The complete angler ; or, Contemplative man's recreation, being a discourse on rivers, fish-ponds, fish, and fishing / In two parts: the first written by Mr. Isaac Walton; the second by Charles Cotton, esq. With the lives of the authors: and notes, historical, critical, supplementary, and explanatory, by Sir John Hawkins, knt.

  • Izaak Walton
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complete angler ; or, Contemplative man's recreation, being a discourse on rivers, fish-ponds, fish, and fishing / In two parts: the first written by Mr. Isaac Walton; the second by Charles Cotton, esq. With the lives of the authors: and notes, historical, critical, supplementary, and explanatory, by Sir John Hawkins, knt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    503/568 (page 457)
    CHAPTER XII; OF ANGLING-IN-THE-MIDDLE for Trout or Grayling *. ~-..- PrscATOR-JUNIOR. . ANGLING-in-the-middle, then, for a Trout or Grayling, is of two sorts? with a pihk or minnow for a Trout; or with a worm; grub, or cadis for a Grayling. = ‘5 sory wire For the first; — It is with a minnow; half afoot; ora foot, within the superficiesof the water. And as to the rest that concerns this sort of angling, I shall wholly tefer you to Mr. Walton’s directions; wlio is undoubt« edly the best angler with a minnow in England: only; in plain truth, 1 do not approve of those baits he keeps in saltt, unless where the living ones are not pos- sibly to be had; though I know he frequently 1 4% kills with them, aad; peradventure, more than“ ~~ with any other+nay, [ have seen him refuse a living one for oneof them. And much less [do I approve] of his. artificial one {; for though we do it with a counterfeit fly, methinks, it should hardly be 1.462 expected, that a man should deceive a fish with @ counterfeit fish; Which having said, I shall only add, (and that; ont of my own experience,) that I de believe a bull«head,; [millers-thumb, } with his gill-fins cut off, at some times of the year especially, to be a much better bait for a Trowt than a minnow; and a loach much better than that; to prove which; 1 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 mine * And mark what is said in pa. 454, respecting fishing for Grayling,