapering lines, except to taper foot ones, and winch-lines 
 for salmon and trout, as now made, run off to too fine an end. The 
 tapering points of them are lighter than the gut, foot, or casting-line, 
 and hence they are an obstacle to throwing to a long distance, and can- 
 not be propelled at all against the wind. Lines for bottom fishing may 
 be made solely of twisted silk, and to preserve them from the destructive 
 effects of water and rain, they should be steeped for a short time in a 
 mixture of the best oil and varnish. Lines for fly-fishing, whether for 
 trout or salmon, should be made of plaited silk and hair, and if they 
 taper at all it should be very slightly. They cannot be plaited too 
 closely, and they should consist of one-third sound picked horsehair, 
 and two-thirds best silk. The best are manufactm-ed by a man named 
 Dodge, in London, and all the great tackle-makers sell them. If you 
 wish to preserve your lines from rotting, never allow them when wet to 
 dry coiled up on your winch, but, the moment you return from fishing, 
 uncoil all the wetted parts of lines, and wind them thinly on the backs 
 of chairs, or let them fall in large coils on any clean spot on wliicli the 
 action of air or heat will reach them. 
 
 Winches, reels, or pirns seem to have been unknown in Walton's time. 
 How they managed, particularly in fishing with the artificial fly, or dib- 
 bing with the natural one, to lengthen and shorten line is a mystery ; 
 and how they could successfully play a large fish is incomprehensible. 
 They must have vised thumb-winders, or very likely a piece of stick 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 285 
 
 fastened to the butt, at some distance from its base, cross-wise. On this 
 stick the line may be wound, just as boys when kite-flying wind their 
 strings; and it may be uncoiled by hand ^vhen playing a fish, or wanting 
 more, but not with suiScient rapidity or ease. The best London winches 
 — and to metropolitan made ones I give the preference — are manufac- 
 tured by Fairservice. I am opposed to multiplying-wdnches, and prefer 
 to all others a plain, somewhat stiff check one, particularly for salmon- 
 fishing. I like to hear the pleasant rattle of its checks, as the fish rattles 
 away, and its stiffness is of great service in keeping the line taut as you 
 play a fish. The clicking, by its frequency or otherwise, tells you at 
 what pace your fish is going, and gives you a notion when you should 
 follow him, or attempt to stop him, to bear upon him, and to work him 
 towards land. Eeels of free check, or click, should be used for ]3ike- 
 fishing, and for all fish that run to their lairs to pouch their baits. In 
 their run to do so they should not meet wdth any impediment from a taut 
 or partly taut line, but should be a])le to swim, away with loosened reins. 
 
 Of the making and material of rods. Father Walton says nothing, 
 and his instructions about painting them should not be followed. Rods 
 are not now painted. They are stained and washed with varnish. I 
 shall name the lengths which rods for different sorts of fishing should 
 respectively reach, the material they should be made of, and a few of 
 their component qualities. 
 
 A single-handed fly-rod for trout and grayling should be made with 
 great care, and of the best and longest seasoned wood. It should vary 
 from ten to twelve-and-a-half feet in length. The shorter rod for narrow, 
 bright rivers, as it carries fine tackle best, and can be worked with more 
 ease, and consequently make neater and lighter casts ; the longer rod is 
 suited for broad and deep trout streams, where stout tackle and large 
 flies are necessary ; where the angler must throw the long line, and 
 where he will have to cope with large fish. Indeed, with a well-balanced 
 twelve-foot-and-a-half fly-rod, made of elastic and well-seasoned wood, 
 a proficient can throw the lightest as well as the heaviest line. It is the 
 rod 1 would recommend to the adult angling adept. A fly -rod of eleven 
 feet has the average length, and will not inconveniently suit young and 
 old, and moderately weak and strong hands. Fly-rods should be made 
 of the following materials — best grained and long-seasoned ash for butts, 
 thick and small pieces (second and third joints) best hickory, tops a foot 
 of lance-wood, and thence to the extreme points bamboo cane. If one 
 piece of the rod be made of newer, that is, less seasoned wood than the 
 others, there will be too much dead play in that piece, and the rod will 
 therefore want balance and be defective. If the pieces, particularly the 
 small and the top pieces, do not taper justly, or be heavier or weaker 
 in undue proportion than the thick piece and butt, then the rod will be 
 " top-heavy,'' and good for nothing. The fittings of each piece should 
 be most carefully adapted— the ferules smoothly polished on the inside, 
 and the tongues and shoulders should be most carefully brased. A first- 
 rate trout fly-rod cannot be bought for less than a guinea and a half. 
 
 The grilse fly-rod should be sixteen feet in length, the sahnon rod 
 eighteen, and in rare cases, for very tall and strong men, and for great 
 
236 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 rivers and large fish, the length may be twenty feet. My favourite 
 length is seventeen-and-a-half feet, and with it I can pleasantly fish for 
 sea-trout and grilse, and have no fear of the biggest salmon, substituting 
 for the lighter grilse winches and lines, larger and stouter salmon ones. 
 The salmon, like the trout rod, should consist of four pieces, made of 
 wood of similar sorts and qualities. Its balance should be just, and all 
 its fittings most carefully executed. In former writings, I suggested the 
 following improvement in salmon-rods. There should be no spare top 
 for trolling or spinning, but merely a spare fly top, which should be of 
 bamboo cane rent longitudinally into wedge-shaped ]pieces. The original 
 position of these pieces should be altered, so as to oppose sound parts to 
 defective ones, to reverse the grain, and to have elastic action in all sides 
 of the top -joint. The pieces should be first glued in, and then tied 
 strongly together for a day or two. The w^hole should then be rounded 
 and tapered, strongly whipped and ringed. Salmon-rod tops should not 
 taper to a fine point, and their last ring should not be of brass wire, but 
 of hollowed and smooth steel, projecting upwards like the other rings. 
 Such a spare top should be reserved for heavy work in rivers, in and 
 over which there are rocks and trees, rendering the playing of a fish 
 more than ordinarily difiicult, and tackle of more than common strength 
 necessary. 
 
 Trolling-rods should not be longer than eleven feet ; spinning ones not 
 more than fifteen. They should be of the same materials as those 
 already named. The preference now is given to East India mottled or 
 burnt cane, for all the pieces except the top one, and that should be of 
 lance-wood and bamboo-cane. The pieces of the trolling-rod should be 
 very stout, with a few very large and upright rings. The pieces of the 
 spinning-rod should be moderately stout — something between those of 
 the trolling-rod and the larger trout fly-rod — and they should be ringed 
 with middle-sized upright rings, and should be tolerably elastic. 
 
 The roach-rod should be, for bank-fishing, eighteen or twenty feet in 
 length. All its pieces should be of the lightest white Spanish or Hon- 
 duras cane, except the top, which should be fine and light and elastic 
 and of bamboo-cane. The roach-rod for boat-fishing should be of the 
 same material, but not more than twelve feet long. 
 
 The ordinary bottom-rod for bank-fishing should be sixteen feet in 
 length, of ash, hickory, and bamboo. It should resemble a grilse fly- rod, 
 but be a little less "whippy'' or elastic. The boat bottom-rod for barbel, 
 chub, &c., should be eleven or twelve feet in length, of the same mate- 
 rials as the last, but of stouter and stiffer build. I am not favourable to 
 what are called " general rods," or " walkmg-cane " rods, and therefore 
 shall say nothing further about them. 
 
 The trout and salmon rods, and trout and salmon flies I fish with, are 
 made by Blacker. The purchaser, however, must " try conclusions," as 
 Walton says in his chapter on barbel fishing, that is, make experiments ; 
 and in selecting angUng apparatus, I advise that he try his conclusions at 
 the following largely stocked angling arsenals : to wit, those of Messrs. 
 Alfred, Moorgate-street ; Ainge and Aldred, Oxford- street ; Anderson, 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 237 
 
 Long Acre; Barnard, Church -place, Piccadilly ; Bowness, Bell-yard, 
 Temple-bar; Cheek, Oxford-street; Charles Far low, 121, Strand; J. 
 Earlow, Crooked-lane, London-bridge; Gould, Great Marylebone-street, 
 Cavendish-square; Jones, Jennyn-street ; and last, but by no means 
 least, Giles Little, rod-maker to H.R.H. Prince Albert, 15, Fetter-lane. 
 —Ed.] 
 
 TUE END OF THE FIRST PART. 
 
THE 
 
 COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 BEING INSTEUCTIONS 
 
 HOW TO ANGLE FOU A TEGUT OR GEAYLING 
 
 IN A CLEAR STREAM. 
 
 Qui milii non credit, faciat licet ipse perielum : 
 Et faerit scriptis sequior ille nicis. 
 
TO 
 mr MOST WOETHT TATHKR AND PBIEND, 
 
 Mr. IZAAK WALTON, THE ELDER. 
 
 SiE, — Being you were pleased, some years past, to grant me your free leave to do 
 what I have here attempted; and observing you never retract any promise when 
 made in favour of your meanest friends ; I accordingly expect to see these following 
 particular directions for the taking of a trout, to wait upon your better and more 
 general rules for all sorts of angling. And though mine be neither so perfect, so well 
 digested, nor indeed so handsomely couch'd as they might have been, in so long a 
 time as since your leave was granted, yet I dare affirm them to be generally true : 
 and they liad appeared too in something a neater dress, but that 1 was surprised with 
 the sudden news of a sudden new edition of your " Complete Angler ;" so that, having 
 little more than ten days' time to turn me in, and rub up my memory (for, in truth, I 
 have not, in all this long time, though I have often thought on't, and almost as often 
 resolved to go presently about it), I was forced, upon the instant, to scribble what I 
 here present you: which I have also endeavoured to accommodate to your own method. 
 And, if mine ]3e clear enough for the honest brothers of the angle readily to under- 
 stand, which is the only thing I aim at, then I have my end, and shaU need to make 
 no further apology ; a writing of this kind not requiring, if I were master of any such 
 thing, any eloquence to set it off, and recommend it ; so that if you, in your better 
 judgment, or kindness rather, can allow it passable for a thing of this nature, you will 
 then do me the honour if the cypher fixed and carved in the front of my little fishing- 
 house, may be here explained : and to permit me to attend you in public, who, in 
 private have ever been, am, and ever resolve to be. 
 
 Sir, 
 Beresford, Your most affectionate son and servant, 
 
 10th of March, 1675-6. CHARLES COTTON. 
 
 TO 
 
 MX MOST HONOUEED FEIEND, 
 
 CHARLES COTTON, Esq. 
 
 Sir, — You now see I have returned you your very pleasant and' useful discourse of 
 *' The Art of Fly-fishing," printed just as it was sent me ; for I have been so obedient 
 to your desires, as 1 o endure all the praises you have ventured to fix upon me in it. 
 And when I have thanked you for them, as the effects of an undissembled love, then, 
 let me tell you, sir, that I will readily endeavour to live up to the character you have 
 given of me, if there were no other reason, yet for this alone, that you, that love me 
 so well, and always think what you speak, may not, for my sake, suffer by a mistake 
 in your judgment. 
 
 And, sir, I have ventured to fill a part of your margin, by way of paraphrase for 
 the reader's clearer understanding the situation both of your fishing-house, and the 
 pleasantness of that you dwell in. And I have ventured also to give him a "Copy of 
 Verses" that you were pleased to send me, now some years past, in which he may see 
 a good picture of both ; and so much of your own mind too, as will make any reader, 
 that is blessed with a generous soul, to love you the better. 1 confess, that for doing 
 this you may justly judge me too bold : if you do, 1 will say so too ; and so far com- 
 mute for my offence, that, though I be more than a hundred miles from you, 
 and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I will forget both, and the next month 
 begin a pilgrimage to beg your pardon; for I would die in your favour, and till 
 then will live, 
 
 Sir, 
 London, Your most affectionate father and friend, 
 
 April2%lQ7Q, IZAAK WALTON. 
 
CHABLES OOiTOiT. 
 
 SKETCH OF COTTON'S LIFE. 
 
 Chaeles Cotton was a country gentleman by birth and education. 
 His father was of a high Hampshire family, his mother, daughter of 
 Sir J. Stanhope, of Elvaston, Derbyshire, of a still higher, for she was 
 nearly related by consanguinity to the Earls of Chesterfield and Harring- 
 ton. He was born in 1630, and was thirty-seven years younger than 
 AValton, who, as before stated, was born in 1593. At first he was edu- 
 cated by a private tutor, and then transferred to the University of 
 Cambridge. He gained no honours, or, at least he took no degrees there. 
 He seems to have cultivated the muses merely — not the musce severiores 
 — and returned to the paternal home an accomplished but not a profound 
 scholar. 
 
 By virtue of his mother's title, his f^ither became possessor of Beres- 
 ford Hall, delightfully situated between the romantic Dovedale and the 
 Peak, and close by the banks of the Dove — then the best trout and 
 grayling stream in the empire. Here young Cotton, having no pro- 
 fession, resided under the family roof. Dwelling whilst young and aged 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 wifhin a stone's-throw of one of the most limpid and picturesque streams 
 in England, with trout bounding in it and grayling rising rapidly at the 
 March-brown or the May-fly, as it float^^d along, is it to be wondered at 
 if he became a fly-fisher ? The wonder would be if he had not. He 
 did ; and the most accomplished one of his day. 
 
 Long before his father's death he married — a love-match apparently, 
 for it involved him in pecuniary difficulties from which he could never 
 afterwards release himself. On his father's death he became sole pos- 
 sessor of Beresford Hall, but, alas, he had deeply mortgaged the property, 
 and rental was swallowed up in interest ! It would appear that his time 
 was occupied with fly-fishing and poetry, the latter consisting of transla- 
 tions from well-known foreign poets, Virgil amongst the rest, of whose 
 ^neid he wrote a travestie. His works are very numerous, and it is 
 thought he wrote for bread. In 1653, the first edition of" The Complete 
 Angler" by Walton appeared, and hence arose an intimacy and then a 
 lasting friendship between the fly-fisher of the Dove and the bottom- 
 fisher of the Lea. So ardent did this friendship become, that Cotton 
 beseeched Walton to adopt him, which the latter granted, and thence- 
 forward Cotton called father the now recognised father of Anglers. 
 Walton paid frequent visits to Beresford Hall, between which and the 
 river Dove, Cotton had erected a fishing-house (see infra^ p. 260), in 
 honour of his piscatorial parent. These circumstances, together with a 
 formal adoption by Walton of Mr. Cotton for his son, already men- 
 tioned, were doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of 
 a second part of the " Complete Angler," and therein to explain more 
 fully the art of fishing either with a natural or an artificial fly, as also 
 the various methods of making the latter : the book, as the author 
 assures us, was written in the short space of ten days, and first came 
 abroad with the fifth edition of the first part in the year 1676 ; and ever 
 since the two parts have been considered as one book. It is the text of 
 this edition that we reprint, and annotate so lengthily. 
 
 Cotton died in 1687 and Walton in 1683; the former surviving their 
 conjoint literary and piscatorial labours eleven years, the latter seven. 
 Cotton had married a second wife, the Countess Dowager Ardglass, and 
 though she had a jointure of £1500 a-year, the life use of that sum 
 tended merely to alleviate his narrow means, but not remove them. 
 Still the estate was never forfeited. We saw Beresford Hall in 1838. 
 It was then a large farm-house ; the tenant an elderly lady. On her 
 decease the late Marquis of Beresford purchased it, and has improved 
 the place considerably, preserving, of course, the celebrated fishing- 
 house with its immortal inscription — Saceijm Piscatoeibijs. 
 
islaa: Harr. 
 
 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 PAET THE SECOND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PiSCATOR JUNIOR, AND YlATOR. 
 
 [JFirst ©ap.] 
 
 Pisc. You are happily overtaken, sir ; may a man be so 
 bold as to inquire how far you travel this way 1 
 
 YiAT. Yes sure, sir, very freely, though it be a question I 
 cannot very well resolve you, as not knowing myself how far 
 it is to Asliborn, where I intend to-night to take up my inn. 
 
 Pisc. Why then, sir, seeing I perceive you to be a stranger 
 in these parts, I shall take upon me to inform you, that from 
 the town you last came through, called Brelsford,^^ it is five 
 miles ; and you are not yet above half a mile on this side. 
 
 YiAT. So much ? I was told it was but ten miles from 
 Derby; and, methinks, I have rode almost so fkv already. 
 
 * Now spelt " Brailsford." It is a mere road-side village. Brailsford 
 brook was once celebrated for its trout. I cannot speak highly of it now.— -Ed. 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. O sir, find no fault with large measure of good land, 
 which Derbyshire abounds in, as much as most counties of 
 England. 
 
 ViAT. It may be so ; and good land, I confess, affords a 
 pleasant prospect : but, by your good leave, sir, large measure 
 of foul way is not altogether so acceptable. 
 
 Pisc. True, sir ; but the foul way serves to justify the 
 fertility of the soil, according to the proverb, ''There is good 
 land where there is foul way ;" and is of good use to inform 
 you of the riches of the country you are come into, and of 
 its continual travel and traffic to the country town you came 
 from : which is also very observable by the fulness of its 
 road, and the loaden horses you meet everywhere wpon the 
 way. 
 
 YiAT. Well, sir, I will be content to think as well of your 
 country as you would desire ; and I shall have a great deal of 
 reason both to think and to speak very well of you, if I may 
 obtain the happiness of your company to the fore-mentioned 
 place, provided your affairs lead you that way, and that they 
 will permit you to slack your pace, out of complacency to a 
 traveller utterly a stranger in these parts, and who am still to 
 wander further out of my own knowledge. 
 
 Pisc. Sir, you invite me to my own advantage, and I am. 
 ready to attend you, my way lying through that town ; but 
 my business, that is, my home, some miles beyond it : how- 
 ever, I shall have time enough to lodge you in your quarters, 
 and afterward to perform my own journey. In the mean 
 time, may I be so bold as to inquire the end of your 
 
 journey 
 
 ? 
 
 YiAT. 'Tis into Lancashire, sir ; and about some business 
 of concern to a near relation of mine ; for I assure you, I do 
 not use to take such long journeys as from Essex upon the 
 single account of pleasure. 
 
 Pisc. From thence, sir! I do not then wonder you should 
 appear dissatisfied with the length of the miles, and the 
 foulness of the way : though I am sorry you should begin to 
 quarrel with them so soon ; for, believe me, sir, you will find 
 the miles much longer, and the way much worse, before you 
 come to your journey's end. 
 
 ViAT. Why ! truly, sir ! for that I am prepared to expect 
 the worst ; but methinks the way is mended since I had the 
 good fortune to fall into your good company. 
 
 Pisc. You are not obliged to my company for that, but 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 24^5 
 
 because you are already past the worst, and the greatest part 
 of your way to your lodging. 
 
 ViAT. T am very glad to hear it, both for the ease of myself 
 and my horse ; but especially, because I may then expect a 
 freer enjoyment of your conversation : though the shortness 
 of the way will, I fear, make me lose it the sooner. 
 
 Pisc. That, sir, is not worth your care : and I am sure you 
 deserve much better for being content with so ill company. 
 But we have already talked away two miles of your journey; 
 for, from the brook before us, that runs at the foot of this 
 sandy hill, you have but three miles to Ashborn. 
 
 YiAT. I meet, everywhere in this country, with these little 
 brooks ; and they look as if they were full of fish : have they 
 not trouts in them 1 
 
 Pisc. That is a question which is to be excused in a 
 stranger, as you are : otherwise, give me leave to tell you, it 
 would seem a kind of affront to our country, to make a doubt 
 of what we pretend to be famous for, next, if not before, our 
 malt, wool, lead, and coal ; for you are to understand, that 
 we think we have as many fine rivers, rivulets, and brooks, 
 as any country whatever ; and they are all full of trouts, and 
 some of them the best, it is said, by many degrees, in England. 
 
 ViAT. I was first, sir, in love with you; and now shall be 
 so enamoured of your country by this account you give me 
 of it, as to wish myself a Derbyshire man, or at least that I 
 might live in it : for you must know I am a pretender to the 
 angle, and, doubtless, a trout affords the most pleasure to the 
 angler of any sort of fish whatever ; and the best trouts must 
 needs make the best sport : but this brook, and some others 
 I have met with upon this way, are too full of w^ood for that 
 recreation. 
 
 Pisc. This, sir ! why this, and several others like it, which 
 you have passed, and some that you are like to pass, have 
 scarce any name amongst us : but we can show you as fine 
 rivers, and as clear from wood, or any other incumbrance to 
 hinder an angler, as any you ever saw ; and for clear, 
 beautiful streams, Hantshire itself, by Mr. Izaak Walton's 
 good leave, can show none such ; nor I think any country in 
 Europe.* 
 
 * This praise will not hold good now. Apart from certain preserved 
 portions of the Dove, the other Derbyshire rivers are not first rate. Tliey cer- 
 tainly are very pretty clear streams, and are difficult to fly-fish ; the well-known 
 Lathkil, on account of its extreme limpidness, the most difficult of all. The 
 
24i6 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 YiAT. You go far, sir, in the praise of your country rivers, 
 and I perceive have read Mr. Walton's '• Complete Angler," 
 by your naming of Hantshire j and I pray what is your 
 opinion of that book 1 
 
 Pisc. My opinion of Mr. Walton's book is the same with 
 every man's that understands anything of the art of angling, 
 that it is an excellent good one, and that the fore-mentioned 
 gentleman understands as much of iish, and fishing, as any 
 man living : but I must tell you further, that I have the 
 happiness to know his person, and to be intimately acquainted 
 with him, and in him to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy 
 the best, and the truest friend any man ever had ; nay, I shall 
 yet acquaint you further, that he gives me leave to call him 
 Father, and I hope is not yet ashamed to own me for his 
 adopted Son. 
 
 YiAT. In earnest, sir, I am ravished to meet with a friend 
 of Mr. Izaak Walton's, and one that does him so much right 
 in so good and true a character ; for I must boast to you, 
 that I have the good fortune to know him too, and came 
 acquainted with him much after tlie same manner I do with 
 you ; that he was my Master, who first taught me to love 
 angling, and then to become an angler ; and to be plain with 
 you, I am the very man deciphered in his book under the 
 name of Yenator ; for I was wholly addicted to the chace, 
 till he taught me as good, a more quiet, innocent, and less 
 dangerous diversion, 
 
 Pisc. Sir, I think myself happy in your acquaintance, and 
 before we jDart shall entreat leave to embrace you ; you have 
 said enough to recommend you to my best opinion : for my 
 father Walton will be seen twice in no man's company he does 
 not like, and likes none but such as he believes to be very 
 honest men ; which is one of the best arguments, or at least 
 of the best testimonies I have, that I either am, or that he 
 thinks me, one of those, seeing I have not yet found him 
 weary of me. 
 
 trout of this brook are the most highly-coloured in the country, but not the best 
 flavoured. The Wye, near Haddon Hall, and Longford-brook, ruuning by and 
 through the Earl of Leicester's seat and demesne of Longford, about six miles 
 from Ashbourn, are favourite streams of mine. The Scotch and Irish trout 
 streams are far better than those of Derbyshire, and so are some in Northum- 
 berland, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Devonshire, 
 Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, and one or two in Surrey and Middlesex. 
 The Driffield, in Yorkshire, and the Test, in Hampshire, are better angling 
 rivers than the Dove. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 247 
 
 YiAT. You speak like a true friend, and in doing so render 
 yourself worthy of liis friendship. May I be so bold as to 
 ask your name ? 
 
