The Complete Angler Volume 1; Or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 Excerpt: ...never takes so sure hold but you often lose your fish, unless he have gorged it. Ven. I thank you, good Master, for this observation; but now what shall be done with my Chub or Cheven that I have caught? Pise. 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 offer your first-fruits to the poor, who will both thank God and you 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 you 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 humblebee that breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found by the mower of it. In August, and in the cooler mcaths, a yellow paste, made of the strongest cheese, and pounded in a mortar with a little butter and saffron, so much of it as being beaten small will turn it to a lemon color. 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, 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 ...