And after this manner you may also keep _Gentles_ all winter, which is
a good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tuffe, or
you may breed and keep Gentle thus: Take a piece of beasts liver and
with a cross stick, hang it in some corner over a pot or barrel half
full of dry clay, and as the Gentles grow big, they wil fall into the
barrel and scowre themselves, and be alwayes ready for use whensoever
you incline to fish; and these Gentles may be thus made til after
_Michaelmas_: But if you desire to keep Gentles to fish with all the
yeer, then get a dead _Cat_ or a _Kite_, and let it be fly-blowne, and
when the Gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them
in moist earth, but as free from frost as you can, and these you may
dig up at any time when you intend to use them; these wil last till
_March_, and about that time turn to be flies.
But if you be nice to fowl your fingers (which good Anglers seldome
are) then take this bait: Get a handful of well made Mault, and put it
into a dish of water, and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands til
you make it cleane, and as free from husks as you can; then put that
water from it, and put a small quantitie of fresh water to it, and set
it in something that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it
is not to boil apace, but leisurely, and very softly, until it become
somewhat soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and
thumb; and when it is soft, then put your water from it, and then take
a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward, with the
point of your knife take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet
leaving a kind of husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd; and then cut
off that sprouted end (I mean a little of it) that the white may
appear, and so pull off the husk on the cloven side (as I directed you)
and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook
may enter, and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be
a very choice bait either for Winter or Summer, you sometimes casting a
little of it into the place where your flote swims.
And to take the _Roch_ and _Dace_, a good bait is the young brood of
Wasps or Bees, baked or hardened in their husks in an Oven, after the
bread is taken out of it, or on a fire-shovel; and so also is the thick
blood of _Sheep_, being half dryed on a trencher that you may cut it
into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook, and a little
salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse but
better; this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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