 Pisc. Yes surely, sir, and if you please a much nicer ques- 
 tion ; my name is , and I intend to stay long enough 
 
 in your company, if I find you do not dislike mine, to ask 
 yours too. In the meantime, because we are now almost at 
 Ashborn, I shall freely and bluntly tell you, that I am a 
 brother of the angle, too, and, peradventure, can give you 
 some instructions how to angle for a trout in a clear river, 
 that my father Walton himself will not disapprove, though he 
 did either purposely omit, or did not remember them,* when 
 you and he sat discoursing under the sycamore tree. [See 
 part i. p. 84.] And, being [seeing] you have already told 
 me whither your journey is intended, and that I am better 
 acquainted with the country than you are ; I will heartily and 
 earnestly entreat you will not think of staying at this town, 
 but go on with me six miles farther to my house,t where you 
 shall be extremely welcome ; it is directly in your way, we 
 have day enough to perform our journey, and, as you like your 
 entertainment, you may there repose yourself a day or two, or 
 as many more as your occasions will permit, to recompense 
 the trouble of so much a longer journey. 
 
 YiAT. Sir, you surprise me with so friendly an invitation 
 upon so short acquaintance; but how advantageous soever it 
 would be to me, and that my haste, perhaps, is not so great 
 but it might dispense with such a divertisement as I promise 
 myself in your company, yet I cannot, in modesty, accept 
 your offer, and must therefore beg your pardon : I could 
 otherwise, I confess, be glad to wait upon you, if upon no 
 other account but to talk of Mr. I. Walton, and to receive 
 those instructions you say you are able to give me for the 
 deceiving a trout ; in which art I will not deny but that I 
 have an ambition to be one of the greatest deceivers : 
 though I cannot forbear freely to tell you, that I tliink it 
 hard to say much more than has been read to me upon that 
 subject. 
 
 « The plain truth is, that Walton did not understand angling for " a trout 
 in a clear stream," viz., fly-fishing for it. Cotton knew this well, but was too 
 much of a courteous " cavalier" to say so bluntly. — Ed. 
 
 t Beresford-hall, situate a little to the north of Dovedale. In 1838 it was a 
 large farm-house, and the property of the Marquis of Beresford. Between it 
 and the river side is Cotton's fishing-house still standing. — Ed. 
 
248 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, I grant that, too ; but you must know that 
 the variety of rivers require different ways of angling : how- 
 ever, you shall have the best rules I am able to give, and I 
 will tell you nothing I have not made myself as certain of, as 
 any man can be in a thirty years' experience (for so long I 
 have been a dabbler in that art) ; and that, if you please to 
 stay a few days, you shall, in a very great measure, see made 
 good to you. But of that hereafter ; and now, sir, if I am 
 not mistaken, I have half overcome you ; and that I may 
 wholly conquer that modesty of yours, I will take upon me 
 to be so familiar as to say, you must accept my invitation, 
 which, that you may the more easily be persuaded to do, T 
 will tell you that my house stands upon the margin of one of 
 the finest rivers for trout and grayling in England ; that I have 
 lately built a little fishing-house upon it, dedicated to anglers, 
 over the door of which you will see the two first letters of my 
 father Walton's name and mine twisted in cipher [see title 
 jjage to Part IT.] ; that you shall lie in the same bed he has 
 sometimes been contented with, and have such country enter- 
 tainment as my friends sometimes accept, and be as welcome, 
 too, as the best friend of them all. 
 
 ViAT. No doubt, sir, but my master Walton foimd good 
 reason to be satisfied with his entertainment in your house ; 
 for you who are so friendly to a mere stranger, who deserves 
 so little, must needs be exceeding kind and free to him who 
 deserves so much. 
 
 Pisc. Believe me, no : and such as are intimately acquainted 
 with that gentleman know him to be a man who will not 
 endure to be treated like a stranger. So that his acceptation 
 of my poor entertainment has ever been a pure effect of his 
 own humility and good-nature, and nothing else. But, sir, 
 we are now going down*" the Spittle Hill, into the town ; and 
 therefore let me importune you suddenly to resolve, and (most 
 earnestly) not to deny me. 
 
 YiAT. In truth, sir, I am so overcome by your bounty, that 
 I find I cannot, but must render myself wholly to be disposed 
 of by you. 
 
 Pisc. Why, that's heartily and kindly spoken, and I as 
 heartily thank you. And, being [seeing] you have abandoned 
 
 * "Adown thy vale, romantic Ashbourn, glides. 
 The Derby dilly, with its six insides." 
 The political reader will recollect this quotation by O'Connell, and applied to 
 the then Lord Stanley, — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 249 
 
 yourself to my conduct, we will only call and drink a glass on 
 horseback at the Talbot, and away. 
 
 ViAT. I attend you. But what pretty river is this, thafc 
 runs under this stone bridge ? Has it a name 1 
 
 Pisc. Yes, it is called Henmore f and has in it both trout 
 and grayling ; but you will meet with one or two better anon. 
 And so soon as we are past through the town, I will endea- 
 vour, by such discourse as best likes you, to pass away the 
 time till you come to your ill quarters. 
 
 ASHBORN HALL. 
 
 YiAT. We can talk of nothing with which I shall be more 
 delighted than of rivers and angling. 
 
 Pisc. Let those be the subjects, then ; but we are now con^e 
 to the Talbot. What will you drink, sir, ale, or wine 1 
 
 ViAT. Nay, I am for the country liquor, Derbyshire ale, 
 if you please ; for a man should not, methinks, come from 
 London to drink wine in the Peak. ' 
 
 Pisc. You are in the right ; and yet, let me tell you, you 
 may drink worse French wine in many taverns in London, 
 than they have sometimes at this house. What ho ! bring us 
 a flagon of your best ale ; and now, sir, my service to you, a 
 
 * Now called Shoo-brook, without a trout or grayling in it. 'Tis a mere 
 ditch of running water, in which tlie little boys of Ashbourn commence their 
 angling career by fishing for minnows. — Ed. 
 
250 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 good health to the honest gentleman you know of, and you 
 are welcome into the Peak. 
 
 YiAT. I thank you, sir, and present you my service again, 
 and to all the honest brothers of the angle. 
 
 Pisc. ril pledge you, sir : so, there's for your ale, and 
 farewell. Come, sir, let us be going, for the sun grows low, 
 and I would have you look about you as you ride ; for you 
 will see an odd country, and sights that will seem strange 
 to you. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Pisc. So, sir, now we have got to the top of the hill out 
 of town, look about you, and tell me how you like the 
 country. 
 
 YiAT. Bless me, what mountains are here ! Are we not 
 in Wales ? 
 
 Pisc. 'No, but in almost as mountainous a country ; and yet 
 these hiDsy though high, bleak, and craggy, breed and feed 
 good beef and mutton, above ground, and afford good store of 
 lead within. 
 
 ViAT. They had need of all those commodities to make 
 amends for the ill landskip ; but I hope our way does not lie 
 over any of these, for I dread a precipice. 
 
 Pisc. Believe me, but it does, and down one, especially, 
 that will appear a little terrible to a stranger : though the way 
 is passable enough, and so passable, that we who are natives of 
 these mountains, and acquainted with them, disdain to alight. 
 
 YiAT. I hope, though, that a foreigner is privileged to use 
 his own discretion, and that I may have the liberty to entrust 
 my neck to the fidelity of my own feet, rather than to those 
 of my horse, for I have no more at home. 
 
 Pisc. 'Twere hard else. But in the meantime, I think 
 'twere best, while this way is pretty even, to mend our pace, 
 that we may be past that hill I speak of; to the end your 
 apprehension may not be doubled, for want of light to discern 
 the easiness of the descent. 
 
 YiAT. I am willing to put forward as fast as my beast will 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 25] 
 
 give me leave, though I fear nothing in your company. But 
 what pretty river is this we are going into 1 
 
 Pisc. Why this, sir, is called Bently-brook,'"' and is full of 
 very good trout and grayling ; but so encumbered with wood 
 in many places, as is troublesome to an angler. 
 
 YiAT. Here are the prettiest rivers, and the most of them 
 in this country that ever I saw ; do you know how many you 
 have in the country 1 
 
 ci'UAira Off uov^ dalk. 
 
 Pisc. I know them all ; and they were not hard to reckon, 
 were it worth the trouble, but the most considerable of them 
 I will presently name you. And to begin where we now are, 
 for you must know we are now upon the very skirts of Derby- 
 shire ; we have first the river Dove, that we shall come to 
 by and by, which divides the two counties of Derby and 
 Stafford for many miles together ; and is so called from the 
 swiftness of its current, and that swiftness occasioned by the 
 declivity of its course, and by being so straitened in that 
 course betwixt the rocks ; by which, and those very high 
 ones, it is, hereabout, for four or five miles, confined into a 
 very narrow stream ; a river that from a contemptible foun- 
 tain, which I can cover with my hat, by the confluence of 
 
 * Two miles beyond Ashbourn, and still not a bad stream for trout and 
 grayling. — Ed. 
 
252 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 other rivers, rivulets, brooks, and rills, is swelled, before it 
 falls into Trent, a little below Eggington, where it loses the 
 name, to such a breadth and depth as to be in most places 
 navigable, were not the passage frequently interrupted with 
 fords and weirs ; and has as fertile banks as any river in 
 England, none excepted. And this river, from its head for a 
 mile or two, is a black water, as all the rest of the Derbyshire 
 rivers of note originally are, for they all spring from the 
 mosses ; but is in a few miles travel so clarified by the addi- 
 tion of several clear and very great springs, bigger than itself, 
 which gush out of the limestone rocks, that before it comes to 
 my house, wliich is but six or seven miles from its source, 
 you will find it one of the purest crystalline streams you have 
 seen.'"' 
 
 YiAT. Does Trent spring in these parts 1 
 
 Fisc. Yes, in these parts ; not in this county, but some- 
 where towards the upper end of Staffordshire, 1 think not far 
 from a place called Trentham ; and thence runs down, not far 
 from Staftbrd, to Wolsly Bridge, and, washing the skirts and 
 purlieus of the forest of IN eedwood, runs down to Burton, in 
 the same county ; thence it comes into this, where we now 
 are, and running by Swarkston and Dunnington, receives 
 Derwent at Wildon ; and, so, to Nottingham ; thence, to 
 Newark ; and, by Gainsborough, to Kingston-upon-Hull, 
 where it takes the name of Humber, and thence falls into 
 the sea ; but that the map will best inform you. 
 
 ViAT. Know you whence this river Trent derives its 
 name? 
 
 Pisc. 'No, indeed ; and yet I have heard it often discoursed 
 upon : when some have given its denomination from the 
 forenamed Trentham, though that seems rather a derivative 
 from it ; others have said it is so called from thirty rivers 
 that fall into it, and there lose their names ; which cannot 
 
 * Between Beresford-hall and Ashbourn lies Dove-dale, whose crested cliffs 
 and swill torrents are again noticed by i\Ir, Cotton in his " AVonders of the 
 Peak." Through this singularly deep valley the Dove runs for about two 
 miles, changing its course, its motion, and its appearance perpetually ; never 
 less than ten, and rarely so many as twenty yards in width ; making a con- 
 tinued noise by rolling over or falling among loose stones. The rocks which 
 form its sides are heaved up in enormous piles, sometimes connected with each 
 other and sometimes detached ; some perforated in natural cavities, others 
 adorned witli foliage ; with here and there a tall rock, having nothing to 
 relieve the bareness of its appearance but a mountain-asli flourishing at the 
 top. The grandeur of its scenery is probably unrivalled in England. — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 253 
 
 be, neither, because it caiTies that name from its very foun- 
 tain, before any other rivers fall into it : others derive it 
 from thirty several sorts of fish that breed there ; and that 
 is the most likely derivation : but be it how it will, it is 
 doubtless one of the finest rivers in the world, and the most 
 abounding with excellent salmon, and all sorts of delicate fish/''* 
 
 YiAT. Pardon me, sir, for tempting you into this digres- 
 sion ; and then proceed to your other rivers, for I am mightily 
 deliglited with this discourse. 
 
 Pisc. It was no interruption, but a very seasonable ques- 
 tion : for Trent is not only one of our Derbyshire rivers, but 
 the chief of them, and into which all the rest pay the tribute 
 of their names, which I had, perhaps, forgot to insist upon, 
 being got to the other end of the county, had you not awoke 
 my memory. But I will now proceed. And the next river 
 of note, for I will take them as they lie eastward from us, is 
 the river Wye ; I say of note, for we have two lesser betwixt 
 us and it, namely, Lathkin and Bradford ; of which Lathkin 
 is, by many degrees, the purest and most transparent stream 
 that I ever yet saw, either at home or abroad, and breeds, it 
 is said, the reddest and the best trouts in England : but 
 neither of these are to be reputed rivers, being no better than 
 great springs. The river Wye, then, has its source near unto 
 Buxton, a town some ten miles hence, famous for a warm 
 bath, and which you are to ride through in your way to Man- 
 chester ; a black water, too, at the fountain, but, by the same 
 reason with Dove, becomes very soon a most delicate, clear 
 river, and breeds admirable trout and grayling, reputed by 
 those who, by living upon its banks, are partial to it, the best 
 
 * There are no salmon in the Trent, now, and not many trout and grayling. 
 Its trout, though few, grow to a large hize, sometimes, but very rarely as large 
 as those of the Thames. It is an excellent river for pike, perch, barbel, chub, 
 and other coarse fish. I do not think it produces thirty diflerent sorts offish. 
 ]Many think tlie contrary, but have not specifically named tliem. Others 
 maintain that it derives its name from having thirty {trente) tributaries, and 
 agree that Milton's distich, in his well-known description of English rivers, 
 should be read — 
 
 " Or Trent, who like an earth-born giant, spreads 
 Its fMrty arms along the indented meads," 
 
 instead of thirsty, the usual reading. I am inclined to think that thirsty is a 
 graphical, or typographical error — that Milton wrote thirty, and was thinking, 
 when he did so, of the earth-born (son of Coelus and Terra) giant, Briareus, and 
 his hundred arms. Walton inclines to the opinion that the Trent derives its 
 name from thirty different sorts offish found in it, and not because it is said to 
 have thirty tributaries. Milton, whether he wrote thirsty or thirty, did not 
 think so, nor do I either. — Ed. 
 
254 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 of any ; and this, running down by Ashford, Bake well, and 
 Hadden, at a town a little lower, called Rowsly, falls into 
 Derwent, and there loses its name/'^ The next in order is 
 Derv/ent, a black w^ater, too, and that not only from its foun- 
 taic, bnt quite through its progress, not having these crystal 
 springs to wash and cleanse it which the two fore-mentioned 
 have ; but abounds with trout and grayling, such as they are, 
 towards its source, and with salmon below : and this river, 
 from the upper and utmost part of the county, where it 
 springs, taking its course by Chatsworth, Darley, Matlock, 
 Derby, Burrow-Ash, and Awberson, falls into Trent at a place 
 called Wildon, and there loses its name. The east side of 
 this county of Derby is bounded by little inconsiderable rivers, 
 as Awber, Eroways, and the like, scarce worth naming, but 
 trouty, too ; and further we are not to enquire. But, sir, I 
 have carried you, as a man may say, by water, till we are 
 now come to the descent of the formidable hill I told you of, 
 at the foot of which runs the river Dove, which I cannot 
 but love above all the rest ; and therefore prepare yourself 
 to be a little frighted. 
 
 ViAT. Sir, I see you would fortify me, that I should not 
 shame myself : but I dare follow where you please to lead 
 me ; and I see no danger yet ; for the descent, me thinks, is 
 thus far green, even, and easy. 
 
 Pisc. You will like it worse presently, wdien you come to 
 the brow of the hill ; and now we are there, what think you 1 
 
 YiAT. What do I think 1 Why I think it the strangest 
 place that ever, sure, men and horses went down ; and that, 
 if there be any safety at all, the safest way is to alight. 
 
 Pisc. I think so too, for you, who are mounted upon a 
 beast not acquainted with these slippery stones ; and though 
 I frequently ride down, I will alight, too, to bear you company, 
 and to lead you the way ; and, if you please, my man shall 
 lead your horse. 
 
 * By this it appears, that there are two rivers in England that bear the name 
 of the Wye ; the former Wye, has, as well as the Severn, its head in the Plin- 
 limmon hills, on the borders of Montgomery and Cardiganshires ; from whence, 
 as its Latin name, Vaga, imports, wandering througli part of Brecknockshire, 
 it, near the Hay, enters Herefordshire ; and at Mordiford, within fom* miles of 
 Hereford, receives the Lug ; from thence, passing on to Koss, it enters Mon- 
 mouthshire, and falls into the Severn below Chepstow. It abounds witli that 
 small species offish called last-springs ; and also with grayling. — H. 
 
 [Note. — " Last-springs" are in reality pure salmon-fry, and not a small dis- 
 tinct species of fish. The Wye, where it passes Herefordshire and Monmouth- 
 shire, is a good salmon river. — Ed.] 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 255 
 
 YiAT. Marry, sir, and thank you, too : for I am afraid I 
 shall have enough to do to look to myself; and, with my 
 horse in my hand should be in a double fear, both of break- 
 ing my neck, and my horse's falling on me ; for it is as steep 
 as a penthouse. 
 
 Pisc. To look down from hence it appears so, I confess; 
 but the path winds and turns, and will not be found so 
 troublesome. 
 
 YiAT. Would I were well down though ! Hoist thee ! 
 there's one fair 'scape ! these stones are so slippery I cannot 
 stand ! yet again ! I think I were best lay my heels in my 
 neck, and tumble down. 
 
 Pisc. If you think your heels will defend your neck, that 
 is the way to be soon at the bottom ; bub give me your hand 
 at this broad stone, and then the worst is past. 
 
 ViAT. I thank you, sir, I am now past it, I can go myself. 
 "What's here the sign of a bridge? Do you use to travel with 
 wheelbarrows in this country 1 
 
 Pisc. Not that I ever saw, sir. Why do you ask that 
 question 1 
 
 YiAT. Because this bridge certainly was made for nothing 
 else ; why, a mouse can hardly go over it : 'tis not two fingers 
 broad. 
 
 Pisc. You are pleasant, and I am glad to see you so : but 
 I have rid over the bridge many a dark night. 
 
 YiAT. Why, according to the French proverb, and 'tis a 
 good one among a great many of worse sense and sound that 
 language abounds in, Ce que Dieu garde, est Men garde, 
 " They whom God takes care of are in safe protection :" but, 
 let me tell you, I would not ride over it for a thousand 
 pounds, nor fall off it for two ; and yet I think I dare venture 
 on foot, though if you were not by to laugh at me, I should 
 do it on all fours. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, your mirth becomes you, and I am glad to 
 see you safe over ; and now you are welcome into Staffordshire. 
 
 YiAT. How, Staffordshire ! What do I there, trow ? there 
 is not a word of Staffordshire in all my direction. 
 
 Pisc. You see you are betrayed into it, but it shall be in 
 order to something that will make amends ; and 'tis but an 
 ill mile or two out of your way. 
 
 YiAT. I believe all things, sir, and doubt nothing. Is 
 this your beloved river, Dove 1 'Tis clear and swift, indeed, 
 but a very little one. 
 
256 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. You see it here at the worst : we shall come to it 
 anon again, after two miles riding, and so near as to lie upon 
 the very banks. 
 
 YiAT. Would we were there once : but I hope we have 
 no more of these Alps to pass over. 
 
 Pisc. No, no, sir ; only this ascent before you, which you 
 see is not very uneasy, and then you will no more quarrel with 
 your way. 
 
 YiAT. Well, if ever I come to London, of which many a 
 man there, if he were in my place, would make a question, I 
 will sit down and write my travels ; and, like Tom Coriate,'^' 
 print them at my own charge. Pray wliat do you call this 
 hill we came down "? 
 
 Pisc. We call it Hanson Toot. 
 
 YiAT. Why, farewell, Hanson Toot ! Pll no more on thee : 
 I'll go twenty miles about first : Puh ! I sweat that my shirt 
 sticks to my back. 
 
 Pjsc. Come, sir, now we are up the hill ; and now how do 
 you? 
 
 YiAT. Why, very well, I humbly thank you, sir ; and warm 
 enough, I assure you. What have we here, a church 1 As 
 I'm an honest man, a very pretty church ? Have you 
 churches in this country, sir 1 
 
 * Tom Coriate lived in the reign of King James the First; and, as Wood 
 calls him, was the whetstone of all the wits of that age : and, indeed, the allu- 
 sions to him, and to the singular oddness of his character, are numberless. He 
 travelled almost over Europe on foot ; and in that tour walked 900 miles with 
 one pair of shoes, which he got mended at Zurich. Afterwards he visited 
 Turkey, Persia, and the Great Mogul's dominions, travelling in so frugal a 
 manner, that — as he tells his mother, in a letter to her — in his ten months' 
 travels, between Aleppo and the Mogul's court, he spent but three pounds 
 sterling; living remarkably w^ell for about twopence sterling a day; and of 
 that three pounds he elsewhere says, he was cozened of no less than ten 
 shillings sterling by certain Christians of the Armenian nation ; so that, 
 indeed, he spent but fifty shillings in his ten months' travels. In these, his 
 travels, he attained to great perfection both in the Persian and Hindostan lan- 
 guages ; in the former, he made and pronounced an oration to the Great 
 Mogul ; and his skill in the latter he took occasion to manifest in the following 
 very signal instance. In the service of the English ambassador, then resident, 
 was a woman of Hindostan. a laundress, whose frequent practice it was to scold, 
 brawl, and rail, from sunrising to sunset. This formidable shrew did Coriate 
 one day undertake to scold with, in her own language ; and succeeded so well 
 in the attempt, that, by eight of the clock in the morning, he had totally 
 silenced her, leaving her not a word to speak. Further it appears, that he was 
 a zealous champion for tlie Christian religion against tlie Mahometans and the 
 Pagans, in the defence whereof he sometimes risked his life. He died of the 
 flux, occasioned by drinking sack, at Surat, in 1G17: having published his 
 European travels in a quarto volume, which he called his " Crudities ;" and to 
 this circumstance the passage in the text is a manifest allusion, — H. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 257 
 
 Pisc. You see we have : but had you seen noue, why 
 should you make that doubt ^ sir ? 
 
 ViAT. Why, if you will not be angry, I'll tell you ; I 
 thought myself a stage or two be3^ond Christendom. 
 
 Pisc. Come, come, we'll reconcile you to our country 
 before w^e part with you, if showing you good sport with 
 angling will do it. 
 
 YiAT. My respect to you, and that together, may do much, 
 sir ; otherwise, to be plain with yon, I do not find myself 
 much inclined that way. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, your raillery upon our mountains has 
 brought us almost home ; and look you where the same river 
 of Dove has again met us to bid you welcome, and to invite 
 you to a dish of trouts to-morrow. 
 
 YiAT. Is this the same we saw at the foot of Penmen- 
 Maure 1 It is a much finer river here. 
 
