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 hasty 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 possibly you can: if it be a good
Carp or Bream, they will go to the 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 fitter 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 Perch 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, it you mistrust 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, then the little fish will skip out of the water at
his appearance, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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