Coridon. 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? for my friend Coridon and I will go up the water
towards Ware.
Piscator. And my scholar and I will go down towards Waltham.
Coridon. 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.
Piscator. And so say I.
Venator. And so say I.
The fourth day
Piscator. 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 dish of meat or two against supper, for
we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come, scholar, let's be going.
Venator. Well now, good master, as we walk towards the river, give me
direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a Trout.
Piscator. 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
peek, 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: some breed
only in the earth, as the earth-worm; others of, or amongst plants, as
the dug-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 broad tail, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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