 Pisc. It will appear yet much finer to-morrow. But look 
 you, sir, here appears the house, that is now like to be your 
 inn, for want of a better. 
 
 YiAT. It appears on a sudden, but not before 'twas looked 
 for ; it stands prettily, and here's wood about it too, but so 
 young, as appears to be of your own planting. 
 
 Pisc. It is so; will it please you to alight, sir? and now 
 permit me. after all your pains and dangers, to take you in 
 my arms, and to assure you, that you are infinitely welcome. 
 
 YiAT. I thank you, sir, and am glad with all my heart I 
 am here ; for, in downright truth, I am exceeding wear}^ 
 
 Pisc. You will sleep so much the better ; you shall pre- 
 sently have a light supper, and to bed. Come, sirs, lay the 
 cloth, and bring what you have presently, and let the gen- 
 tleman's bed be made ready in the meantime, in my father 
 Walton's chamber ; and now, sir, here is my service to you 
 and once more welcome. 
 
 YiAT. Ay marry, sir, this glass of good sack has refreshed 
 me, and I'll make as bold with your meat, for the trot has 
 got me a good stomach. 
 
 Pisc. Come, sir, fall to, then, you see my little supper is 
 always ready when I come home ; and I'll make no stranger 
 of you. 
 
 YiAT. That your meal is so soon ready is a sign your 
 servants know your certain hours, sir ; I confess I did not 
 expect it so soon ; but now 'tis here, you shall see I will make 
 myself no stranger. 
 
 E 
 
258 THE COMPLETE ANGLES. 
 
 Pisc. Much good do your heart, and I thank you for that 
 friendly word : and now, sir, my service to you in a cup of 
 More-Lands ale : for you are now in the More-Lands, but 
 within a spit and a stride of the Peak ; fill my friend his glass. 
 
 YiAT. Believe me, you have good ale in the More-Lands, 
 far better than that at Ashborn.'" 
 
 Pisc. That it may soon be : for Ashborn has, which is a 
 kind of riddle, always in it the best malt, and the worst ale 
 in England. t Come, take away, and bring us some pipes, 
 and a bottle of ale, and go to your own suppers. Are you 
 for this diet, sir 1 
 
 ViAT. Yes, sir, I am for one pipe of tobacco ; and I per- 
 ceive yours is very good by the smell. 
 
 Pisc. The best I can get in London, I assure you. J But, 
 
 * The name of this pretty town is variously Avritten, — Ashborn, Ashbourn, 
 Ashborne. The latter is the modern way of spelling it. — Ed. 
 
 t Such is not the case now, but quite the reverse. Ashborne ale is as good 
 as that of any other town in England. Each publican brews his own ale ; 
 hence a competition that leads to excellency. It is the same at Nottingham ; 
 and I class amongst the best, pleasantest, and purest ales sold publicly those of 
 the above towns. The cellars in each are merely excavations in rock and 
 sandstone, and are peculiarly adapted for preserving and improving malt 
 liquors. — Ed. 
 
 t It should seem, by what Walton says. Chap. X. Part I., that he was a 
 smoker : and the reader sees, by the passage in the text, that Piscator, by 
 whom we are to understand Cotton himself, is so curious as to have his tobacco 
 from London. But our piscatory disciple may do as he pleases. Smoking, or, 
 as the phrase was, taking tobacco, was, in Queen Elizabeth's and her suc- 
 cessor's time, esteemed the greatest of all foppery. Ben Jonson, wlio mortally 
 hated it, had numberless sarcasms against smoking and smokers ; all of which 
 are nothing, compared to those contained in that work of our King James the 
 First, " A Counter-blast to Tobacco." jSfor was the ordinary conversation of 
 this monarch less fraught with reasons and invectives against the use of that 
 weed, as will appear from the following saying of his, extracted from " A Col- 
 lection of Witty Apophthegms," delivered by him and others, at several times, 
 and on sundry occasions, published in 12mo, 1671. " That tobacco was the 
 lively image and pattern of hell ; for that it had, by allusion, in it all the parts 
 and vices of the world whereby hell may be gained ; to wit : First, It was a 
 smoke ; so are the vanities of this world. Secondly, It delighteth them who 
 take it ; so do the pleasures of the world delight the men of the world. Thirdly, 
 It maketh men drunken and liglit in the head : so do the vanities of the world : 
 men are drunken therewith. Fourthly, He that takes tobacco saith he cannot 
 leave it, it doth bewitch him : even so do the pleasures of the world make men 
 loath to leave them, they are for the most part so enchanted with them. And 
 further, besides all this, it is like hell in the very substance of it, for it is a 
 stinking loathsome thing ; and so is hell. And further, his majesty professed 
 that, were he to invite the devil to dinner, he should have three dishes ; 1. A 
 pig ; 2. A pole of ling and mustard ; and 3. A pipe of tobacco for digesture." 
 In Herefordshire, to signify the last or concluding pipe that any one means to 
 smoke at a sitting, they use the term a Kemble pipe, alluding to a man of the 
 name of Kemble, who in the cruel persecution under the merciless bigot Queen 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 259 
 
 sir, now you have thus far complied with my designs, as to 
 take a troublesome journey into an ill country, only to satisfy 
 me ; how long may I hope to enjoy you 1 
 
 ViAT. Why truly, sir, as long as I conveniently can ; and 
 longer, I think, you would not have me. 
 
 Pisc. Not to your inconvenience by any means, sir : but 
 I see you are weary, and therefore I will presently wait on. 
 you to your chamber, where, take counsel of your pillow ; 
 and, to-morrow resolve me. Here, take the lights ; and 
 pray follow them, sir : here you are like to lie ; and now I 
 have showed you your lodgings, I beseech you, command 
 anything you want, and so I wish you good rest, 
 
 ViAT. Good night, sir.* 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 [Secontr ©at?.] 
 
 Pisc. Good morrow, sir ; what ! up and drest so early ? 
 
 ViAT. Yes, sir, I have been drest this half hour ; for I 
 rested so well, and have so great a mind either to take, or 
 to see a trout taken in your fine river, that I could no 
 longer lie abed. 
 
 Pisc. I am so glad to see you so brisk this morning, and 
 so eager for sport ; though I must tell you, this day proves 
 so calm, and the sun rises so bright, as promises no great 
 success to the angler ; but, however, we'll try, and, one way 
 or other, we shall sure do something. What will you have 
 to your breakfast, or what will you drink this morning ? 
 
 ViAT. For breakfast, I never eat any, and for drink am 
 very indifferent ; but if you please to call for a glass of ale, 
 I'm for you ; and let it be quickly, if you please, for I long 
 to see the little fishing-house you spoke of, and to be at my 
 lesson. 
 
 Mary, being condemned for heresy, in his walk of some miles from the prison 
 to the stake, amidst a crowd of weeping friends, with the tranquillity and for- 
 titude of a primitive martyr, smoked a pipe of tobacco. — H. 
 
 * The gentlemanly hospitality of Piscator, by whom we are here to under- 
 stand Mr. Cotton himself, in his behaviour to a stranger, manifested in the 
 foregoing part of the dialogue, and in this instance of courtesy, is well worth 
 noting. — H. 
 
 r2 
 
260 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, you see the ale is come without calling ; 
 for though I do not know yours, my people know my diet, 
 which is always one glass so soon as I am drest, and no more, 
 till dinner : and so my servants have served you. 
 
 YiAT. My thanks ! And now, if you please, let us look 
 out this fine morning. 
 
 Pisc. With all my heart. Boy, take the key of my fishing- 
 house, and carry down those two angle-rods in the hall 
 window, thither, with my fish-pannier, pouch, and landing- 
 net ; and stay you there till we come. Come, sir, we'll walk 
 after, where, by the way, I expect you should raise all the 
 exceptions against our country you can. 
 
 YiAT. Nay, sir, do not think me so ill-natured nor so un- 
 civil ; I only made a little bold with it last night to divert 
 you, and was only in jest. 
 
 Pisc. You were then in as good earnest as I am now with 
 you : but had you been really angry at it, I could not blame 
 you : for, to say the truth, it is not very taking at fir^t sight. 
 But look you, sir, now you are abroad, does not the sun shine 
 as bright here as in Essex, Middlesex, or Kent, or any of 
 your southern counties ? 
 
 YiAT. It is a delicate morning, indeed ; and I now think 
 this a marvellous pretty place. 
 
 Pisc. Whether you think so or no, you cannot oblige me 
 more than to say so ; and those of my friends who know my 
 
 FISHING HOUSE, 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 261 
 
 humour, and are so kind as to comply with it, usually flatter 
 me that way. But look you, sir, now you are at the brink 
 of the hill, how do you like my river, the vale it winds 
 through like a snake, and the situation of my little fishing- 
 house '? 
 
 ViAT. Trust me, 'tis all very fine, and the house seems at 
 this distance a neat building. 
 
 Pisc. Good enough for that purpose : and here is a bowl- 
 ing-green too, close by it ; so, though I am myself no very 
 good bowler, I am not totally devoted to my own pleasure, 
 but that I have also some regard to other men's. And now, 
 sir, you are come to the door, pray walk in, and there we will 
 sit and talk as long as you please. 
 
 YiAT. Stay, what's here over the door? Piscatoribus 
 Sacrum.'"' Why then, I perceive I have some title here; for 
 1 am one of them, though one of the worst ; and here below 
 it is the cypher too you spoke of, and 'tis prettily contrived. 
 Has my master Walton ever been here to see it, for it seems^ 
 new built H 
 
 Pisc. Yes, he saw it cut in the stone before it was set up ;: 
 but never in the posture it now stands ; for the house was 
 but building when he was last here, and not raised so high as 
 the arch of the door. And I am afraid he will not see it yet; 
 for he has lately writ me word, he doubts his coming down 
 this summer ; which, I do assure you, was the worst news 
 he could possibly have sent me. 
 
 YiAT. Men must sometimes mind their affairs to make 
 
 * There is, under this motto, the cypher prefigured in the title-page to the - 
 second part of this work. And some part of the fishing-house has been already 
 described ; but the pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows about it, . 
 cannot, unless Sir Philip Sidney, or JNIr. Cotton's father, were again alive ta 
 do it. 
 
 t I have been favoured with an accurate description of this fishing-house, by 
 .1 person, who, being in that country, with a view to oblige me, went to see it. 
 Tlie account he gave of it is, that it is of stone, and the room inside a cube of 
 fifteen feet ; that it is paved with black and white marble, and that in the 
 middle is a square black marble table, supported by two stone feet. The room 
 is wainscoted, with curious mouldings that divide the panels up to the ceiling. 
 In the larger panels are represented, in painting, some of the most pleasant of 
 the adjacent scenes, with persons fishing ; and in the smaller, the various sorts 
 of tackle and implements used in angling. In the farther corner, on the left, 
 is a fire-place with a chimney ; on the right, a large beaufet, with folding- 
 doors, whereon are the portraits of Mr. Cotton, with a boy servant, and 
 Walton, in the dress of the time. Underneath is a cupboard ; on the door 
 whereof the figures of a trout and a grayling are well portrayed. The edifice 
 is at this time (1748) in but indifferent condition ; the paintings, and even the 
 wainscoting, in many places, being much decayed. — Hawkins (son of Sir John ) 
 
262 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 more room for their pleasures : and 'tis odds he is as much 
 displeased with the business that keeps him from you, as you 
 are that he comes not. But I am most pleased with this little 
 house of any thing I ever saw : it stands in a kind of penin- 
 sula too, with a delicate clear river about it. I dare hardly 
 go in, lest I should not like it so well within as without : but, 
 by your leave, I'll try. Why, this is better and better, fine 
 lights, fine wainscoted, and all exceeding neat, with a marble 
 table and all in the middle ! 
 
 Pisc. Enough, sir, enough ; I have laid open to you the 
 part where I can worst defend myself, and now you attack me 
 there. Come, boy, set two chairs ; and whilst I am taking a 
 pipe of tobacco, which is always my breakfast, we ^ill, if you 
 please, talk of some other subject. 
 
 YiAT. Kone fitter, then, sir, for the time and place, than 
 those instructions you promised. 
 
 Pisc. I begin to doubt, by something I discover in you, 
 whether I am able to instruct you or no ; though, if you are 
 really a stranger to our clear northern rivers, I still think 1 
 can : and therefore, since it is yet too early in the morning 
 at this time of the year, to-day being but the seventh of 
 March, to cast a fly upon the water, if you will direct me 
 what kind of fishing for a trout I shall read you a lecture on, 
 I am willing and ready to obey you. 
 
 YiAT. Why, sir, if you will so far oblige me, and that it 
 may not be too troublesome to you, I would entreat you 
 would run through the whole body of it ; and I will not 
 conceal from you that I am so far in love with you, your 
 courtesy, and pretty More-Land seat, as to resolve to stay 
 with you long enough by intervals, for I will not oppress 
 you to hear all you can say upon that subject. 
 
 Pisc. You cannot oblige me more than by such a promise : 
 and therefore, without more ceremony, I will begin to tell 
 you, that my father Walton having read to you before, it 
 would look like a presumption in me (and, perad venture, 
 would do so in any other man), to pretend to give lessons for 
 angling after him, w^ho, I do really believe, understands as 
 much of it at least as any man in England, did I not pre- 
 acquaint you, that I am not tempted to it by any vain opi- 
 nion of myself, that I am able to give you better directions ; 
 but having, from my childhood, pursued the recreation of 
 angling in very clear rivers, truly I think by much, some of 
 them at least, the clearest in this kingdom, and the manner 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 263 
 
 of angling here with us, by reason of that exceeding clearness, 
 being something different from the method commonly used 
 in others, which by being not near so bright, admit of stronger 
 tackle, and allow a nearer approach to the stream ; I may 
 perad venture give you some instructions that may be of use, 
 even in your own rivers, and shall bring you acquainted with 
 more flies, and show you how to make them, and with what dub- 
 bing too, than he has taken notice of in his Complete Angler. 
 YiAT. I beseech you, sir, do : and if you will lend me your 
 steel, I will light a pipe the while ; for that is commonly my 
 breakfast in a morning too. 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 [Sccontr ©ap.] 
 
 Pisc. Why then, sir, to begin methodically, as a master in 
 any art should do ; and I will not deny but that I think 
 myself a master in this, I shall divide angling for trout or 
 grayling into these three ways; at the top, at the bottom, and 
 in the middle. Which three ways, though they are all of 
 them, as I shall hereafter endeavour to make it appear, in 
 some sort common to both those kinds of fish, yet are they 
 not so generally and absolutely so, but that they will neces- 
 sarily require a distinction, which, in due place, I will also 
 give you. 
 
 That which we call angling at the top is with a fly ; at the 
 bottom, with a ground-bait; in the middle, with a minnow or 
 ground-bait. 
 
 Angling at the top is of two sorts ; with a quick [live] fly, 
 or with an artificial fly. 
 
 That we call angling at the bottom is also of two sorts ; 
 by the hand, or with a cork or float. 
 
 That we call angling in the middle is also of two sorts ; 
 with a minnow for a trout, or with a ground-bait for a 
 grayling.* 
 
 * Angling '• in the middle," means trolling and spinning. Fishing with a 
 ground-bait for grayling is not angling at the middle, but at the bottom. 
 There is a method of fishing for grayling and other fish called " sinking and 
 drawing," which consists in part of fishing at the bottom, the middle, and 
 nearly at the top. 
 
264 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Of all which several sorts of angling, I will, if you can have 
 the patience to hear me, give you the best account I can. 
 
 YiAT. The trouble will be yours, and mine the pleasure 
 and the obligation : I beseech you therefore to proceed. 
 
 Pisc. Why then, first of fly-fishing. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 OF FLY-FISHING. 
 
 [^cconlr Ban.] 
 
 Pisc. Fly-fishing, or fishing at the top, is, as I said before, 
 of two sorts ; with a natural and living fly, or with an artificial 
 and made fly. 
 
 First then, of the natural fly : of which we generally use 
 but two sorts ; and those but in the two months of May and 
 June only ; namely, the green drake and the stone-fly : 
 though I have made use of a third, that way, called the 
 camlet-fly, with very good success, for grayling, but never 
 saw it angled with by any other, after this manner, my 
 master only excepted, who died many years ago, and was one 
 of the best anglers that ever I knew. 
 
 These are to be angled with, with a short line, not muck 
 more than half the length of your rod, if the air be still j or 
 with a longer, very near, or all out, as long as your rod, if 
 you have any wind to carry it from you. And this way of 
 fishing we call daping, dabbing, or dibbing ;'" wherein you 
 are always to have your line flying before you up or down the 
 river, as the wind serves, and to angle as near as you can to 
 the bank of the same side whereon you stand, though where 
 you see a fish rise near you, you may guide your quick [live] 
 fly over him, whether in the middle, or on the contrary side ; 
 and if you are pretty well out of sight, either by kneeling or 
 the interposition of a bank or bush, you may almost be sure to 
 raise, and take him too, if it be presently done; the fish will, 
 otherwise, peradventure be removed to some other place, if it 
 be in the still deeps, where he is always in motion, and roving 
 
 * I have already described this mode of angling at the end of chap. iii. 
 p. 59.— Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 265 
 
 up and down to look for prey, though, in a stream, you may 
 always almost, especially if there be a good stone near, find 
 him in the same place. Your line ought in this case to 
 be three good hairs next the hook, both by reason you are in 
 this kind of angling to expect the biggest fish, and also that 
 wanting length to give him line after he is struck, you must 
 be forced to tug for it ; to which 1 will also add that not an 
 inch of your line being to be sufiered to touch the water in 
 dibbing, it may be allowed to be the stronger. I should now 
 give you a description of those flies, their shape and colour, 
 and then give you an account of their breeding, and withal 
 show you how to keep and use them ; but shall defer them 
 to their proper place and season. 
 
 ViAT. In earnest, sir, you discourse very rationally of this 
 affair," and I am glad to find myself mistaken in you; for in 
 tx'uth I did not expect so much from you. 
 
 Pisc. Nay, sir, I can tell you a great deal more than this, 
 and will conceal nothing from you. But I must now come 
 to the second way of angling at the top, which is with an arti- 
 ficial fly, which also I will show you how to make before I 
 have done, but first shall acquaint you, that with this you are 
 to angle with a line longer by a yard and a half, or sometimes 
 two yards, than your rod ; and with both this and the other, 
 in a still day in the streams, in a breeze that curls the water 
 in the still deeps, where (excepting in May and June, that the 
 best trouts will lie in shallow streams to watch for prey, and 
 even then too) you are like to hit the best fish. 
 
 For the length of your rod, you are always to be governed 
 by the breadth of the river you shall chuse to angle at ; and 
 for a trout-river, one of five or six yards longt is commonly 
 enough ; and longer, though never so neatly and artificially 
 made, it ought not to be, if you intend to fish at ease ; and if 
 otherwise, where lies the sport ? 
 
 Of these, the best that ever I saw are made in Yorkshire, 
 which are all of one piece ; that is to say, of several, six, eighr., 
 ten, or twelve pieces, so neatly pieced and tied together with 
 fine thread below, and silk above, as to make it taper 
 like a switch, and to j^ly with a true bent to your hand ; and 
 
 * This compliment is well-deserved : Cotton understood " daping, dabbing, 
 or dibbing" well, and teaches it soundly, — Ed. 
 
 t Too long by one or two yards. See remarks on fishing-rods at the end of 
 chap, xxi., part i. — Ed. 
 
266 THii: COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 these too are light, being made of fir-wood for two or three 
 lengths nearest to the hand, and of other wood nearer to the 
 top, that a man might very easily manage the longest of 
 them that ever I saw, with one hand ; and these, when you 
 have given over angling for a season, being taken to pieces, 
 and laid up in some dry place, may afterwards be set together 
 again in their former postures, and v/ill be as straight, sound, 
 and good, as the first hour they were made ; and being laid 
 in oil and colour, according to your master Walton's direction, 
 will last many years. 
 
 The length of your line, to a man that knows how to handle 
 his rod, and to cast it, is no manner of incumbrance, excej)ting 
 in v/oody places, and in landing of a fish, which every one 
 that can afford to angle for pleasure, has somebody to do for 
 him ; and the lengtli of line is a mighty advantage to the 
 fishing at a distance ; aud to fish fine, and far ofi', is the first 
 and principal rule for trout-angling.* 
 
 Your line in this case should never be less, nor ever 
 exceed two hairs next to the hook ; for one, (though some, I 
 know, will pretend to more art than their fellows) is indeed 
 too few, the least accident, with the finest hand, being 
 sufficient to break it : but he that cannot kill a trout of 
 twenty inches long with two, in a river clear of wood and 
 weeds, as this and some others of ours are, deserves not the 
 name of an angler. 
 
 Now, to have your whole line as it ought to be, two of the 
 first lengths nearest the hook should be of two hairs a-piece ; 
 the next three lengths above them of three ; the next three 
 above them of four ; and so of Rve, and six, and seven, to 
 the very top : by which means, your rod and tackle will, in 
 a manner, be taper from your very hand to your hook ; your 
 line will fall much better and straighter, and cast your fly to 
 any certain place, to which the hand and eye shall direct it, 
 with less weight and violence, than would otherwise circle 
 the water, and fright away the fish. 
 
 * An artist may easily throw twelve yards of line with one hand ; and with 
 two, he may as easily throw eighteen. — H. 
 
 [An accomplished fly-fisher of the present day can throw his fly a distance 
 of fifteen yards with a single-handed rod, and twenty-five and even thirty yards 
 with the double-handed salmon-rod. Modern superiority in throwing the fly 
 is the result of fishing with far better rods and lines than those used in the 
 time of Sir John Hawkins — about a century ago. Since 1836, when I first 
 began to write upon angling, the improvement in all sorts of fishing-tackle 
 has been wonderfully progressive, marked, and useful. — Ed.] 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 267 
 
 In casting your line, do it always before you, and so that 
 your fly may first fall xipon the water, and as little of your 
 line with it as is possible ; though if the wind be stiff, you 
 will then of necessity be compelled to drown a good part of 
 your line to keep your fly in the water : and in casting your 
 fly> yo^ must aim at the further or nearer bank as the wind 
 serves your turn, which also will be with and against you, on 
 the same side, several times in an hour, as the river winds in 
 its course, and you will be forced to angle up and down by 
 turns accordingly, but, endeavour, as much as you can, to 
 have the wind, evermore, on your back. And always be sure 
 to stand as far off the bank as your length will give you leave 
 when you throw to the contrary side : though when the wind 
 will not permit you so to do, and that you are constrained to 
 angle on the same side whereon you stand, you must then 
 stand on the very brink of the river, and cast your fly to the 
 utmost length of your rod and line, up or down the river, 
 as the gale serves. 
 
