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 millwheels, 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 themselves 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 stationary as roach, and it is necessary to shift the fishing ground 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 Alburnus, from the bright hue of its scales and belly. I recommend the latter to the patient pursuit of the incipient fly-fisher; the former to the steady perseverance of the young bottomfisher.-ED.] CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE MINNOW OR PENK, OF THE LOACH, AND OF THE BULL-HEAD OR MILLER'S THUMB. [Fifth Day.] 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 spawn 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 that 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 minnow hath, when he is in perfect season, and not sick, which is only presently after spawning, a kind of dappled or waved colour, like to a panther, on his sides, inclining 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 primroses, 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 never rises above the 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 under 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; at 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. Matthiolus† 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," with 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. † Petrus Andreas Matthiolus, of Sienna, an eminent physician of the 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 womenanglers, 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 afford me, concerning most of the several fish that are usually fished for in fresh waters. VEN. 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. 214 CHAPTER XIX. OF SEVERAL RIVERS, AND SOME OBSERVATIONS OF FISH. [Fifth Bay.] PISC. Well, scholar, 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 followeth : 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 Gloucestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire; 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 Medway, in the very jaws of the ocean. 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, This 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, Ut nunc Ausonio, Thamesis, cum Tibride certet.-H. |