 It only remains, touching your line, to inquire whether 
 your two hairs next to the hook are better twisted or open ? 
 And for that I should declare that I think the open way the 
 better, because it makes less show in the water, but that 
 I have found an inconvenience, or two, or three, that have 
 made me almost weary of that way ; of which, one is, that, 
 without dispute, they are not so strong open as twisted ; 
 another, that they are not easily to be fastened of so exact 
 an equal length in the arming that the one will not cause the 
 other to bag, by which means a man has but one hair upon 
 the matter to trust to ; and the last is that these loose flying 
 hairs are not only more apt to catch upon every twig 
 or bent they meet with, but, moreover, the hook, in falling 
 upon the water, will, very often, rebound and fly back 
 betwixt the hairs, and there stick (which, in a rough water 
 especially, is not presently to be discerned by the angler), so 
 as the point of the hook shall stand reversed ; by which means 
 your fly swims backward, makes a much greater circle in the 
 water, and till taken home to you and set right, will never 
 raise any fish, or, if it should, I am sure, but by a very 
 extraordinary chance, can hit none.* 
 
 * This cannot happen with the present gut casting-lines, the only sort that 
 should be used for fly-fishing. For making them, casting with them, working 
 the flies in the water— hooking, playing, landing a fish— see my instructions at 
 the end of this chapter. — Ed. 
 
268 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Having done with botli tliese ways of fishing at the top^ 
 the length of your rod, and line and all, I am next to teach 
 you how to make a fly ; and afterwards of what dubbing you 
 are to make the several flies I shall hereafter name to you. 
 
 In making a fly then, which is not a hackle or palmer-fly 
 (for of those, and their several kinds, we shall have occasion 
 to speak every month in the yeai') you are first to hold your 
 hook fast betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your left- 
 hand, with the back of the shank upwards, and the point 
 towards your finger's ends; then take a strong small silk, of 
 the colour of the fly you intend to make, wax it well with 
 wax of the same colour too (to which end, you are always, 
 by the way, to have wax of all colours about you), and draw 
 it betwixt your finger and thumb, to the head of the shank, 
 and then whip it twice or thrice about the bare hook, which 
 you must know is done, both to prevent slipping, and also 
 that the shank of the hook may not cut the hairs of your 
 towght, which sometimes it will otherwise do : which being 
 done, take your line, and draw it likewise betwixt your 
 finger and thumb, holding the hook so fast as only to suffer 
 it to pass by, until you have the knot of your towght almost 
 to the middle of the shank of your liook, on the inside of it ; 
 then whip your silk twice or thrice about both hook and line, 
 as hard as the strength of the silk will permit ; which being 
 done, strip the feather for the wings proportionable to the 
 bigness of your fiy, placing that side downwards which grew 
 uppermost before, upon the back of the hook, leaving so 
 much only as to serve for the length of the wing of the 
 point of the plume, lying reversed from the end of the shank 
 upwards ; then whip your silk twice or thrice about the 
 root-end of the feather, hook, and towght ; which being done, 
 clip off the root-end of the feather close by the arming, and 
 then whip the silk fast and firm about the hook and towght, 
 until you come to the bend of the hook, but not further, as 
 you do at London, and so make a very unhandsome, and, in 
 plain English, a very unnatural and shapeless fly ; which 
 being done, cut away the end of your towght, and fasten it, 
 and then take your dubbing, which is to make the body of 
 your fly, as much as you think convenient, and holding it 
 lightly with your hook betwixt the finger and thumb of 
 your left hand, take your silk with the right, and twisting it 
 betwixt the finger and thumb of that hand, the dubbing 
 will spin itself about the silk, which when it has done, whip 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 269 
 
 it about the armed liook backward, till yon come to the 
 setting on of the wings, and then take the feather for the 
 wings, and divide it equally into two parts, and turn them 
 back towards the bend of the hook, the one on the one side 
 and the other on the other of the shank, holding them fast 
 in that posture betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your 
 left hand ; which done, warp them so down as to stand and 
 slope towards the bend of the hook ; and having warped up 
 to the end of the shank, hold the fly fast betwixt the finger 
 and thumb of your left hand, and then take the silk betwixt 
 the finger and thumb of your right hand, and where the 
 warping ends, pinch or nip it with your thumb-nail against 
 your finger, and strip away the remainder of your dubbing 
 from the silk, and then with the bare silk whip it once or 
 twice about, make the wings to stand in due order, fasten, 
 and cut it off; after which, with the point of a needle, raise 
 up the dubbing gently from the warp, twitch off the super- 
 fluous hairs of your dubbing ; leave the wings of an equal 
 length, your fly will never else swim true, and the work is 
 done. And this way of making a fly, which is certainly the 
 best of all other, was taught me by a kinsman of mine, one 
 Captain Henry Jackson, a near neighbour, an admirable fly- 
 angler, by many degrees the best fly-maker that ever I yet 
 met with.'^* And now that I have told you how a fly is to 
 be made, you shall presently see me make one, with which 
 you may peradventure take a trout this morning, notwith- 
 standing the unlikeliness of the day ; for it is now nine of 
 the clock, and fish will begin to rise, if they will rise to-day : 
 I will walk along by you, and look on, and after dinner I 
 will proceed in my lecture of fly-fishing. 
 
 YiAT. I confess 1 long to be at the river, and yet I could 
 sit here all day to hear you : but some of the one, and some 
 of the other, will do well ; and I have a mighty ambition to 
 take a trout in your river Dove. 
 
 Pisc. I warrant you shall : I would not for more than I 
 
 * There needs nothing more be said of these directions, than that hundreds 
 have, by means of them alone, become excellent fly-makers. — II. 
 
 [Note. — I cannot agree with Sir J. Hawkins. Cotton's directions are 
 limited to making the easiest of all made flies — a fly with body and wings, but 
 without tail, hackle-feather for legs, tinsel for tip and ribbing. In consequence, 
 I have given diagrams of the artificial fly in its several stages of fabrication, 
 and have elucidated them with written descriptions and instructions. See the 
 last pages of this work. — Ed.] 
 
270 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 will speak of but you should, seeing I liave so extolled my 
 river to you : nay, I will keep you here a month, but you 
 shall have one good day of sport before you go. 
 
 YiAT. You will find me, I doubt, too tractable that way; 
 for in good earnest, if business would give me leave, and that 
 it were fit, I could find in my heart to stay with you for ever. 
 
 Pisc. I thank you, sir, for that kind expression ; and now 
 let me look out my things to make this fly. 
 
 [IlEMAEKS ON GUT, CaSTING-LINES j ON THE OWING THE LiNE AND 
 
 Flies ; Woeking or " Htjmoueing" the lattee on the Watee ; 
 ON hooking, plating, and landing a Teoft. — Silk-worm gut is now 
 used by all fly-fishers. It can be bought cheaply of all qualities- 
 roundness, strength, lengths of link, thickness, and fineness. The best 
 comes from Spain : and the fresher, brighter, and rounder it is the better. 
 It cannot be too thick or round fi)r salmon-fishing, or too fine for trout 
 and grayling-fishing in a clear-stream. I do not think it absolutely 
 necessary to stain gut, but if you choose to do so, immerse it in coils in a 
 saucer of heated good writing ink for four or five minutes, and then wash 
 it in cold spring water. The colour communicated to the gut will be a 
 pale bluish green. In making the gut, casting-line, or " collar," as in 
 certain localities it is termed, the finest links should be at the end of the 
 line that first touches the water, and then should gradually increase in 
 thickness up to the loop by means of which the collar is fastened to the 
 loop of the winch -line. The extreme end of the winch-line, and the 
 i|pper end of the casting-line should be equal in thickness, and to render 
 them so, a couple of feet of fine platted gut may be added to the thicker 
 end of the casting-line. The links of which the latter is formed are 
 knotted together — fine end to thick end — and the knots are frequently 
 rendered more secure by being whipped neatly with waxed silk. If the 
 links are well knotted, they will require no whipping. It is above these 
 knots that the drop-flies, or "bobs," are attached; the tail-fly, or 
 " stretcher," is looped to the fine end of the casting-line, whose length 
 need never exceed two and a half yards, and on which it is rarely advisable 
 to place more than three flies, a stretcher, and two drop-flies. The 
 stretcher should be the largest and best fly ; the first drop, a bob, the 
 next best ; and the drop-fly above that the smallest and least attractive. 
 The distance between the stretcher and first bob should be two feet, and 
 between the first and last bob eighteen or twenty inches. Your casting- 
 line is now complete. 
 
 At the outset — at the first lesson of throwing the line — begin with 
 about four or five yards of the winch-line, not putting on the gut casting- 
 line until you can throw tolerably well a few yards of the winch-fine. 
 When you can do so, attach a gut collar of two yards, without any fly 
 attached ; and after you have learnt to throw that straightly eight or ten 
 yards, you may attach your stretcher and one bob and commence 
 angling. In ** A Handbook of Angling," I have written on throwing 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 271 
 
 the line as follows : — " You are a beginner, I presume, and have never 
 handled a rod before. Let the rod for your novitiate be ten or eleven feet 
 long ; its play inchning rather to faulty stiffness than to over-pUancy. 
 Put the joints or pieces together, the rings standing in a straight line, 
 that the winch-line may run freely through them without any tortuous 
 impediment. Put on your winch with its handle, at first, to its left side, 
 and draw your line through the riugs, until there be four or five yards of 
 it out beyond the final ring at the point of the top joint. Turn your 
 rod so that the winch be on the under side, with its handle to your right 
 hand. You are now ready for your first cast. Grasp your rod in your 
 right hand a little above the winch, but not tightly. Your hand must 
 not close firmly with the thumb turned over your knuckles, as if you 
 were going to strike a blow. Your fingers must simply entwine the rod, 
 not squeeze it, and your thumb, the flat, fleshy part downwards, must be 
 straight with the arm, pressing the upper side of the rod, which hold up 
 perpendicularly, and pointing a, little to the left side. Take the tip of 
 the fine between the fore-finger and thumb of your left liand : poise your 
 rod loosely and freely, and see that it balances easily in your right hand. 
 .... I'll suppose you on a bank above some river's surface. Move your 
 right wrist and fore-arm round to the right, letting go, just as it is begin- 
 ning to get taut, the tip of the line from your left fingers, and bring 
 round from left to right over your right shoulder the upper part of your 
 rod, describing with the pbint of it an irregular — a horse-shoe — circle, and 
 then cast forward with a flinging motion of the wrist and fore-arm. The 
 motion, or action of the w^ist must predominate over that of the fore-arm 
 and elbow joint. If you follow the above motions exactly, and with fear- 
 less freedom, from four to five feet of the extremity of your line should 
 faU lightly upon the surface of the water. If not, you are wrong, and 
 you must continue practising until you are right." 
 
 To prevent too much of the line falling upon the water, do not bend 
 yom- body with the cast, or allow the point of your rod to descend be- 
 yond a horizontal position ; indeed not so much, but a little between the 
 horizontal and perpendicular projection. " At first,'" as I have written 
 in the treatise just named, " you will find, unless you be very handy, and 
 a very apt scholar indeed, that nearly all your line out will fall upon the 
 water, and that the point of your rod will come in contact, or nearly so, 
 with the surface of it. These are the greatest drawbacks to throwing a 
 line well, and if not overcome, the learner must never expect to become 
 an expert fly-fisher. With might and main he must struggle to vanquish 
 them. They are caused by letting the fore-arm fall too low whilst in the 
 act of casting, and bending the body forward in unison with the down- 
 ward motion of the arm. Here is the remedy. When you have made 
 your casting movement — brought your rod and line over the shoulder 
 and over and by the right side of your head, and propelled them forwards, 
 the motion of the wrist and elbow joint must be gradually checked as the 
 line is straightening itself in its onward and descending course. The 
 body must be upright, and the chest held rather back. You will find, if 
 you hold your rod properly, that the end of it nearest to you, the part 
 between your hand and the spike, or spud, will come in contact with the 
 
272 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 nncler part of your fore-arm as the line is approaching the water ; and 
 this contact will prevent the point of yonr rod following the line so low 
 as to cause a great part of the latter to roll on to the water." 
 
 Having practised with winch-line only, and being able to throw well 
 ten yards of it, put on your casting-line with a single liy, and see if you 
 cannot raise and hook a fish. There is a cast — the back -handed one — 
 which you must learn. It means throwing from left to right, and is 
 done by bringing the point of your rod well up before you from right 
 to left side ; and then, turning over your hand, by the action of the wrist, 
 from left to right, throw backwards down stream, bringing rod and line 
 over in that direction, and sending the casting-line sharply obliquely 
 across the water below you, on the right side. This is a good way of 
 casting when there are obstructions, trees, rocks, high banks, behind 
 you ; and at the same time it eases your arm when fatigued with casting 
 from the right shoulder. Being able so to cast, that your gut-line will 
 touch the water first, bringiiig with it on to the surface very little of the 
 winch-line, you may commence operations in earnest, and with three 
 flies. In throwing a long line, the right arm motion must be no longer 
 confined to the hand and fore-arm, but must extend to the shoulder. 
 All the powers of the muscles of the fore, upper arm and shoulder must 
 be brought into requisition. The arm must be brought round in a full 
 easy sweep until the hand and rod come over the shoulder, and above 
 and by the right side of the head, and then the line and flies must be 
 sent forwards with a vigorous fling. 
 
 The flies are humoured on the water with the current, and not against 
 it, as they are humoured in fishing for salmon. Throw them obliquely 
 from you across the stream, and work them downwards, giving them 
 motion by tremulous action of the wrist, and working them with the 
 current ; and the line having fioated to its tightened length, work the 
 flies across stream, but not against it, until they have nearly reached the 
 bank below on your side. Take them then from the water, and repeat 
 the cast either above or below the previous one — above, if you are fishing 
 a river upwards ; below, if you are fishing downwards, or with the flow 
 of the water. Anglers disagree on the question of fishing up and down 
 stream. In my opinion, it is better to begin fishing towards the tail of 
 a stream, finishing at its head, for by so doing fewer fish are disturbed 
 than by the effects that follow commencing at the head of a pool, swim, 
 or stream. A hooked-fish generally runs down stream, and will disturb 
 the fish before him. If, fishing up stream, you have already thrown over 
 fish above you without raising them, their being disturbed or frightened 
 by the struggling hooked-fish will be of no consequence. Having already 
 refused your lures, you may leave them, for the time being at least, in 
 their unscared tranquillity. Invariably commence casting near the bank 
 on which you stand, increasing the lengths of your casts until you throw 
 as far from you as you can. If you commence with long casts, you 
 would disturb the fish that lie in that part of the water nearest to you. 
 The following passage, written by me six years since, has been lauded 
 by practitioners and quoted by the best writers on angling : — " In what 
 precise shape artificial flies floating on the water, or just beneath it, pre- 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEK. 273 
 
 sent themselves to the fish, I cannot truly tell. They certainly cannot 
 present themselves in the exact living forms of natural insects, but their 
 appearance must be something similar. If I were to guess, I should say 
 that the artificial flies for the common trout, grayling, and some of the 
 carp tribe, present the appearance of drowning, or drowned natural 
 flies — of living insects struggling on, or a little beneath the surface of 
 the water. I do not think this surmise fanciful. At any rate, the fly- 
 fisher should endeavour to present his artificial baits to the fish as 
 deceptively as possible, namely, by giving them as natural an appearance 
 as may be. He must cause them to drop lightly on the water, because 
 the natural fly does so ; he must cause them to float down stream as near 
 the surface as he can, because the natural fly moves upon the surface of 
 the water ; and he must impart tremulous, or fitful motion to his flies — 
 a sort of fluttering, generally speaking, being the best. All this is 
 comprehended by the expression * humouring' one's flies. To do it, 
 the moment your flies alight upon the water, hold up your rod, so that 
 the drop-fly next to it may appear skimming the surface ; the other two, 
 if properly proportioned and attached to the casting-line, being ever so 
 little under water. If you allow your upper dropper to be under water, 
 all the flies on the line below that dropper will be sunk too deeply to 
 appear living insects to the fish, and therefore any motion you may give 
 them will not be attractive. When you keep your last dropper (second 
 fly from the stretcher or tail-fly) on the surface of the water, impart to 
 it a very slight skipping motion, by a tremulous shake of the rod, and 
 the flies that are just under water will receive the most natural move- 
 ments you can give them. Never drag your trout-flies straight across 
 the water towards you ; and never, unless they be flies for salmon or 
 sea-trout, work them against the current." 
 
 When a fish rises to the fly, do not strike rapidly or roughly. A 
 gentle, obliquely upwards twist of the wrist, made the moment you feel 
 your fish, will be sufficient to hook him. Strike not at a rise, but a little 
 after it ; and not at all, unless sensation tells you the fish has touched or 
 seized the fly. If a fish rises and misses the fly, and you strike at him, 
 thereby whipping the fly unnaturally away from him, he will hardly be 
 tempted to rise again ; but if you do not, and go on humouring your 
 flies until it be necessary to make another cast, in all probability the 
 trout will come again. When hooked, do not lean heavily on your fish, 
 but let him go, holding him in hand, with an upright rod, and taut, but 
 not pulling, line. Of such a line give him enough ; for the more of it he 
 has to swim away with and carry, the sooner will he be exhausted 
 — when you feel that he is, wind up your winch-line slowly, presenting 
 the butt of the rod towards the fish, and the latter will yield, and come 
 towards you. If he be a small fish, lift him out of the water by an easy, 
 long, upwards jerk in the direction of the shore. If large, lead him 
 gently, head foremost, towards your sunken landing-net ; and when his 
 head and shoulders are within the hoop of the net, lift it up, and you 
 have a captive past escaping. Never thrust, nor let your attendant 
 thrust, the net at the fish, lest, scared at such rude proceeding, he break 
 away by the force of a fierce final struggle, or lest he or the line be 
 
 S 
 
274! THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 struck by the net, and so cause a prompt and lasting dissolution of part- 
 nership. If a fish, as soon as hooked, commences struggling on the 
 surface of the water, or throws jump after jump out of it, it is a sure 
 sign that he is not firmly liooked. At each jump, lower a little the 
 point of your rod ; do not pull whilst the fish is struggling on the surface, 
 or bounding up beyond it. Play him with delicacy ; and instead of 
 tearing away the hook from a slight hold, you may succeed in rendering 
 that hold firmer. When a fish, on being hooked, sinks rapidly to the 
 bottom, depend upon it he is well hooked. Play him with confidence, 
 but not with brute force, and he cannot escape. In foul parts of the 
 river, amongst rocks, roots of trees, near dilapidated weirs, close above 
 them, or the arches of bridges, you must work with a tight rein, and 
 " butt" your foe determinedly every time he makes a rush for some dan- 
 gerous locality, with the intention of making it a vantage ground for a 
 successful sauve qui pent on his part. 
 
 [If the reader study these instructions, together with those on hooking, 
 playing, &c., a salmon, given at the end of Cbap. VII., Part I., and prac- 
 tise them carefully, the result will be — " Jack is as good as his master." 
 —Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 [Sccontf Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. Boy, come, give me my dubbing-bag here presently ; 
 and now, sir, since I find you so honest a man, I will make 
 no scruple to lay open my treasure before you. 
 
 YiAT. Did ever any one see the like ! What a heap of 
 trumpery is bere ! Certainly never an angler in Europe has 
 his shop balf so well furnished as you have. 
 
 Pisc. You, perhaps, may think now, that I rake together 
 this trumpery, as you call it, for show only ; to the end that 
 such as see it, which are not many I assure you, may think 
 me a great master in the art of angling : but, let me tell you, 
 bere are some colours, as contemptible as they seem here, 
 that are very hard to be got ; and scarce any one of them 
 which, if it should be lost, I should not miss, and be con- 
 cerned about the loss of it, too, once in the year. But look 
 you, sir, amongst all these I will choose out these two colours 
 only, of which, this is bear's hair, this darker, no great matter 
 what j but I am sure I have killed a great deal of fish with it ; 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 2/5 
 
 and with one or both of these you shall take trout or grayling 
 this very day, notwithstanding all disadvantages, or my art 
 shall fail me. 
 
 YiAT. You promise comfortably, and I have a great deal of 
 reason to believe everything you say ; but I wish the fly were 
 made, that we were at it. 
 
 Pisc. That will not be long in doing : and pray observe 
 then. You see first how I hold my hook, and thus I begin. 
 Look you, here are my first two or three whips about the 
 bare hook ; thus I join hook and line ; thus I put on my 
 wings ; thus I twirl and lap on my dubbing ; thus I work it 
 up towards the head ; thus I part my wings ; thus I nip my 
 superfluous dubbing from my silk ; thus fasten ; thus trim 
 and adjust my fly ; and there's a fly made ; and now how do 
 you like it 1 
 
 YiAT. In earnest, admirably well, and it resembles a fly : 
 but we about London, make the bodies of our flies both much 
 bigger and longer, so long as even almost to the very beard 
 of the liook. 
 
 Pisc. I know it very well, and had one of those flies given 
 me by an honest gentleman, who came with my father Walton 
 to give me a visit ; which (to tell you the truth) I hung in 
 my parlour window to laugh at : but, sir, you know the 
 proverb, " Those who go to Pome must do as they at Pome 
 do ;" and believe me, you must here make your flies after 
 this fashion, or you will take no fish. Come, I will look 
 you out a line, and you shall put it on, and try it. There, 
 sir, now I think you are fitted ; and now beyond the fur- 
 ther end of the walk you shall begin : I see, at that bend of 
 the water above, the air crisps the water a little : knit your 
 line first here, and then go up thither, and see what you 
 can do. 
 
 YiAT. Did you see that, sir ? 
 
 Pisc. Yes, I saw the fish : and he saw you too, which 
 inade him turn short. You must fish further ofi", if you 
 intend to have any sport here ; this is no New Piver, let me 
 tell you. That was a good trout, believe me : did you touch him ? 
 
 YiAT. No, I would I had, we would not have parted so. 
 Look you, there is another : this is an excellent fly. 
 
 Pisc. That fly I am sure would kill fish, if the day were 
 right : but they only chew at it, I see, and will not take it. 
 Come, sir, let us return back to the fishing-house : this still 
 water, I see, will not do our business to-day : you shall now, 
 
 s2 
 
276 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 if you please, make a fly yourself,''-' and try what you can do 
 in the streams witli that : and I know a trout taken with a fly 
 of your own making, will please you better than twenty with 
 one of mine. Give me that bag again, sirrah : look you, sir, 
 there is a hook, towght, silk, and a feather for the wings : be 
 doing with those, and I will look you out a dubbing that I 
 think will do. 
 
 YiAT. This is a very little hook. 
 
 Pisc. That may serve to inform you, that it is for a very 
 little fly, and you must make your wings accordingly ; for as 
 the case stands, it must be a little fly, and a very little one 
 too, that must do your business. Well said ! believe me, 
 you shift your fingers very handsomely ; I doubt I have 
 taken upon me to teach my master. So here's your dubbing 
 now. 
 
 YiAT. This dubbing is very black. 
 
 Pisc. It appears so in hand ; but step to the door and hold 
 it up betwixt your eye and the sun, and it will appear a 
 shining red ; let me tell you, never a man in England can 
 discern the true colour of a dubbing any way but that, and 
 therefore cliuse always to make your flies on such a bright 
 sunshine day as this,t which also you may the better do, 
 because it is worth nothing to fish in : here, put it on, and 
 be sure to make the body of your fly as tender as you can. 
 Yery good ! upon my word you have made a marvellous 
 handsome fly. 
 
 YiAT. I am very glad to hear it ; it is the first that ever I 
 made of this kind in my life. 
 
 * To make a fly is so essential, that he hardly deserves the name of an 
 angler who cannot do it. There are many Avho will go to a tackle-shop, and 
 tell the master of it, as Dapper does Subtle, in the " Alchemist," that they want 
 a fly ; for which they have a thing put into their hands that would pose a 
 naturalist to find a resemblance for: though, when particular directions have 
 been given, I have known them excellently made by the persons employed by 
 the fishing-tackle makers in London. But do thou, my honest friend, learn to 
 make thy own flies ; and be assured, that in collecting and arranging the 
 materials, and imitating the various shapes and colours of these admirable 
 creatures, there is little less pleasure than even in catching fish. — IT. 
 
 [Note. — All this is changed now. The flies sold in the London tackle-shops 
 are generally good, and in some very good. Those made by Blacker, of 54, 
 Dean-street, Soho, cannot be equalled ; and the flies of 3Iessrs. Bowness, Bell- 
 yard, Mr. Bernard, Church-place, Piccadilly, of Mr. C. Farlow, 191, Strand, 
 and Mr. Little, Fetter-lane, are killing ones. — Ed.] 
 
 t Excellent advice. The colour of feathers, fur, etc., cannot be accurately 
 ascertained, except by looking through them at the light. In mixing dif- 
 ferently coloured bits of dubbing a good light, natural or artificial, is neces- 
 sary. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 277 
 
 Pisc. Away, away ! you are a doctor at it ; but I will not 
 commend you too much, lest I make you proud. Come, put 
 it on, and you shall now go downward to some streams be- 
 twixt the rocks below the little foot-bridge you see there, and 
 try your fortune. Take heed of slipping into the water as 
 you follow me under this rock : so, now you are over, and now 
 throw in. 
 
 YiAT. This is a fine stream indeed : — there's one ! I have 
 him. 
 
 Pisc. And a precious catch you have of him ; pull him out ! 
 I see you have a tender hand : this is a diminutive gentleman, 
 e'en throw him in again, and let him grow till he be more 
 worthy your anger.* 
 
 ViAT. Pardon me, sir, all's fish that comes to the hook with 
 me now. — Another. 
 
 Pisc. And of the same standing. 
 
 ViAT. I see I shall have good sport now : another ! and a 
 grayling. Why, you have fish here at will. 
 
 Pisc. Come, come, cross the bridge, and go down the 
 other side lower, where you will find finer streams and better 
 sport, I hope than this. Look you, sir, here is a fine stream 
 now, you have length enough, stand a little further off, let 
 me entreat you, and do but fish this stream like an artist, and 
 peradventure a good fish may fall to your share. — How now ! 
 what ! is all gone ? 
 
 ViAT. No, but I touched him ; but that was a fish worth 
 taking. 
 
 Pisc. Why now, let me tell you, you lost that fish by your 
 own fault, and through your own eagerness and haste ; for 
 you are never to ofier to strike a good fish, if he do not strike 
 himself, till you first see him turn his head after he has taken 
 your fly, and then you can never strain your tackle in the 
 striking, if you strike with any manner of moderation. t 
 Come, throw in once again, and fisli me this stream by inches ; 
 for I assure you here are very good fish ; both trout and gray- 
 ling lie here ; and at that great stone on the other side, it is 
 ten to one a good trout gives you the meeting. 
 
 * This passage proves Cotton to have been a real sportsman. He contemns 
 catching small fish, and says, " throw them in again." Viator being a novice, 
 sees no discredit in capturing "diminutive gentlemen," and it is quite in 
 keeping with the sentiments of a young angler to exclaim, " All's lisli that 
 comes to the hook now." — Ed. 
 
 t Pray, reader, attend to this valuable counsel. 
 
278 bMPLETE ANGLEK. 
 
 YiAT. I have him now, but he is gone down towards the 
 bottom : I cannot see what lie is, yet he should be a good fish 
 by his weiglit ; but he makes no great stir. 
 
 Pisc. Why then, by what you say, I dare venture to assure 
 you it is a grayling, who is one of the deadest-hearted fishes 
 in the world, and tbe bigger he is, the more easily taken. 
 Look you, now you see him plain ; I told you what he was : 
 bring hither that landing-net, boy : and now, sir, he is your 
 own j and believe me a good one, sixteen inches long, I warrant 
 him : I have taken none such this year. 
 
 YiAT. I never saw a grayling before look so black. 
 
 Pisc. Did you not 1 Why then, let me tell you, that you 
 never saw one before in right season ; for then a grayling is 
 very black about his head, gills, and down his back ; and has 
 liis belly of a dark gray, dappled with black sj^ots, as you see 
 this is ; and I am apt to conclude that from thence he derives 
 his name of umber. Though I must tell you this fish 
 is past his prime, and begins to decline, and was in better 
 season at Christmas than he is now. But move on : for 
 it grows towards dinner time ; and there is a very great 
 and fine stream below, under that rock, that fills the 
 deepest pool in all the river, where you are almost sure of 
 a good fish. 
 
 YiAT. Let him come, I'll try a fall with him. But I had 
 thought that the grayling had been always in season with the 
 trout, and had come in and gone out with him. 
 
 Pisc. Oh, no ! assure yourself a grayling is a winter fish ; 
 but such a one as would deceive any but such as know him 
 very well indeed ; for his flesh, even in his worst season, is so 
 firm, and will so easily calver, that in plain truth he is very 
 good meat at all times : but in his perfect season (which, by 
 the way, none but an overgrown grayling will ever be), I think 
 him so good a fish, as to be little inferior to the best trout 
 that ever I tasted in my life. 
 
 YiAT. Here's another skipjack ; and I have raised five or 
 six more at least while you were speaking. Well, go thy 
 way, little Dove ! thou art the finest river that ever I saw, 
 and the fullest of fish. Indeed, sir, I like it so well, that I 
 am afraid you will be troubled with me once a year, so long 
 as we two live. 
 
 Pisc. I am afraid I shall not, sir : but were you once here 
 a May or a June, if good sport would tempt you, I should 
 then expect you would sometimes see me ; for you would then 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 279 
 
 say it was a fine river indeed, if you had once seen tli e sport 
 at the height. 
 
 ViAT. Which T will do, if I live, and that you. please to 
 give me leave. There was one, and there another. 
 
 Pisc. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of your 
 own making 1 why, what a dangerous man are you ! 
 
 YiAT. I, sir : but who taught me ? and as Damsetas says 
 by his man Dorus, so you may say by me, 
 
 * ' If any man such praises liave, 
 What then have I, that taught the knave !"* 
 
 But what have we got here ? a rock springing up in the 
 middle of the river ! this is one of the oddest sights that ever 
 I saw. 
 
 Pisc. Why, sir, from that piket that you see standing uji 
 
 PIKE POOL. 
 
 * Sidney's " Arcadia." 
 
 t It is a rock, in the fashion of a spire-steeple, and almost as big. It stands 
 in the midst of the river Dove ; and not far from Mr. Cotton's house ; below 
 which place this delicate river takes a swift career betwixt many mighty 
 rocks, much higher and bigger than St. Paul's Church before it was burnt. 
 And this Dove, being opposed by one of the highest of them, has, at last, 
 forced itself a way through it ; and after a mile's concealment, appears again 
 with more glory and beauty than before that opposition, running through the 
 most pleasant valleys and most fruitful meadows that this nation can justly 
 boast of. — (Walton, junior.) 
 
 [Note. — The Dove, or a branch of it, runs for a short distance under ground 
 and debouches into daylight, a little northward of Islam Hall, the beautiful 
 castellated mansion of Mr. Watts Russell, whose father, once a large and 
 
280 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 there distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool. And 
 young Mr. Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw 
 it in landscape, in black and white, in a blank book I have 
 at home, as he has done several prospects of my house also, 
 which I keep for a memorial of his favour, and will show you 
 when we come up to dinner. 
 
 YiAT. Has young master Izaak Walton been here, too ? 
 
 Pisc. Yes, marry has he, sir, and that again and again, too, 
 and in France since, and at Kome, and at Venice, and I can't 
 tell where : but I intend to ask him a great many hard ques- 
 tions so soon as I can see him, which will be, God willing, 
 next month. In the meantime, sir, to come to this fine 
 stream at the head of this great pool, you must venture over 
 these slippery, cobbling stones ; believe me, sir, there you 
 were nimble, or else you had been down ; but now you are 
 got over, look to yourself : for, on my word, if a fish rise 
 here, he is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle : 
 how now ! 
 
 YiAT. I think you have such command here over the fishes, 
 that you can raise them by your word, as they say conjurers 
 can do spirits, and afterward make them do what you bid 
 them, for here's a trout has taken my fly, I had rather have 
 lost a crown.'" What luck's this ! he was a lovely fish, and 
 turned up a side like a salmon. 
 
 Pisc. O, sir, this is a war where you sometimes win, and 
 must sometimes expect to lose. Never concern yourself for 
 the loss of your fly, for ten to one I teach you to make a 
 better. Who's that calls ? 
 
 Serv. Sir, will it please you to come to dinner 1 
 
 Pisc. We come. You hear, sir, we are called, and now 
 take your choice, whether you will climb this steep hill before 
 you, from the top of which you will go directly into the 
 house, or back again over these stepping-stones, and about by 
 the bridge. 
 
 YiAT. Nay, sure, the nearest way is best ; at least my 
 stomach tells me so ; and I am now so well acquainted with 
 your rocks, that I fear them not. 
 
 opulent soap-boiler of London, built it within the present century. Its picture- 
 gallery is one of the finest in the kingdom, and in the chapel there is a monu- 
 ment to the memory of the late Mrs. Watts Ilussell and children, by Chantrey, 
 and considered equal to any of his other statues. — Ed.] 
 
 * Not taken it in the ordinary angUng acceptation, but taken it off the line 
 —broken away with it, so that both fish and fly are lost. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 281 
 
 Pisc. Come, tlien, follow me ; and so soon as we have 
 (lined, we will down again to the little house, where T will 
 begin at the place I left off about fly-fishing, and read you 
 another lecture ; for I have a great deal more to say upon 
 that subject. 
 
 YiAT. The more the better; I could never have met with 
 a more obliging master, my first excepted ; nor such sport can 
 all the rivers about London ever afford, as is to be found in 
 this pretty river. 
 
 Pisc. You deserve to have better, both because I see you 
 are willing to take pains, and for liking this little so well ; and 
 better I hope to show you before we part. 
 
 CHAPTEU YII. 
 [SecontJ ©au.] 
 
 YiAT. Come, sir, having now well dined, and being again 
 set in your little house, I will now challenge your promise, 
 and entreat you to proceed in your instruction for fly-fishing ; 
 w^hich that you may be the better encouraged to do, I will 
 assure you that I have not lost, I think, one syllable of what 
 you have told me ; but very well retain all your directions, 
 both for the rod, line, and making a fly; and now desire an 
 account of the flies themselves. 
 
 Pisc. Why, sir, I am ready to give it you, and shall have 
 the whole afternoon to do it in, if nobody come in to inter- 
 rupt us; for you must know (besides the unfitness of the day) 
 that the afternoons, so early in March, signify very little for 
 angling with a fly, tliough with a minnow, or a worm, some- 
 thing might (I confess) be done. 
 
 To begin, then, where I left off, my father Walton tells us 
 of but twelve artificial flies only, to angle with at the top, 
 and gives their names ; of which some are common with us 
 here ; and I think I guess at most of them by his descrip- 
 tion, and I believe they all breed and are taken in our rivers, 
 though we do not make them either of the same dubbing or 
 fashion. And it may be in the rivers about London, which 
 I presume he has most frequented, and where it is likely he 
 
282 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 has done most execution, tliere is not much notice taken of 
 many more : but we are acquainted with several others here, 
 though perhaps I may reckon some of his by other names, 
 too ; but if I do, I shall make you amends by an addition to 
 his catalogue. And although the forenamed great master in 
 the art of angling, for so in truth he is, tells you that no 
 man should, in honesty, catch a trout in the middle of March, 
 yet I hope he will give a man leave sooner to take a gray- 
 ling, which, as I told you, is in the dead months in his best 
 season : and do assure you (which I remember by a very 
 remarkable token), li did once take, upon the sixth day of 
 December, one, and only one, of the biggest graylings, and 
 the best in season, that ever I yet saw or tasted ; and do 
 usually take trouts too, and with a fly, not only before the 
 middle of this month, but almost every year in February, 
 unless it be a very ill spring indeed ; and have sometimes in 
 January, so early as New-year's tide, and in frost and snow, 
 taken grayling in a warm sunshine day for an hour or two 
 about noon ; and to fish for him with a grub, it is then the 
 best time of all. 
 
 I shall therefore begin my fiy-fishing with that month, 
 though I confess very few begin so soon, and that such as are 
 so fond of the sport as to embrace all opportunities, can 
 rarely in that month find a day fit for their purpose; and tell 
 you, that upon my knowledge these flies in a warm sun, for 
 an hour or two in the day, are certainly taken. 
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 1. A Red Brown, with wings of the male of a mallard 
 almost white : the dubbing of the tail of a black long-coated 
 cur, such as they commonly make muflfs of; for the hair on 
 the tail of such a dog dies and turns to a red-brown, but the 
 hair of a smooth-coated dog of the same colour will not do, 
 because it will not die, but retains its natural colour, and this 
 fly is taken in a warm sun, this whole month through. 
 
 % There is also a very little Bright Dun Gnat, as little as 
 can possibly be made, so little as never to be fished with, with 
 above one hair next the hook ; and this is to be made of a 
 mixed dubbing of marten's fur, and the white of a hare's scut, 
 with a very white and small wing ; and it is no great matter 
 how fine you fish, for nothing will rise in this month, but a 
 grayling ; and of them I never, at this season, saw any taken 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 283 
 
 with a fly, of above a foot long in my life : but of little ones 
 about the bigness of a smelt, in a warm day, and a glowing 
 sun, you may take enough with these two flies, and they are 
 both taken the whole month through.'^* 
 
 rEERUARY. 
 
 1. Where the red- brown of the last month ends, another 
 almost of the same colour begins, with this saving, that the 
 dubbing of this must be of something a blacker colour, and 
 both of them wrapped on with red silk. The dubbing that 
 should make this fly, and that is the truest colour, is to be 
 got ofl* the black spot of a hog's ear : not that a black spot in 
 any part of the hog will not afford the same colour, but that 
 the hair in that place is, by many degrees, softer, and more 
 fit for the purpose. His wing must be as the other [1. in 
 January] ; and this kills all this month, and is called the 
 lesser red-brown. 
 
 2. This month, also, a plain hackle, or palmer-fly, made 
 with a rough black body, either of black spaniel's fur, or the 
 whirl of an ostrich feather, and the red hackle of a capon 
 over all, will kill, and, if the weather be right, make very good 
 sport. 
 
 3. Also a lesser hackle, with a black body, also silver twist 
 over that, and a red feather over all, will fill your pannier, if 
 the month be open, and not bound up in ice and snow, with 
 very good fish ; but, in case of a frost and snow, you are to 
 angle only with the smallest gnats, browns, and duns you can 
 make ; and with those are only to expect graylings no bigger 
 than sprats. 
 
 4. In this month, upon a whirling round water, we have a 
 great hackle, the body black, and wrapped with a red feather 
 of a capon untrimmed ; that is, the whole length of the hackle 
 staring out (for we sometimes barb the hackle-feather short 
 all over ; sometimes barb it only a little, and sometimes barb 
 
 * I do not think it necessary to describe the patterns of any trout-flies for 
 this month. Trout are in such ill-condition now, as to be entirely worthless 
 either for sport or food ; Grayling may be caught in the middle of fine 
 January days, with gentles, small artificial duns, and with a little " soldier 
 palmer," made thus : — Body, bronze-coloured peacock harl, ribbed with fine 
 gold twist, and two very small black-red, or furnace hackles, struck with strict 
 regularity from tail to shoulder. Hooks, ten, eleven, twelve. This little 
 palmer is a general lure for trout, dace, and roach in the summer and autumn 
 months. — Ed. 
 
284 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 it close underneath), leaving the whole length of the feather 
 on the top or back of the fly, which makes it swim better, and, 
 as occasion serves, kills very great fish. 
 
 5. We make use, also, in this month, of another great 
 hackle, the body black, and ribbed over with gold twist and 
 a red feather over all ; which also does great execution. 
 
 6. Also a great dun, made with dun bear s hair, and the 
 wings of the grey feather of a mallard near unto his tail ; 
 which is absolutely the best fly can be thrown upon a river 
 this month, and with which an angler shall have admirable 
 sport. 
 
 7. We have also this month the great blue dun, the dub- 
 bing of the bottom of bear's hair next to the roots, mixed with 
 a little blue camlet, the wings of a dark grey feather of a 
 mallard. 
 
 8. We have also this month a dark-brown, the dubbing of 
 the brown hair ofl* the flank of a brended cow, and the wings 
 of the grey drake's feather. 
 
 And note, that these several hackles, or palmer-flies, are 
 some for one water and one sky, and some for another ; and, 
 according to the change of those, we alter their size and 
 colour ; and note also, that both in this, and all other months 
 of the year, when you do not certainly know what fly is 
 taken, or cannot see any fish to rise, you are then to put on a 
 small liackle, if the water be clear, or a bigger if something 
 dark, until you have taken one ; and then thrusting your 
 finger through his gills, to pull out his gorge, which being 
 opened with your knife, you will then discover what fly is 
 taken, and may fit yourself accordingly. 
 
 For the making of a hackle, or palmer-fly, my father Walton 
 has already given you sufficient direction.'"' 
 
 [I am not very favourable to simple hackles, or to any sort of palmers, 
 ■either in this month, or in March. I would not use palmers until April. 
 Indeed I consider them summer and autumn baits. They are repre- 
 
 * But, with ]Mr. Cotton's good leave, he has not, nor any author that I know 
 of, unless we are to take that for a palmer, which Walton has given directions 
 for making, page 88, which I can never do till I see, what I have never yet 
 seen, viz., caterpillars with wings. Rejecting, therefore, wings as unnatural 
 and absurd ; supposing you would make the plain hackle or palmer, which are 
 terms of the same import, the method of doing it is as follows : So far. Sir 
 John Hawkins. But I reject his instructions for making a hackle, and substi- 
 tute my own. They will be found at the end of this work, following the plate 
 on which are engraved diagrams of winged flies and hackle in their first, 
 middle, and last stages of manufacture. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 285 
 
 seutatious of caterpillars, produced in warm weather, and very rarely 
 found in this climate of ours in April. Cotton gives a list of eight flics 
 for February. I do not like any one of them. I will give four patterns 
 for this month, confident of their attractiveness, 
 
 No. 1. Wings, a light brown, mottled feather of the mallard, found 
 under its wing; bodj', a mixture of red squirrel's fur and claret mohair„ 
 warped up the hoop to the wings with fiery brown silk ; legs, a hackle- 
 dyed claret. Hooks, 8, 9, 10. 
 
 No. 2. Wings, standing upright, of a starling's wing-feather ; tail, two 
 fibres of the mottled mallard's feather ; body, dark olive mohair, tipped 
 with silver tinsel. Hooks, 9 and 10. A good fly on a bright day. 
 
 No. 3. Whigs, reddest feather of the woodcock's wing ; body, dark fur 
 of the hare's ear, to be picked out at the shoulder ; gold tip, and tail, two 
 fibres of the mallard feather. Hooks, same size as those of No. 2. 
 
 No. 4. Wings and legs, brown mottled partridge back-feather ; body, 
 a mixture of orange mohair, and dark and light hare's ear fur. Hooks, 
 10 and 11.— Ed.] 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 For this montli you are to use all the same hackles and flies 
 with the other ; but you are to make them less. 
 
 1. We have, besides, for this month, a little dun, called a 
 whirling dun (though it is not the whirling dun, indeed, 
 which is one of the best flies we have) ; and for this the dub- 
 bing must be of the bottom fur of a squirrel's tail ; and the 
 wing, of the grey feather of a drake. 
 
 2. Also a briglit brown ; the dubbing either of the brown 
 of a spaniel, or that of a red cow's flank, with a grey wing. 
 
 3. Also a whitish dun ; made of the roots of camel's hair ; 
 and the wings, of the grey feather of a mallard. 
 
 4. There is also for this montli a fly called the thorn-tree 
 fly ; the dubbing an absolute black, mixed with eight or ten 
 hairs of Isabella-coloured mohair ; the body as little as can 
 be made ; of a bright mallard's feather. An admirable fly, 
 and in great repute amongst us for a killer. 
 
 5. There is, besides this, another Blue Dux, tlie dubbing 
 of which it is made being thus to be got. Take a small-tooth 
 comb, and with it comb the neck of a black greyhound, and 
 the down that sticks in the teeth will be the flnest blue that 
 ever you saw. The wings of this fly can hardly be too white, 
 and he is taken about the tenth of this month, and lasteth 
 till the four-and- twentieth. 
 
 6. From the tenth of this month also, till towards the end, 
 is taken a little Black Gnat ; the dubbing either of the fur 
 of a black v/ater-dog, or the down of a young black water- 
 
286 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 coot, the wing of the male of a mallard as white as may be, 
 the body as little as you possibly can make it, and the wings 
 as short as his body. 
 
 7. From the sixteenth of this month also to the end of it, 
 we use a Bright Biiovf n j the dubbing for which is to be had 
 out of a skinner's lime-pits, and of the hair of an abortive 
 calf, which the lime will turn to be so bright as to shine like 
 gold : for the wings of this fly, the feather of a brown hen 
 is best, which fly is taken till the tenth of April. 
 
 [Trout takes flies eagerly this month, chiefly in sharp, gravelly, some- 
 what shallow streams. On their bottoms they lie to clean themselves by 
 friction against sand and gravel, to feed on small fish etc., and to enjoy 
 the watery element, more oxygenated than deep pools, by the action of a 
 springtide sun's rays. The best flies for this month are, — 
 
 No. 1. Hofland's Fancy. — Wings, woodcock's wing-feather ; legs, 
 bright red cOck's hackle ; body, dark, brown-red floss silk ; tail, two 
 fibres of the red hackle. Hook, No. 10. This is a standard fly for all 
 the trout streams of the metropolitan counties. 
 
 No. 2. The Red Spii^neh. — Wings, light brown mallard; body, scarlet 
 mohair, ribbed with thin gold wire ; legs, blood-red hackle ; tail, two 
 fibres of the same. Hook, 9 and 10. 
 
 No. 3. Wings, a fieldfare's wing-feather ; body, orange-coloured floss 
 silk, over v/hich, in close, regular laps from tail to shoulder, a furnace- 
 hackle, that is a cock's neck leather, the outer part of the fibres of which 
 are of a pure dark red, the inner part, next the stem of the feather, being 
 quite black. It is a most valuable feather. Hook, No. 10. An excel- 
 lent general fly. 
 
 No. 4. Wings, hen pheasant's wing-feather ; legs, a dun hackle, with 
 dark bars ; body, light-blue fur of the water rat, mixed with yellow 
 mohair ; tail, two fibres of the hackle used for legs. Hook, 10. 
 
 No. 5. CoCH-Y-BoNDDHiJ. — Wings, a furnace-hackle, tied buzz; legs 
 the same feather ; body short, of black ostrich and bright bronze peacock 
 hard, twisted together ; gold- tip ; and hooks, 10 and 11. 
 
 No. 6. The Mahch-bhow^k. — Wings, standing erect, of the hen 
 pheasant's wing or tail-feather; body, pale orange moliair mixed with 
 reddish fur from the hare's poll ; legs, a pure honey dun hackle ; tail, two 
 fibres of the pheasant's wing. Hooks, 7, 8, 9, and 10. 
 
 I consider this the best of all flies from the middle of March to the end 
 of April, with the exception of the oak-fly for the latter month. When 
 the natural fly is on the water in great abundance, it is taken by trout 
 as eagerly as the Mayfl^^, or green drake, in May and June. I esteem it 
 so highly, that I will give two other ways of dressing it. 
 
 1st. Blackeh's way. — Wings, hen pheasant's wing-feather or gre}^ 
 mottled partridge feather ; body, light and dark hare's-ear fur, mixed 
 with a little dark yellow mohair, and ribbed with pale yellow silk ; legs, 
 small brown partridge back -feather ; tail, two fibres of brown mottled 
 mallard's feather. Hooks, 9 and 10. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 287 
 
 2ncl. Blaine's way. — Wings, mottled feather from the tail of a i^ar- 
 tridge, or hen pheasant, set upright ; body, light fur and red squirrel's 
 fur mixed, and ribbed with yellow silk ; legs, a grizzled dun-hackle, and 
 tail, whisks of tw^o fibres of the feather the wings are made of. Hook, 
 No. 6. 
 
 When the natural fly was well out upon the water, and trout taking 
 it eagerly, I would fish with three of the above patterns — one of each 
 on the casting-line at the same time, using the largest for stretcher. 
 ~Ed.] 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 All the same hackles and flies that v/ere taken m March 
 will be taken in this month also, with this distinction only 
 concerning the flies, that all the browns be lapped with red 
 silk, and the duns with yellow. 
 
 1. To these a small Bright Brown^, made of spaniel's fur, 
 with a light grey wing, in a bright day, and a clear water, is 
 very well taken. 
 
 2. We have too a little Dark Brown, the dubbing of that 
 colour, and some violet camlet mixed, and the wing, of the 
 grey feather of a mallard. 
 
 3. From the sixth of this month to the tenth, we have also 
 a fly called the Yiolet-fly, made of a dark violet stufi", with 
 the wings of the grey feather of a mallard. 
 
 4. About the twelfth of this month comes in the fly called 
 the Whirling Dun, which is taken every day, about the mid- 
 time of day, all this month through, and, by fits, from thence 
 to the end of June, and is commonly made of the down of the 
 fox- cub, which is of an ash colour at the roots next the skin, 
 and ribbed about with yellow silk ; the wings, of the pale 
 grey feather of a mallard. 
 
 5. There is also a Yellow Dun, the dubbing of camel's 
 hair, and yellow camlet or woo], mixed, and a white-grey 
 wing. 
 
 6. There is also this month another Little Brown, 
 besides that mentioned before, made with a very slender 
 body, the dubbing of dark brown and violet camlet, mixed, 
 and a grey wing, which, though the direction for the making 
 be near the other, is yet another fly, and will take when 
 the other will not, especially in a bright day and a clear 
 water. 
 
 7. About the twentieth of this month comes in a fly called 
 HoRSE-FLESH-FLY ; the dubbing of which is a blue mohair, 
 with pink-coloured and red tammy mixed, a light coloured 
 
288 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 wing, and a dark brown head. This fly is taken best in an 
 evening, and kills from two hours before sunset till twilight, 
 and is taken the month through. 
 
 [The above is not a bad list of flies for April — the best month in the 
 year for fly-fishing — I mean for catching the largest number of trout, 
 but by no means the largest in size, and still less the highest in condition. 
 Trout, in English rivers, are not in full season until after they have fed 
 and fattened on the Mayfly — say from the 15th of June to the 15th of 
 August. 
 
 The list of flies I have written for March will kill in April. Add to 
 them the following more appropriate ones : — 
 
 No. 1. The Oak-fly. — Wings, to lie flat, of the wing-feather of a 
 young partridge or hen pheasant ; body, yellow mohair, ribbed with dark 
 brown silk ; legs, a honey-dun hackle, lapped round thrice at the shoulder; 
 tip, pale gold twist. Hooks, 9 and 10. This is a favourite fly of mine. 
 In Ax^ril I never fish without trying it. 
 
 No. 2. The Sto:n"E-ely. — Wings, hen pheasant's tail-feather, dressed 
 long and flat and full ; body, large, and long, of a mixture of light 
 hare's-ear fur and yellow-brown mohair, ribbed with yellow silk ; legs, a 
 brown-red hackle ; and tail, two fibres of brown mallard. Hooks, 6, 7, 
 and 8. The fur near the tail should have more yellow in it than the 
 middle or upper part of the body. A good spring-fly in small, deep, 
 thickly wooded streams. Its reputation is greater than it deserves. 
 
 No. 3. Cahshalton Cock-tail. — Wings, light fibres, standing erect, 
 of the hen starling's wing-feather ; body, light blue dun fur, taper and 
 thin, and ribbed with yellow silk ; legs, three laps of a small, pale dun- 
 hackle; tail, two fibres of the same. Hooks, 11 and 12. A capital 
 general fly at low water. 
 
 No. 4. Alder-ely. — Wings, flat and two sets ; lower starling's wing- 
 feather ; upper, either landrail's wing, partridge red tail-feather, or hen 
 pheasant's ditto ; body, either bronze coloured floss silk, or bronze peacock 
 harl, to be dressed full and tapering ; legs, black hackle ; tail, two fibres 
 of the same. Hooks, 9 and 10. 
 
 No. 5. Sand-ply. — Wings, sandy -coloured landrail's wing-feather ; 
 body, a mixture of brown fur from the hare's poll and orange mohair ; 
 ginger hackle for legs. Hooks, 8, 9, 10. 
 
 No. 6. Wings, light grey mottled mallard feather; body, blue mole's 
 fur, over which, at shoulder, blood-red hackle ; tail, two fibres of the 
 mallard feather. Hooks 9 and 10. This is a very good fly, and will 
 also kill well with a brown-red mohair body. 
 
 The artificial baits, called palmers, are imitations of caterpillars'" of 
 various sizes and colours. They answer best in deep and somewhat 
 sluggish streams, with banks densely wooded. I have l)ut a poor opinion 
 of them in rapid, clear streams, particularly mountainous ones. The 
 following are the best : — 
 
 Black Palmer. — Body, black ostrich harl, ribbed with gold twist and 
 black cock's long fibred hackle. Hooks, from 4 to 8. 
 
 Brown Palmer. — Body, amber-brown mohair, ribbed with gold and 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 289 
 
 silver twist, by which, from tail to head, a brown red cock's hackle. 
 Hook as before. 
 
 Red Palmee. — Body, deep red mohair, ribbed with gold twist, by 
 which is to be wound a blood-red hackle. Hook as before. 
 
 Peacock Palmeii. — Body, a brilliant bronze and azure full-fibred 
 peacock harl, ribbed closely with silver tinsel, by which a dark grizzled 
 hackle j head, of red mohair; tying silk, red. Hook as before. If 
 dressed full, and an inch in length, it will lure large Thames trout and 
 chub. — Ed.] ^ 
 
 MAY. 
 
 And now, sir, that we are entering into tlie month of May, 
 I think it requisite to beg not only your attention, but also 
 your best patience ; for I must now be a little tedious with 
 you, and dwell upon this month longer than ordinary ; which, 
 that you may the better endure, I must tell you, this month 
 deserves and requires to be insisted on ; forasmuch as it alone, 
 and the next following, afford more pleasure to the fly-angler 
 than all the rest : and here it is, that you are to expect an 
 account of the green-drake, and stone-fly, promised you so 
 long ago, and some others that are peculiar to this month, 
 and part of the month following ; and that, though not so 
 great either in bulk or name, do yet stand in competition with 
 the two before-named ; and so, that it is yet undecided 
 amongst the anglers, to which of the pretenders to the title 
 of the May-fly it does properly and duly belong ;'"' neither 
 dare I, where so many of the learned in this art of angling 
 are got in dispute about the controversy, take upon me to 
 determine ; but I think I ought to have a vote amongst them, 
 and according to that privilege, shall give you my free opi- 
 nion ; and peradventure when I have told you all, you may 
 incline to think me in. the right. 
 
 YiAT. I have so great a deference to your judgment in 
 these matters, that I must always be of your opinion ; and 
 the more you speak, the faster I grow to my attention, for I 
 can never be weavy of hearing you upon this subject. 
 
 Pisc. Why that's encouragement enough ; and now prepare 
 yourself for a tedious lecture ; but I will first begin with the 
 flies of less esteem, though almost anything will take a trout 
 in May, that I may afterw^ards insist the longer upon those of 
 
 * To the EpJumem viilcjata, now commonly called the May-fly, and green 
 drake. — Ed. 
 
290 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 greater note and reputation ; know therefore, that the first 
 fly we take notice of in this month, is called 
 
 1 . The TuKKEY-FLY, the dubbing ravelled out of some blue 
 stuff, and lapt about with yellow silk ; the wings, of a grey 
 mallard's feather. 
 
 2. Next, a Great Hackle or Palmer-fly, with a yellow 
 body ribbed with gold twist, and large wings, of a mallard's 
 feather dyed yellow, with a red capon's hackle over all. 
 
 »3. Then a Black Ely, the dubbing of a black spaniel's fur ; 
 and the wings, of a grey mallard's feather. 
 
 4. After that, a Light Brown, with a slender body, the 
 dubbing twirled upon small red silk, and raised with the 
 point of a needle, that the ribs or rows of silk may appear 
 through ; the wings, of the grey feather of the mallard. 
 
 5. Next, a Little Dun, the dubbing of a bear's dun 
 whirled upon yellow silk ; the wings, of the grey feather of 
 a mallard. 
 
 6. Then a White Gnat, with a pale wing, and a black 
 head. 
 
 7. There is also in this month, a fly called the Peacock- 
 fly : the body made of a whirl of a peacock's feather, with a 
 red head j and wings, of a mallard's feather. 
 
 8. We have then another very killing fly, known by the 
 name of the Dun-cut ; the dubbing of which is a bear's dun, 
 with a little blue and yellow mixed with it ; a large dun wing, 
 and two horns at the head, made of the hairs of a squirrel's 
 tail. 
 
 9. The next, is a Cow-lady, a little fly ; the body, of a 
 peacock's feather ;. the wing, of a red feather, or strips of the 
 red hackle of a cock. 
 
 10. We have then, the Cow-dung-fly ; the dubbing, light 
 
 • brown and yellow mixed ; the wing, the dark grey feather of 
 a mallard. And note, that besides these above mentioned, 
 all the same hackles and flies, the hackles only brighter, and 
 the flies smaller, that are taken in April, will also be taken 
 this month, as all browns and duns : and now I come to my 
 Stone-fly and Green-drake, which are the matadores for 
 trout and grayling, and in their season kill more fish in our 
 Derbyshire rivers, than all the rest, past and to come, in the 
 whole year besides. 
 
 But first I am to tell you, that we have four several flies 
 which contend for the title of the May-fly ; namely, — 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 291 
 
 The Green-drake. 
 The Stone-fly. 
 The Black-fly, and 
 The little yellow May-fly. 
 
 And all these have their champions and advocates to dispute 
 and plead their priority ; though I do not understand why 
 the two last-named should ; the first two having so manifestly 
 the advantage, both in their beauty, and the wonderful exe- 
 cution they do in their season. 
 
 1 1. Of these the Green-drake comes in about the twentieth 
 of this month, or betwixt that and the latter end ; for they 
 are sometimes sooner, and sometimes later, according to the 
 quality of the year ; but never well taken till towards the end 
 of this month, and the beginning of June. The Stone-fly 
 comes much sooner, so early as the middle of April ; but is 
 never well taken till towards the middle of May, and con- 
 tinues to kill much longer than the Green-drake stays with 
 us, so long as to the end almost of June ; and indeed, so long- 
 as there are any of them to be seen upon the water ; and 
 sometimes in an artificial fly, and late at night, or before sun- 
 rise in the morning, longer. 
 
 Now both these flies, and I believe many otliers, though I 
 think not all, are certainly and demonstratively bred in the 
 very rivers where they are taken : our cadis or cod-bait which 
 lie under stones in the bottom of the water, most of tjiem 
 turning into those two flies, and being gathered in the husk, 
 or crust, near the time of their maturity, are very easily 
 known and distinguished, and are, of all other, the most re- 
 markable, both for their size, as being of all other the biggest, 
 the shortest of them being a full inch long or more ; and for 
 the execution they do, the trout and grayling being much 
 more greedy of them than of any others; and indeed the trout 
 never feeds fat, nor comes into his perfect season, till these 
 flies come in. 
 
 Of these the Green-drake never discloses from his husk, 
 till he be first there grown to full maturity, body, wings, and 
 all ; and then he creeps out of his cell, but with his wings so 
 crimpt and ruflied, by being prest together in that narrow 
 room, that they are, for some hours, totally useless to him ; 
 by which means he is compelled either to creep upon the 
 flags, sedges, and blades of grass, if his first rising from the 
 bottom of the water be near the banks of the river, till the 
 
 T 2 
 
292 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 air and sim stiffen and smooth them : or, if his first appear- 
 ance above water happen to be in the middle, he then lies 
 upon the surface of the water like a shij) at hull ; for his feet 
 are totally useless to him there, and he cannot creep upon the 
 water as the Stone-fly can, until his wings have got stiffness 
 to fly with (if by some trout or grayling he be not taken in 
 the interim, which ten to one he is), and then his wings stand 
 high, and closed exact upon his back, like the butterfly, and 
 his motion in flying is the same. His body is, in some, of a 
 paler, in others, of a darker yellow; for they are not all 
 exactly of a colour, ribbed with rows of green, long, slender, 
 and growing sharp towards the tail, at the end of which he 
 has three long small whisks of a very dark colour, almost 
 black, and his tail turns up towards his back like a mallard ; 
 from whence, questionless, he has his name of the Green- 
 drake. These, as I think I told you before, we commonly 
 dape, or dibble with, and having gathered great store of 
 them into a long draw-box, with holes in the cover to give 
 them air (where also they will continue fresh and vigorous a 
 night or more), we take them out thence by the wings, and 
 bait them thus upon the hook. We first take one (for we 
 commonly fish with two of them at a time), and putting the 
 point of the hook into the thickest part of his body, under 
 one of his wings, run it directly through, and out at the other 
 side, leaving him spitted cross upon the hook ; and then 
 taking the other, put him on after the same manner, but with 
 his head the contrary way ; in which posture they will live 
 upon the hook, and play with their wings, for a quarter of an 
 hour or more ; but you must have a care to keep their wings 
 dry, both from the water, and also that your fingers be not 
 wet when you take them out to bait them, for then your bait 
 is spoiled."^ 
 
 * The two preceding paragraphs are worthy of Cotton's reputation. They 
 contain a good description of the natural May-fly, or Green-Drake, and teach 
 how that fly is to be angled Avith in a live state. His method of making it 
 artificially is not the best, in my judgment. I have written fully, carefully, 
 and, I think, as accurately as may be, of the May-fly in "A Handbook of 
 Angling," saying of it, — " This famous fly is the opprobrium of fly-makers. Try 
 how they will, they cannot in my opinion, imitate it well. The wings are 
 their greatest foil. In making the body, they succeed tolerably well. Still 
 the best imitation is defective, and, except upon certain occasions, the artificial 
 May-fly is not a deadly bait. The natural fly used in dibbing far surpasses it. 
 However, the imitation, faulty as it is, will kill when the natural fly is scarce 
 on the water, as in cold, dark, windy days. The artificial fly answers best in 
 currents, and in pools or deeps that are moved to small waves by a bluff* south 
 or west wind. The general feather used for the wings of this fly is a dappled 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 293 
 
 Having now told you how to angle with this fly alive, I 
 am now to tell you next how to make an artificial fly, that 
 will so perfectly resemble him, as to be taken in a rough 
 windy day, when no flies can lie upon the water, nor are to 
 be found about the banks and sides of the river, to a wonder ;\ 
 and with which you shall certainly kill the best trout and-* 
 grayling in the river. 
 
 The artificial Geeex-drake, then, is made upon a large 
 hook, the dubbing, camel's hair, bright bear's hair, the soft 
 down that is combed from a hog's bristles, and yellow camlet, 
 well mixed together ; the body long, and ribbed about with 
 green silk, or rather yellow, waxed with green wax : the 
 whisks of the tail, of the long hairs of sables, or fitchet ; and 
 the wings, of a white-grey feather of a mallard, dyed yellow, 
 which is also to be dyed thus : 
 
 Take the root of a barbary tree, and shave it, and put ta- 
 it woody viss, with as much alum as a walnut, and boil your 
 
 one, found on the sides under the wings of the mallard, and dyed a pale' 
 yellow-green colour. To hit the true colour is the great difficulty. How to 
 get over it, I know not. I must be content to cite the best authorities. First, 
 I will take Mr. Blacker, a capital judge of colours, who dyes his feathers yellow 
 by the following recipe : — Boil two or three handfuls of yellow wood one hour 
 in a quart of soft water ; wash the mallard feathers with soap and warm 
 water ; then boil them a short time, with a large spoonful of alum and tartar, 
 in a little pipkin holding a pint of water; take them out, and immerse them 
 in your yellow decoction, and simmer slowly for an hour or two. The shorter 
 the simmering, the paler the yellow of the feathers ; take them out, and wash 
 them in clean hard water. When there is occasion for dyeing yclloiv-green, add 
 a little blue, more or less, according to the shade of green you wish to give the 
 yellow. Mr. Ronald's ' Fly-iisher's Entomology,' recommends another way 
 for dyeing mallard's feathers for the May-fly's wings. He tells us to make a 
 mordant, by dissolving a quarter of an ounce of alum in a pint of water, and 
 then to slightly boil the feathers in it to get the grease out of them, after which 
 to boil them in an infusion of fustic to procure a yellow, and then subduing 
 the brightness of the yellow by adding a little copperas to the infusion. 
 Having now the wing-feathers dyed, I'll tell you how to make the fly : — Body, 
 bright yellow mohair, or floss silk, ribbed sparingly with a very thin , light 
 bronze peacock's harl ; wings, mottled feather of the mallard, dyed a pale 
 yellow-green. They are to stand erect, and be slightly divided ; legs, a couple 
 of turns, close under the wings, of a light red ginger hackle ; tail-whisks , 
 three black hairs from a rabbit's whisker. Hooks, 6, 7, and 8. Another way : 
 — Body, yellow-green mohair ; wings, mallard's feather dyed yellow ; a black 
 head ; legs, a yellowish hackle ; tail, three hairs from a black bear's-skin. A 
 third way, — Body, yellow floss silk, ribbed with brown tying silk; wings, as 
 before; legs, a yellow, grizzled dun hackle; tail, as before; head, bronze 
 peacock harl ; and hooks as before. During the season of the May-fly, I 
 would angle with three flies of different sizes and colours, I should then have 
 three chances of success, and could ascertain which was the preferable fly." I 
 think the May-fly of Ireland is of greener hue than in England. In small, 
 well wooded rivers of mild temperature, the May-fly grows to a larger size than 
 in exposed, wide rivers in our colder counties. — Ed. 
 
294 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 feathers in it with rain water ; and they will be of a very fine 
 yellow. 
 
 I have now done with the Green-drake, excepting to tell 
 you, that he is taken at all hours during his season, whilst 
 there is any day upon the sky ; and with a made-fly I once 
 took, ten days after he was absolutely gone, in a cloudy day, 
 after a shower, and in a whistling wind, five-and-thirty very 
 great trout and graylings, between five and eight of the clock 
 in the evening, and had no less than five or six flies, with 
 three good hairs a-piece, taken from me in despite of my 
 heart, besides. 
 
 12.1 should now come next to the Stone-fly, but there is 
 another gentleman in my way, that must of necessity come 
 in between, and that is the Grey-drake, which in all shapes 
 and dimensions is perfectly the same with the other, but quite 
 almost of another colour, being of a paler and more livid 
 yellow and green, and ribbed with black quite down his body, 
 with black shining wings, and so diaphanous and tender, 
 cobweb-like, that they are of no manner of use for daping ; 
 but come in, and are taken after the Green-drake, and in an 
 artificial fly kill very well ; which fly is thus made, the dub- 
 bing of the down of a hog's bristles, and black spaniel's fur, 
 mixed, and ribbed down the body with black silk, the whisks 
 of the hairs of the beard of a black cat, and the wings of the 
 black-grey feather of a mallard. 
 
 And now I come to the Stone-fly ; but I am afraid I have 
 already wearied your patience ; which if I have, I beseech 
 you freely tell me so, and I will defer the remaining instruc- 
 tions for fly angling till some other time. 
 
 YiAT. No, truly, sir, I can never be weary of hearing you. 
 But if you think flt, because I am afraid I am too trouble- 
 some, to refresh yourself with a glass and a pipe, you may 
 afterwards proceed, and I shall be exceedingly pleased to 
 hear you. 
 
 Pisc. I thank you, sir, for that motion : for, believe me, 
 I am dry with talking : here, boy ! give us here a bottle and 
 a glass ; and, sir, my service to you, and to all our friends in 
 the south. 
 
 YiAT. Your servant, sir ; and I'll pledge you as heartily ; 
 for the good powdered beef I eat at dinner, or something 
 else, has made me thirsty. 
 
 [To Mr. Cotton's list of flies for May, add the followiDg : — 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 295 
 
 No. 1. Body, gold-coloured floss silk ; wings and legs, light brown 
 grouse hackle, from the neck of the bird. Hook, 10. This is the 
 grouse-hackle, and is a good summer fly at low water. 
 
 No. 2. Body same as before; wings, grey mottled partridge tail- 
 feather; legs, wren's tail-feather; tail, two small fibres of brown 
 mallard. This fly should be dressed small and fine, and the body may be 
 varied with orange ; and for the Irish rivers, with green floss silli:. It is 
 an excellent summer fly, and good for grayling in autumn. 
 
 No. 3. Wings short, and to stand erect, of the yellow feather found 
 under the wings of the thrush and redstart ; body, light buft' fur ; legs, 
 a very short fibred yeUow dun hackle ; tail, two fibres of the same. 
 Hooks, 12 and 13. This is the little May-fly, Yellow Sally or Castle- 
 fly. It appears a week or ten days earlier in May than the Green-drake 
 and kills well of mornings and evenings. 
 
 No. 4. Blue-bottle. — ^Vings, starling's clear wing-feather, to lie 
 flat ; body, stone-blue floss silk, to be thick and short, and tipped with 
 gold tinsel ; black hackle under shoulder for legs. Hooks, 8, 9, and 10. 
 Trout take it freely on fine evenings, as a sort of dessert after a full 
 dinner on the Green-drake. It is a good summer-fly for chub. 
 
 No. 6. The Wasp-ely. — Wings, hen pheasant's wing-feather; body, 
 light orange mohair, wound in separate circles from tail to shoulder, 
 between circles, a ribbing of black ostrich harl ; legs, three turns at 
 shoulder of a light brown-red hackle ; head, bronze peacock harl. Hooks, 
 6, 7, 8. A capital fly for large trout in deep currents, or in pools ruflled 
 by the wind. 
 
 For very fine May evenings, and for those of the summer and early 
 autumn months, there are three standard flies, called " owl-flies," from 
 their wings, I suppose,bemg made of the feathers of diflerent coloured owls. 
 
 The first, which should be used early in the evening, has its body of 
 any soft brown fur; two sets of wings ; under ones, of the soft feather of 
 a brown owl ; and upper ones, of a dark brown mottled mallard feather ; 
 legs, a long-fibred ginger hackle, lapped behind the wings to make neck 
 and head. Hooks, 5 to 8. 
 
 The second, to be used during twilight, has a body made of cream- 
 colour fur, and its wings of soft owl-feather of the same colour ; ginger 
 hackle under and behind wings. Hook, as before. 
 
 The third, fit for anghng at night, is made of white ostrich harl, 
 dressed full ; wings, of the feather of a nearly white owl ; legs, white 
 hen's hackle ; and brown head. Hook, as before. — Ed.] 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 [Sccontr JBapJ 
 
 ViAT. So, sir, I am now ready for another lesson, so soon 
 as you please to give it me. 
 
296 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 Pisc. And I, sir, as ready to give you the best I can. 
 Having told you the time of the Stone-fly "s coming in, and 
 that he is bred of a cadis in the very river where he is taken, 
 I am next to tell you that, 
 
 13. This same Stone-fly has not the patience to continue 
 in his crust, or husk, till his wings be full grown ; but so 
 soon as ever they begin to put out, that he feels himself 
 strong, (at which time we call him a jack) squeezes himself 
 out of prison, and crawls to the top of some stone, where, if 
 he can find a chink that will receive him, or can creep be- 
 twixt two stones, the one lying hollow upon the other, which, 
 by the way, we also lay so purposelj^ to find them, he there 
 lurks till his wings be full grown, and there is your only place 
 to find him, and from thence doubtless he derives his name ; 
 though, for want of such convenience, he will make shift witli 
 the hollow of a bank, or any other place where tlie wind can- 
 not come to fetch him off. His body is long, and pretty thick, 
 and as broad at the tail almost as in tlie middle ; his colour 
 a very fine brown, ribbed wdth yellow, and much yellower on 
 the belly than the back ; he has two or three whisks also at 
 the tag of his tail, and two little horns upon his head ; his 
 wings, when full grown, are double, and flat down his back, 
 of the same colour, but rather darker than his body, and 
 longer than it, though he makes but little use of them ; for 
 you shall rarely see him flying, though often swimming and 
 paddling with several feet he has under his belly, upon the 
 water, without stirring a wing : but the Drake will mount 
 steej)le-high into the air, though he is to be found among 
 flags and grass, too, and indeed everywhere high and low, 
 near the river ; there being so many of them in their season, 
 as, were they not a very iuoflensive insect, would look like a 
 plague ; and these drakes, since I forgot to tell you before, I 
 will tell you here, are taken by the fish to that incredible 
 degree, that, upon a calm day, you shall see the still deeps 
 continually all over circles by the fishes rising, who will gorge 
 themselves with those flies, till they purge again out of their 
 gills ; and the trouts are at that time so lusty and strong, that 
 one of eight or ten inches long, will then more struggle, and 
 tug, and more endanger your tackle, than one twice as big 
 in winter ; but pardon this digression. 
 
 This Stone-fly then, we dape or dibble with, as with the 
 BiiAKE, but with this diflerence, that whereas the Gkeen- 
 DRAKE is common both to stream and still, and to all hours 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 297 
 
 of the day, we seldom dape with this but in the streams (for 
 in a whistling wind a made-fly in the deep is better), and 
 rarely, but early and late, it not being so proper for the mid- 
 time of the day ; though a great grayling will then take it 
 very well in a sharp stream, and here and there, a trout too^ 
 but much better towards eight, nine, ten, or eleven of the 
 clock at night, at which time also the best fish rise, and the 
 later the better, provided you can see your fly ; and when 
 you cannot, a made-fly will murder, which is to be made 
 thus : the dubbing of bear's dun, with a little brown and 
 yellow camlet very well mixed, but so placed that your fly 
 may be more yellow on the belly and towards the tail, under- 
 neath, than in any other part ; and you are to place two or 
 three hairs of a blaclc cat's beard on the top of the hook, in 
 your arming, so as to be turned up when you warp on your 
 dubbing, and to stand almost upright, and staring one from 
 another ; and note, that your fly is to be ribbed with yellow 
 silk ; and the wings long, and very large, of the dark grey 
 feather of a mallard. 
 
 14. The next May-fly is the Black- fly ; made with a 
 black body, of the whirl of an ostrich-featlier, ribbed with 
 silver- twist, and the black hackle of a cock over all ; and is a 
 killing fly, but not to be named with either of the other. 
 
 15. The last May-fly (that is, of the four pretenders), is the 
 little Yellow May-fly ; in shape exactly the same with the 
 Green-drake, but a very little one, and of as bright a yellow 
 as can be seen ; which is made of a bright yellow camlet, and 
 the wings of a white-grey feather died yellow. 
 
 16. The last fly for this month (and which continues all 
 June, though it comes in the middle of May), is the fly called 
 the Camlet-fly, in shape like a moth, with fine diapered or 
 water wings, and with which, as I told you before, I some- 
 times used to dibble ; and grayling will rise mightily at it. 
 But the artificial fly, — which is only in use amongst our 
 anglers, — is made of a dark brown shining camlet, ribbed 
 over with a very small light green silk, the wings of the 
 double grey feather of a mallard ; and it is a killing fly for 
 small fish ; and so much for May. 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 From the first to the four-and-twentieth, the Green-dkake 
 and Stone-fly are taken, as I told you before. 
 
 1. From the twelfth to the four-and-twentieth, late at 
 
298 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 niglit, is taken a fly, called the Owl-fly, tlie dubbing of a 
 white weasel's tail, and a white grey wing.* 
 
 2. We have then another dun, called the Barm-fly, from 
 its yeasty colour, the dubbing of the fur of a yellow-dun cat, 
 and a grey wing of a mallard's feather. 
 
 3. We have also a Hackle with a purple body, whipt about 
 with a red capon's feather. 
 
 4. As also a Gold-twist Hackle, with a purple body, 
 whipt about with a red capon's feather. 
 
 5. To these we have this month a Flesh-fly, the dub- 
 bing of a black spaniel's fur, and blue wool mixed, and a 
 grey wing. 
 
 6. Also another little flesh-fly, the body made of the whirl 
 of a peacock's feather, and the wings of the grey feather of a 
 drake. 
 
 7. We have then the Peacock-fly, the body and wing 
 both made of the feather of that bird. 
 
 8. There is also the flying-ant or Ant-fly, the dubbing of 
 brown and red camlet mixed, with a light grey wing. 
 
 9. We have likewise a Brown Gnat, with a very slender 
 body of brown and violet camlet well mixed, and a light 
 grey wing. 
 
 10. And another little Black Gnat, the dubbing of black 
 mohair, and a white grey wing. 
 
 11. As also a Green Grasshopper, the dubbing of green 
 and yellow wool mixed, ribbed over with green silk, and a red 
 capon s feather over all. 
 
 12. And, lastly, a little Dun Grasshopper; the body 
 slender, made of a dun camlet and a dun hackle at the top. 
 
 [Nearly all the flies I have described for May will kill in June, for 
 which the three following are appropriate : — 
 
 No. 1. DaekMackeeel. — Wings, dark-brownmottled mallard feather; 
 body, deep mulberry-coloured floss silk, ribbed with gold tinsel ; legs, 
 purple hackle ; tail, three black rabbit's whiskers. Hooks, 9 and 10. 
 
 No. 2. Oel-fly. — Wings, reddest fibres of landrail, to lie flat and 
 long ; body, and alternate ribbing of dark brown and orange mohair ; 
 horns, two brown hackle fibres. Hooks, 8 and 9. 
 
 No. 3. Wings and legs, a very small dun hackle, wound over a body 
 made of a mixture of blue-dun and orange-coloured mohair. Hooks, 
 n and 12. A general kiUer in low, clear water in summer and 
 autumn. — Ed.] 
 
 * This artificial white moth will be taken at night during June, July, and 
 August. — Ed. 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 2&9 
 
 JULY. 
 
 First, all the small flies that were taken in June are also 
 taken in this month. 
 
 1. We have then the Orange-fly; the dubbing of orange 
 wool, and the wing of a black feather. 
 
 2. Also a little White-bun ; the body made of white mo- 
 hair, and the wings blue, of a heron's feather. 
 
 3. We have likewise this month a Wasp-fly ; made either 
 of a dark brown dubbing, or else the fur of a black cat's tail, 
 ribbed about with yellow silk ; and the wing, of the grey 
 feather of a mallard. 
 
 4. Another fly taken this month is a Black Hackle ; the 
 body made of the whirl of a peacock's feather, an^l a black 
 hackle-feather on the top. 
 
 5. We have also another, made of a peacock's whirl, with- 
 out wings. 
 
 6. Another fly also is taken this month, called the Shell- 
 fly ; the dubbing of yellow-green Jersey wool, and a little 
 white hog's-hair mixed, which I call the Palm-fly, and do 
 believe it is taken for a palm, that drops off" the willows into 
 the water ; for this fly I have seen trouts take little pieces 
 of moss, as they have swam down the river ; by which I con- 
 clude that the best way to hit the right colour is to compare 
 your dubbing with the moss, and mix the colours as near as 
 you can. 
 
 7. There is also taken, this month, a Black-blue Dun ; the 
 dubbing of the fur of a black rabbit mixed with a little yellow ; 
 the wings, of the feather of a blue pigeon's wing. 
 
 [I will add to the above four very killing flies for July. 
 
 No. 1. Black Ant-Fly. — Wings, any light -blue feather; body, thin in 
 the middle, but thick at shoulder and tail, resembling the body of an ant, 
 and made of black ostrich harl ; legs, two laps of very dark brown hackle, 
 close under wings. Hook, 10. 
 
 No. 2. Red Ant-fly. — Wings, a young starling's wing-feather ; body, 
 made of the same shape as before, but with bright bronze peacock's harl ; 
 legs, bright red cock's hackle. Hooks, 10 and 11. These two flies are 
 attractive this month and the two following on dark, warm days. 
 
 No. 3. Wings, a lark's wing-feather, dyed a pale yellow ; body, yellow 
 martin's fur ; legs, a small honey-dun hackle. Hook, 12. A famous 
 summer fly at low and clear water. 
 
 No. 4. Wings, top fibres of the hen-pheasant's wing ; body, brown 
 mohair mixed with a little bright-coloured hare's-ear fur ; legs, grey 
 throat-feather of the partridge. Hooks, 11 and 12. — En.] 
 
oOO THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 The same flies witli July. 
 
 1. Then another Ant-fly, the clubbing of the black brown 
 hair of a cow, some red wrapt in for the tug of his tail, and a 
 dark wing ; a killing fly. 
 
 2. Next a fly called the Fern-fly, the dubbing of the fur 
 of a hare's neck, that is, of the colour of fern, or bracken, with 
 a darkish grey wing of a mallard's feather; a killer, too. 
 
 3. Besides these we have a White Hackle, the body of 
 white mohair, and wrapped about with a white hackle-feather, 
 and this is assuredly taken for thistle-down. 
 
 4. We have also this month a Haury-long-legs, the body 
 made of bear's dun, and blue wool mixt, and a brown hackle- 
 feather over all. 
 
 Lastly, In this month all the same Browns and Duns are 
 taken that were taken in May. 
 
 [Small brown and black palmers will kill well this month. The two 
 following are standard patterns for August : — 
 
 No. 1. Wings, fibres of a brown hen's wing-feather; body, brown floss 
 silk, ribbed with bright yellow tying silk ; legs, brown hackle ; tail, two 
 hairs of a black rabbit's whiskers. Hook, 10. 
 
 No. 2. Body, cinnamon -brown mohair; wings, reddish feather of 
 woodcock's wing ; legs, cinnamon hackle. Hook, as before. — Ed.] 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 This month the same flies are taken that are taken in 
 April. 
 
 1. To which I shall only add a Camel-brown-fly, the 
 dubbing pulled out of the lime of a wall, whipped about with 
 red silk, and a darkish grey mallard's feather for the wing. 
 
 2. And one other for which we have no name ; but it is 
 made of the black hair of a badger's skin, mixed with the 
 yellow softest down of a sanded hog. 
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 The same flies are taken this month as were taken in 
 March. 
 
 NOVExMBER. 
 
 The same flies that were taken in February are taken this 
 month also. 
 
 [For October and November, I would recommend small duns, and some 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 301 
 
 of the flies named for April. For September, and for July and August, 
 I recommend five flies of great attractiveness : — 
 
 No. 1. Wings, a mixture of the fibres of the red and gray tail-feathers 
 of the partridge ; body, cinnamon -brown mohair ; legs, an amber-dyed 
 hackle, from tail to wings ; tail, two fibres of the hackle. Hook, 10. 
 
 No. 2. Wings, starling's feather; body, golden olive mohair; legs, 
 hackle of the same colour ; gold tip. Hook, as before. 
 
 No. 3. Wings, a mixture of the starling's wing feather and partridge 
 grey tail-feather ; body, bronze harl, with an orange floss silk tag, gold 
 tip ; legs, black -red hackle. Hook, 8 and 10. This fly is named the 
 '• Governor." 
 
 No. 4. Wings, the top, beautiful green fibres of the peacock's moon- 
 feather ; body, bright bronze peacock's harl ; legs, sometimes a furnace 
 hackle, at others a pm-e black one. Hook, 10 and 11. 
 
 No. 5. Wings, a mixture of starling's wing, and brown mottled mallard 
 feather ; body, olive-green mohair ; legs, hackle of same colour, and gold 
 tip. Hook, as before. 
 
 Reader, I have now added to Cotton's monthly lists of trout and 
 grayling flies, the very best modern patterns. I have fished, in my time, 
 with the great majority of them. I know by experience their captivating 
 qualities, and I recommend them confidently to all fly -fishers for fresh 
 water salmonidie. — Ed.] 
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 Few men angle with the fly this month, no more than 
 they do in January ; but yet, if the weather be warm (as I 
 have known it sometimes in my life to be, even in this cold 
 country, where it is least expected), then a Brown, that looks 
 red in the hand, and yellowish betwixt your eye and the sun, 
 will both raise and kill in a clear water and free from snow- 
 broth ; but, at the best, it is hardly worth a man's labour. 
 
 And now, sir, I have done with fly-fishing, or angling at 
 the top, excepting once more, to tell you, that of all these 
 (and I have named you a great many very killing flies), none 
 are fit to be compared with the Drake and Stone-fly, both 
 for many and for very great fish ; and yet there are some 
 days that are by no means proper for the sport. And in a 
 calm you shall not have near so mucli sport, even with 
 daping, as in a whistling gale of wind, for two reasons, both 
 because you are not then so easily discovered by the fish, and 
 also because there are then but few flies that can lie upon the 
 water ; for where they have so much choice, you may easily 
 imagine they will not be so eager and forward to rise at a 
 bait, that both the shadow of your body, and that of your 
 rod, nay of your very line, in a hot calm day, will, in spite 
 
302 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 of your best caution, render suspected to tliern ; but even 
 then, in swift streams, or by sitting down patiently behind a 
 willow bush, you shall do more execution than at almost 
 any other time of the year with any other fly ; though one 
 may sometimes hit of a day, when he shall come home very 
 well satisfied with sport with several other flies : but with 
 these two, the Green-drake and the Stone-fly, I do verily 
 believe I could, some days in my life, had I not been weary 
 of slaughter, have loaden a lusty boy; and have sometimes, I 
 do honestly assure you, given over upon the mere account of 
 satiety of sport ; which will be no hard matter to believe, * 
 when I likewise assure you, that with this very fly, I have 
 in this very river that runs by us, in three or four hours 
 taken thirty, five-and-thirty, and forty of the best trouts in 
 the river. What shame and pity it is, then, that such a 
 river should be destroyed by tlie basest sort of people, by 
 those unlawful ways of fire and netting in the night, and of 
 damming, groping, speaiing, hanging, and hooking by day, 
 which are now grown so common, that, though we have very 
 good laws to punish such oflenders, every rascal does it, for 
 ought I see, imjoune. 
 
 To conclude, I cannot now in honesty but frankly tell you, 
 that many of these flies I have named, at least so made as 
 we make them here, will peradventure do you no gi*eat 
 service in your southern rivers ; and will not conceal from 
 you, but that I have sent flies to several friends in London, 
 that for ought 1 could ever hear, never did any great feats 
 with them ; and therefore if you intend to profit by my in- 
 structions, you must come to angle with me here in the Peak ; 
 and so, if you please, let us walk up to supper, and to-morrow, 
 if the day be windy, as our days here commonly are, 'tis ten 
 to one but we shall take a good dish of fish for dinner. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 [^f)irtr Ban.] 
 
 Pisc. A good day to you, sir ; I see you will always be 
 stirring before me. 
 
 YiAT. Why, to tell you the truth, I am so allured with the 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 303 
 
 sport I had yesterday, that I long to be at the river again ; 
 and when I heard the wind sing in my chamber window, 
 could forbear no longer, but leapt out of bed, and had just 
 made an end of dressing myself as you came in. 
 
 Pisc. Well, I am both glad you are so ready for the day, 
 and that the day is so fit for you ; and look you, I have made 
 you three or four flies this morning ; this silver-twist hackle, 
 this bear's dun, this light brown, and this dark brown, any 
 of which I dare say will do ; but you may try them all, and 
 see which does best ; only I must ask your pardon that I 
 cannot wait upon you this morning, a little business being 
 fallen out, that for two or three hours will deprive me of 
 your company : but I'll come and call you home to dinner, 
 and my man shall attend you. 
 
 YiAT. Oh, sir, mind your affairs by all means. Do but 
 lend me a little of your skill to these tine flies, and, unless it 
 have forsaken me since yesterday, I shall find luck of my 
 own, I hope, to do something. 
 
 Pisc. The best instruction I can give you is, that seeing 
 the wind curls the water, and blows the right way, you would 
 now angle up the still deep to-day ; for betwixt the rocks 
 where the streams are, you will find it now too brisk ; and 
 besides, I would have you take fish in both waters. 
 
 YiAT. I'll obey your direction, and so good morning to 
 you. Come, young man, let you and I walk together. But 
 hark you, sir, I have not done with you yet ; I expect another 
 lesson for angling at the bottom, in the afternoon. 
 
 Pisc. Well, sir, I'll be ready for you. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 [ZIT^irtr Bap.] 
 
 Pisc. Oh, sir, are you returned? you have but just pre- 
 vented me. I was coming to call you. 
 
 YiAT. I am glad then I have saved you the labour. 
 
 Pisc. And how have you sped? 
 
 YiAT. You shall see that sir, presently; look you, sir, 
 here are three brace of trouts, one of them the biggest but 
 one that ever I killed with a fly in my life ; and yet I lost a 
 bigger than that, with my fly to boot ; and here are three 
 
.S04< THE COMPLETE AXGLEH. 
 
 graylings, and one of them longer by some inches than that 
 I took yesterday, and yet I thought that a good one, too. 
 
 Pisc. Why you have made a pretty good morning's work 
 on't ; and now, sir, what think you of our river Dove ? 
 
 YiAT. I think it to be the best trout river in England ; 
 and am so far in love with it, that if it were mine, and that 
 I could keep it to myself, I would not exchange that water 
 for all the land it runs over, to be totally debarred from it. 
 
 Pisc. That compliment to the river speaks you a true 
 lover of the art of angling ; and now, sir, to make part of 
 amends for sending you so uncivilly out alone this morning, 
 I will myself dress you this dish of fish for your dinner ; 
 walk but into the parlour, you will find one book or other 
 in the window to entertain you the while, and you shall 
 have it presently. 
 
 YiAT. Well, sir, I obey you. 
 Pisc. Look you, sir, have I not made haste 1 
 YiAT. Believe me, sir, that you have ; and it looks so 
 well, I long to be at it. 
 
 Pisc. Pall to, then ; now, sir, what say you, am I a tolerable 
 cook or no ? 
 
 YiAT. So good a one, that I did never eat so good fish in 
 my life. This fish is infinitely better than any I ever tasted 
 of the kind in my life ; 'tis quite another thing than our 
 trouts about London. 
 
 Pisc. You would say so, if that trout you eat of were in 
 right season : but pray eat of the grayling, which upon my 
 word, at this season is by much the better fish. 
 
 YiAT. In earnest and so it is : and I have one request to 
 make to you, which is, that as you have taught me to catch 
 trout and grayling, you will now teach me how to dress 
 them as these are drest, which questionless is of all other the 
 best way. 
 
 PiRC. That I will, sir, Vvitli all my heart, and am glad you 
 like them so well as to make that request, and they are 
 drest thus : 
 
 Take your trout, wash, and dry him with a clean napkin ; 
 then open him, and having taken out his guts, and all the 
 blood, wipe him very clean within, but wash him not, and 
 give him three scotches with a knife to the bone, on one side 
 only. After which take a clean kettle, and put in as much 
 hard stale beer (but it must not be dead) vinegar, and a 
 little white wine and water as will cover the fish you intend 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 805 
 
 to boil ; then tlirow into the liquor a good quantity of salt, 
 the rind of a lemon, a handful of sliced horseradish root, 
 with a handsome light faggot of rosemary, thyme, and winter 
 savory. Then set your kettle upon a quick fire of wood : 
 and let your liquor boil up to the height before you put in 
 your fish : and then, if there be many, put them in one by 
 one, that they may not so cool the liquor as to make it fall. 
 And whilst your fish is boiling, beat up the batter for your 
 sauce with a ladleful or two of the liquor it is boiling in. 
 And being boiled enough, immediately pour the liquor from 
 the fish : and being laid in a dish, pour your butter upon it ; 
 and strewing it plentifully over with shaved horseradish, and 
 a little pounded ginger, garnish the sides of your dish, and 
 the fish itself, with a sliced lemon or two, and serve it up. 
 
 A grayling is also to be dressed exactly after the same 
 manner, saving that he is to be scaled, which a trout never 
 is : and that must be done either with one's nails, or very 
 lightly and carefully with a knife, for fear of bruising the 
 fish. And note, that these kinds of fish, a trout especially, 
 if he is not eaten within four or five hours after he be taken, 
 is worth nothing. 
 
 But come, sir, I see you have dined ; and therefore, if you 
 please, we will walk down again to the little house, and there 
 I will read you a lecture of angling at the bottom. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 [^i^irtr ©an.] 
 
 YiAT. So, sir, now we are here, and set, let me have my 
 instructions for angling for trout and grayling at the bottom ; 
 which though not so easy, so cleanly, nor (as 'tis said) so 
 genteel a way of fishing as with a fly, is yet, if I mistake not, 
 a good holding way, and takes fish when nothing else will. 
 
 Pisc. You are in the right, it does so : and a worm is so 
 sure a bait at all times, that, excepting in a flood, I would I 
 had laid a thousand pounds that I killed fish, more or less 
 with it, winter or summer, every day throughout the year; 
 those days always excepted, that upon a more serious account 
 always ought so to be. But not longer to delay you, I will 
 begin, and tell you, that angling at the bottom is also com- 
 monly of two sorts ; and yet there is a third way of angling 
 
 u 
 
306 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 with a ground-bait, and to very great effect too, as shall be 
 said hereafter ; namely, by hand, or with a cork or float. 
 
 That we call angling by hand is of three sorts. 
 
 The first, with a line about half the length of the rod, a 
 good weighty plumb, and three hairs next the hook, which 
 we call a running-line, and with one large brandling, or a 
 dew-worm of a moderate size, or two small ones of the first, 
 or any other sort, proper for a trout, of which my father 
 Walton has already given you the names, and saved me 
 labour ; or, indeed, almost any worm whatever ; for if a trout 
 be in the humour to bite, it must be such a worm as I never 
 yet saw, that he will refuse ; and if you fish with two, you 
 are then to bait your hook thus. You are first to run the point 
 of your hook in at the very head of your first worm, and so 
 down through his body, till he be past the knot, and then 
 let it out, and strip the worm above the arming, that you 
 may not bruise it with your fingers till you have put on the 
 other, by running the point of the hook in below the knot, 
 upwards through his body towards his head, till it be just 
 covered with the head ; which being done, you are then to 
 slip the first worm down over the arming again, till the 
 knots of both worms meet togethei\ 
 
 The second way of angling by hand, and with a running 
 line, is with, a line something longer than the former, and 
 with tackle made after this same manner. At the utmost 
 extremity of your line, where the hook is always placed in 
 all other ways of angling, you are to have a large pistol or 
 carabine bullet, into which the end of your line is to be 
 fastened with a peg or pin, even and close with the bullet ; 
 and, about half a foot above that, a branch of line, of tv/o or 
 three handfuls long, or more for a swift stream, with a hook 
 at the end thereof, baited with some of the fore-named 
 worms, and, half a foot above that, another armed and 
 baited after the same manner, but with another sort of 
 worm, without any lead at all above : by which means you 
 will always certainly find the true bottom in all depths ; 
 which with the plumbs upon your line above you can never 
 do, but that your bait must always drag whilst you are 
 sounding (which in this way of angling must be continually), 
 by which means you are like to have more trouble, and per- 
 adventure worse success. And both these ways of angling 
 at the bottom are most proper for a dark and muddy water, 
 by reason, that in such a condition of the stream, a man may 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 307 
 
 stand as near as he will, and neither his own shadow nor 
 the roundness of his tackle will hinder his sport. 
 
 The third way of angling by hand with a ground-bait, and 
 by much the best of all other, is, with a line full as long, or 
 a yard and a half longer, than your rod j with no more than 
 one hair next the hook, and for two or three lengths above 
 it ; and no more than one small pellet or shot for your plumb ; 
 your hook, little ; your worms of the smaller brandlings, 
 very well secured, and only one upon your hook at a time ; 
 which is thus to be baited. The point of your hook is to be 
 put in at the very tag of his tail, and run up his body quite 
 over all the arming, and still stripped on an inch at least 
 upon the hair, the head and remaining part hanging down- 
 ward : and with this line and hook thus baited you are ever- 
 more to angle in the streams, always in a clear rather than 
 a troubled water, and always up the river, still casting out 
 your worm before you with a light one-handed rod, like an 
 artificial fly ; where it will be taken sometimes at the top, or 
 within a very little of the superficies of the water, and almost 
 always before that light plumb can sink it to the bottom, 
 both by reason of the stream, and also, that you must always 
 keep your worm in motion by drawing still back towards 
 you, as if you were angling with a fly : and believe me, 
 whoever will try it, shall find this the best way of all other 
 to angle with a worm, in a bright water especially; but then 
 his rod must be very light and pliant, and very true and 
 finely made, which, with a skilful hand, will do wonders, 
 and in a clear stream is undoubtedly the best way of angling 
 for a trout or grayling with a worm, by many degrees, that 
 any man can make choice of, and of most ease and delight 
 to the angler. To which, let me add, that if the angler be 
 of a constitution that will sufier him to wade, and will slip 
 into the tail of a shallow stream, to the calf of the leg, or die 
 knee, and so keep oflf the bank, he shall almost take what 
 fish he pleases. 
 
 The second way of angling at the bottom, is with a cork 
 or float ; and that is also of two sorts ; with a v/orm, or with 
 a ginib or cadis. 
 
 With a worm, you are to have your line within a foot, or 
 a foot and a half as long as your rod ; in a dark water, with 
 two, or if you will with three, but in a clear water never 
 with above one hair next the hook, and two or three for four 
 or five lengths above it, and a worm of what size you please, 
 
 u2 
 
308 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 your plumbs fitted to your cork, your cork to the condition 
 of the river, that is, to the swiftness or slowness of it ; and 
 both, when the water is very clear, as fine as you can ; and 
 then you are never to bait with above one of the lesser sort 
 of brandlings ; or, if they are very little ones indeed, you 
 may then bait with two, after the manner before directed. 
 
 When you angle for a trout, you are to do it as deep, that 
 is, as near the bottom as you can, provided your bait do not 
 drag ; or if it do, a trout will sometimes take it in at that 
 posture : if for a grayling, you are then to fish further from 
 the bottom, he being a fish that usually swims nearer the 
 middle of the water, and lies always loose ; or however, is 
 more apt to rise than a trout, and more inclined to rise than 
 to descend even to a ground-bait. 
 
 With a grub or cadis, you are to angle witli the sam(5 
 length of line, or if it be all out as long as your rod it is not 
 the worse, with never above one hair, for two or three lengths 
 next the hook, and with the smallest cork or float, and the 
 least weight of plumb you can that will but sink, and that 
 the swiftness of your stream will allow ; which also you may 
 help, and avoid the violence of the current, by angling in the 
 returns of a stream, or the eddies betwixt two streams, which 
 also are the most likely places wherein to kill a fish in a 
 stream, either at the top or bottom. 
 
 Of grubs for a grayling, the ash-grub, which is plump, 
 milk-white, bent roimd from head to tail, and exceeding 
 tender, with a red head, or the dock- worm, or grub of a pale 
 yellow, longer, lanker, and tougher than the other, with rows 
 of feet all down his belly, and a red head also, are the best ; 
 I say, for a grayling, because, although a trout will take both 
 these, the ash-grub especially, yet he does not do it so freely 
 as the other, and I have usually taken ten graylings for one 
 trout with that bait ; though if a trout come, I have observed 
 that he is commonly a very good one. 
 
 These baits we usually keep in bran, in which an ash-grub 
 commonly grows tougher, and will better endure baiting ; 
 though he is yet so tender, that it will be necessary to warp 
 in a piece of a stiff hair with your arming, leaving it standing 
 out about a straw- breadth at the head of your hook, so as to 
 keep the grub either from slipping totally ofi" when baited, or 
 at least down to the point of the hook ; by which means 
 your arming will be left wholly naked and bare, which is 
 neither so sightly, nor so likely to be taken : though to help 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 805 
 
 that, which will however very oft fall out, I always arm the- 
 hook I desiga for this bait with the whitest horse-hair I can- 
 choose, which itself will resemble, and shine like that bait, 
 and consequently will do more good, or less harm, than an 
 arming of any other colour. These grubs are to be baited 
 thus : the hook is to be put under the head or chaps of the 
 bait, and guided down the middle of the belly — ^without 
 suffering it to peep out by the way, for then the ash-grub 
 especially will issue out water and milk, till nothing but the 
 skin shall remain, and the bend of the hook will appear 
 black, through it, — till the point of your hook come so low 
 that the head of your bait may rest, and stick upon the hair 
 that stands out to hold it ; by which means it can neither 
 slip of itself, neither will the force of the stream, nor quick 
 pulling out, upon any mistake, strip it off. 
 
 Now the cadis, or cod-bait, which is a sure killing bait,. 
 and, for the most part, by much surer than either of the other, 
 may be yjut upon the hook, two or three together, and is 
 sometimes, to very great effect, joined to a worm, and some- 
 times to an artificial fly, to cover the joint of your hook ; but 
 is always to be angled with at the bottom, when by itself 
 especially, with the finest tackle ; and is, for all times of 
 the year, the most holding bait of all other whatever, both 
 for trout and grayling. 
 
 There are several other baits besides these few I have 
 named you, which also do very great execution at the bottom, 
 and some that are peculiar to certain countries and rivers, 
 of which every angler may in his own place make his own 
 observation ; and some others that I do not think fit to put 
 you in mind of, because I would not corrupt you, and would 
 have you, as in all things else I observe you to be a very 
 honest gentleman, a fair angler. And so much for the 
 second sort of angling for a trout at the bottom. 
 
 YiAT. But, sir, I beseech you give me leave to ask you 
 one question : is there no art to be used to worms, to make 
 them allure the fish, and in a manner compel them to bite at 
 the bait ? 
 
 Pisc. Not that I know of; or did I know any such secret, 
 I would not use it myself, and therefore would not teach it 
 you. Though I will not deny to you, that in my younger 
 days, I have made trial of oil of osprey, oil of ivy, caraphire, 
 assafoetida, juice of nettles, and several other devices that I 
 was taught by several anglers I met with ; but could never 
 
310 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 find any advantage by them ; and can scarce believe there is 
 anything to be done that way ; though I must tell you, I have 
 seen some men who I thought went to work no more arti- 
 ficially than I, and have yet, with the same kind of worms 
 I had, in my own sight taken ^ve, and sometimes ten to one. 
 But we'll let that business alone, if you please ; and because 
 we have time enough, and that 1 would deliver you from the 
 trouble of any more lectures, I will, if you please, proceed to 
 the last way of angling for a trout or grayling, which is in the 
 middle ; after which I shall have no more to trouble you with. 
 YiAT. 'Tis no trouble, sir, but the greatest satisfaction that 
 can be : and I attend you. 
 
 [In tins chapter Cotton proves himself every bit as good a bottom- 
 fisher as his so-called master and father, Walton. — Ed.] ^ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Pisc. Angling in the middle, then, for a trout or grayling, 
 is of two sorts ; with a penk or minnow for a trout ; or with 
 a worm, grub, or cadis, for a grayling. 
 
 For the first. It is with a minnow, half a foot or a foot 
 within the superficies of the water. And as to the rest that 
 concerns this sort of angling, I shall wholly refer you to Mr. 
 Walton's directions, \T ho is undoubtedly the best angler with 
 a minnow in England ; only, in plain truth, I do not approve 
 of those baits he keeps in salt, unless where the living ones 
 are not possibly to be had (though I know he frequently kills 
 with them, and peradventure, more than with any other j 
 nay, I have seen him refuse a living one for one of them) ; 
 and much less of his artificial one; for though we do it with 
 a counterfeit fly, methinks it should hardly be expected that 
 a man should deceive a fish with a counterfeit fish.* Which 
 
 * Counterfeit fish, or artificial fish-baits, are now so well made, that in 
 spinning I frequently use them in preference to the natural fish-bait ; and in 
 slightly discoloured water I alioays prefer them. They spin better, and will 
 take a great many fish before they are injured, which is a great convenience, 
 obviating the necessity of constantly, after a run or a kill, putting on a fresh 
 bait, which you must do if you spin with the natural fish-bait. The best 
 artificial fish-baits are made by Mr. Flinn, of Worcester. — Ed. 
 
,THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 311 
 
 having said, I shall only add (and that out of my own experi- 
 ence), that I do believe a bull-head, with his gill -fins cut off 
 (at some times of the year especially), to be a much better 
 bait for a trout than a minnow, and a loach much better than 
 that : to prove which I shall only tell you, that I have much 
 oftener taken trouts with a bull-head or a loach in their 
 throats, for there a trout has questionless his first digestion, 
 than a minnow ; and that one day especially, having angled a 
 good part of the day with a minnow, and that in as hopeful 
 a day, and as fit a water, as could be wished for that purpose, 
 without raising any one fish ; I at last fell to with the worm, 
 and with that took fourteen in a very short space : amongst 
 all which, there was not, to my remembrance, so much as one 
 that had not a loach or two, and some of them, three, four, 
 ^ye, and six loaches, in his throat and stomach ; from whence 
 I concluded, that had I angled with that bait, I had made a 
 notable day's work of it. 
 
 But after all, there is a better way of angling with a min- 
 now, than perhaps is fit either to teach or to practise ; to 
 which I shall only add, that a grayling will certainly rise at, 
 and sometimes take a minnow, though it will be hard to be 
 believed by any one, who shall consider the littleness of that 
 fish's mouth, very unfit to take so great a bait : but it is 
 afiirmed by many, that he will sometimes do it ; and I myself 
 know it to be true ; for though I never took a grayling so, 
 yet a man of mine once did, and within so few paces of me, 
 that I am as certain of it, as I can be of anything I did not 
 see, and, which made it appear the more strange, the grayling 
 was not above eleven inches long. 
 
 I must here also beg leave of your master, and mine, not 
 to controvert, but to tell him, that I cannot consent to his 
 way of throwing in his rod to an over grown trout, and after- 
 wards recovering his fish with his tackle. For though I am 
 satisfied he has sometimes done it, because he says so, yet I 
 have found it quite otherwise ; and though I have taken with 
 the angle, I may safely say, some thousands of trouts in my 
 life, my top never snapt (though my line still continued fast 
 to the remaining part of my rod by some lengths of line 
 curled round about my top, and there fastened, with waxed 
 silk, against such an accident), nor my hand never slacked, or 
 slipped by any other chance, but I almost always infallibly lost 
 my fish, whether great or little, though my hook came home 
 again. And I have often wondered how a trout should so 
 
312 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 suddenly disengage himself from so great a hook as that we 
 bait with a minnow, and so deep bearded as those hooks 
 commonly are, when I have seen by the forenamed accidents 
 or the slipping of a knot in the upper part of the line, by 
 sudden and hard striking, that though the line has immedi- 
 ately been recovered, almost before it could be all drawn into 
 the water, tlie fish cleared and gone in a moment. And yet, 
 to justify what he says, I have sometimes known a trout, 
 having carried aw^ay a whole line, found dead three or four 
 days after with the hook fast sticking in him ; and then it is 
 to be supposed he had gorged it, which a trout will do if you 
 be not too quick with him when he comes at a minnow, as 
 sure and much sooner than a pike : and I myself have also, 
 once or twice in my life, taken the same fish, with my own 
 fly sticking in his chaps, that he had taken from me the day 
 before, by the slipping of a hook in the arming. But I am 
 very confident a trout will not be troubled two hours with 
 any hook that has so much as one handful of line left behind 
 with it, or that is not struck through a bone, if it be in any 
 part of his mouth only : nay, I do certainly know that a 
 trout, so soon as ever he feels himself pricked, if he carries 
 away the hook, goes immediately to tlie bottom, and will 
 there root, like a hog upon the gravel, till he either rub out 
 or break the hook in the middle. And so much for this sort 
 of angling in the middle for a trout. 
 
 The second way of angling in the middle is with a worm, 
 grub, cadis, or any other ground-bait for a grayling ; and that 
 is with a cork, and a foot from the bottom, a grayling taking 
 it much better there than at the bottom, as has been said 
 before ; and this always in a clear water, and with the finest 
 tackle. 
 
 To which we may also, and with very good reason, add the 
 third way of angling by hand with a ground-bait, as a third 
 way of fishing in the middle, which is common to both trout 
 and grayling, and, as I said before, the best way of angling 
 with a worm, of all other I ever tried whatever. 
 
 And now, sir, I have said all I can at present think of 
 concerning angling for a trout and grayling, and I doubt not 
 have tired you sufficiently; but I will give you no more 
 trouble of this kind, whilst yon stay, which I hope will be a 
 good while longer. 
 
 YiAT. That will not be above a day longer ; but if I live 
 till May come twelvemonth, you are sure of me again, either 
 
THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 
 
 31^ 
 
 with my master Walton, or without him ; and in the mean 
 time shall acquaint him how much you have made of me for 
 his sake, and I hope he loves me well enough to thank you 
 for it. 
 
 Pisc. I shall be glad, sir, of your good company at the- 
 time you speak of, and shall be loath to part with you nov>^ ; 
 but when you tell me you must go, I will then wait upon you 
 more miles on your way than I have tempted you out of it, 
 and heartily wish you a good journey. 
 
 ASH BORNE CatJUOH. 
 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE, NO. 1. — NATURAL FLIES. 
 
 In this plate the examiner will see six representations, 
 taken from life, of insects used in fly-fishing. 
 
 'No. 1. The May-fly or Green-drake {ephemera vulgata), 
 stands at the head of its tribe. The ejyhemerce are extremely 
 numerous, of various sizes and colours, appearing particularly 
 in the summerand autumn months. Their wingsstand upright, 
 and they have whisks or tail s. Of all flies these are the most useful 
 to the angler. As their name implies, they are very short lived, 
 but fresh tribes of them replace those which die in a day. 
 
 No. 2. Is the Stone-fly, and the largest of its tribe {jphry- 
 ganece). They are considered spring-flies, but they are pro- 
 duced throughout the year. Generally speaking they have 
 flat wings, but that is not a specific characteristic, because 
 the house-fly (musca) and other flies have flat wings also. 
 The flies of this species proceed from water larvce, and in 
 angling importance stand iiext to the epUemerce. 
 
 No. 3. Is the March-brown, or large dun ephemera. It is 
 nearly as large as the May- fly, or ephemera vulgata; and in 
 March and April is as great a favourite with trout, as the 
 May-fly is in May or June. It is a fly I esteem very highly. 
 
 No. 4. Is a representation of a diptera, or two-winged fly. 
 These flies are generally small, and have two upright wings. 
 In shape and colour they much resemble the ephemerce, and as 
 baits they are equally captivating. 
 
 No. 5. Is the Ant-fly {formica). It is a late summer and 
 early autumn fly. Its body resembles that of an ant. Hence 
 its name. It is not a water-born fly, but a land-bred one. Its 
 wings are transparent and feeble, and the slightest breeze 
 wafts it on to the surface of rivers. Grayling take it eagerly, 
 and so do roach and dace. 
 
 No. 6. Is a dark palmer, or representation of a dark cater- 
 pillar, with light yellow circular bands round the body. 
 Walton properly observes, " this is called a pilgrim or palmer- 
 worm, for his very wandering life and various food ; not con- 
 tenting himself, as others do, with any one certain place for 
 his abode, nor any certain kind of herb or flower for his 
 feeding; but will boldly and disorderly wander up and down, 
 and not endure to be kept to a diet, or fixed to a particular 
 place." As caterpillars are of various sizes and colours, so are 
 their artificial representations. They are good angling baits 
 in the English rivers, but not so good either in Ireland or 
 Scotland. Chub take them with great avidity. Made very 
 large they will catch large Thames trout, and in the rivers 
 of South Wales they are not bad baits for Salmon. 
 
PLATE Ko. 1. 
 
 
PLATE No. 2. 
 
 ArtUiCidL ¥iU'. 
 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE, NO. 2. — ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 
 
 The Second Plate shows six artificial representations of 
 the flies in the first Plate. The spectator will recognise a like- 
 ness in all of them, except in the second, the wings of which 
 are too upright. In the water, however, those wings will lie 
 flat. As artificial flies they are good models. In the palmer, 
 No. 6, there is a slight defect near the bend of the hook. The 
 fibres of the hackle-feather are not there divided with sufii- 
 eient regularity. The palmer is made just as the fly No. 3 
 on the third Plate is made, except that there is neither tail 
 nor winsjs. 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE OF FLY-MAKING. 
 
 We have here diagrams representing the artificial-fly in 
 its several stages of fabrication. 
 
 No. 1. Is what is called the hook " armed," that is to say, 
 the hook and gut-link tied or whipped together, preparatory 
 to putting on the wings of the fly. Hook and gut are whipped 
 together thus : — You wax a piece of fine tying silk, about a 
 foot or eighteen inches in length ; then take your hook by 
 the bend between the tliumb and forefinger of your left 
 hand ; make a whip or two of the waxed silk round the bare 
 shank of the hook nearly opposite to the barb, and having 
 done so, place your gut under the shank up to the whipping, 
 which whipping or winding of the silk you must continue 
 over gut and shank of hook up ahnost to the end. Make a 
 slip-knot, and allow the silk to depend. Now for the wings, 
 see — 
 
 No. 2. The wings here are partly set on. To do so, you 
 must strip from the wing-feather of some small bird, using 
 the longest fibres, a smallish bunch. You place them on the 
 back of the shank of the hook, near its end, with their butts 
 towards the bend of the hook ; you tie them down with three 
 or four whips or laps of the silk j you then cut away the fibres 
 of the butt, and you wind your silk down the shank to 
 the spot at which you began the arming, and leave the silk 
 depending. 
 
 No. 3. You here see the whisks or tail set on, and the 
 hackle-feather tied by the point and ready to be wound up 
 to the wings. The whisks and hackle-feather are whipped 
 on after you have finished the operations necessary for No. 2, 
 as already described. The back of the feather must be 
 towards you. Take it by the bared stem, and wind regularly 
 up the hook to the wings ; wind so that the fibres will project 
 like those of No. 4 or No. 5. When you have wound the 
 hackle-feather up the wings, fasten it down by two or three 
 whips of the silk over it ; make a slip-knot, cut away the end 
 of the stem, leave the silk depending, and then you will have 
 the representation marked — 
 
 No. 4. Now pass your silk between the division of the 
 wings, round by the butt of the half- wing on the left side of 
 the hook, and bring the silk back again between the division, 
 and round by the butt of the half-wing next to you. Force 
 the wmgs down, forwards towards the bend of the hook, and 
 tie them down behind the shoulder, at which spot you must 
 
,rLATL: No :3. 
 
 Fly Making 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE OF FLY-MAKING. 
 
 form the head of the fly, by three or four laps of the silk, and 
 a couple of slip-knots, and then you will have diagram 
 
 No. 5. In which you have only to cut away the silk, and 
 put a drop of varnish on the cutting to prevent the slip-knot 
 from coming undone. 
 
 No. 6. Represents the hackle put on differently from the 
 way shown at No. 3. The fibres seen in this diagram. No. 6, 
 round the shank of the hook, between the tail and the wings, 
 are a body of dubbing, of mohair or fur, which has been 
 -twisted round the silk after the tail has been fastened on, and 
 wound up to the wings ; a slip-knot was then made, and super- 
 fluous dubbing taken away. The hackle-feather was then 
 attached as you see, and wound round two, three, or four 
 times at the wing ; the stem of the hackle was then cut 
 away, after having been tied down ; and the wings arranged 
 as directed at No. 4, as well as the head. When it is neces- 
 sary to rib the body of the fly with gold or silver twist or 
 tinsel, tie it on immediately before your hackle, near the 
 thick end of the tail, and then outside the tinsel tie your 
 hackle ; wind your tinsel regularly, for ribbing, up the body 
 of the fly to the wings : fasten your tinsel down, and cut 
 away the end. By its side wind afterwards your hackle. If 
 no hackle is used, but simply dubbing for body, spin it on 
 your silk and wind round shank from tail to shoulder of the 
 fly. Lap tinsel or twist over it, picking out dubbing for 
 legs, and to show the tinsel. 
 
 He who shall not be able to make a trout- fly, after studying 
 these diagrams and directions, must be deficient either in 
 brains or in manual dexterity. 
 
 Ephemera. 
 
 
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