July. Your line must be a single-haired one, with a small float, and the hook, No. 6 or 7. Let your bait touch the ground, which may be any sort of small worms, wasps, or gentles. He being a fish but seldom taken with the rod and line, to enlarge on the subject would be totally unnecessary. THE CHUB.* The chub is a fish by no means in very much esteem, his flesh being very coarse, and full of small bones; yet he affords good sport to the angler, especially to a Tyro in that art. They spawn about the beginning of April; and their haunts are chiefly in large rivers, having clayey or sandy bottoms, in holes shaded with trees; where many of them in general keep together. He bites best from sunrising till eight, and from three till sun-set. In March and April you must angle for the chub with worms; in June and July with flies, snails, and cherries; but in August and September use a paste made of Parmesan or Holland cheese, pounded in a mortar, with a little butter, and a small quantity of saffron put to it to make it of a yellow colour. In the winter, when the chub is in his prime, a paste made of Cheshire cheese and turpentine is very good, but no bait more killing for him than the pith of an ox or cow's back-bone; you must take the tough outward skin off very carefully, but take particular care that you do not bruise the inward skin: also the brains of the above animals are excellent for him. Let your line be very strong, with a quill float on it, strong gut at bottom, the hook No. 3 or 4, the depth, in hot weather, mid *Pin lines are used for this fish. Ꮐ water, in coldish near the bottom, and in quite cold weather on the ground. The most pleasant way of taking him is by dibbing, which is thus performed: in a hot summer's day, go to any hole that you know they haunt, and you will find perhaps thirty or forty of them basking themselves on the surface of the water: then take your rod, which must be very strong and long, your line the same, but about a yard in length, and bait the hook with a grasshopper. You must shelter yourself behind some bush or stump of a tree, so as not to be seen; for the chub is very timorous, and the least shadow will make him sink to the bottom, though he will soon rise again: having therefore fixed your eye upon the largest and best, drop your bait with great caution before him, and he will instantly take it, and be held fast; for he is a leather-mouthed fish, and seldom breaks hold if played properly. N. B. In dibbing where you cannot get a grasshopper, any fly, beetle, or moth, will equally answer the purpose. When you are roving for perch with a minnow, you will often take large chub. THE BARBEL. The barbel, so called on account of the barb or beard that is under his nose or chops, is a leathermouthed fish; and though he seldom breaks his hold when hooked, yet if he proves a large one he often breaks both rod and line. The male is esteemed much better than the female, but neither of them are very extraordinary. They swim in great shoals, and are at the worst in April, at which time they spawn, but soon come into season again. The places they chiefly resort to are such as are weedy, gravelly, rising grounds, in which this fish is said to dig, and rout his nose like a swine. In the summer he frequents the strongest and swiftest currents of water, as under deep bridges, wears, &c. and is apt to settle himself amongst the piles, hollow places, and in moss and weeds. In the autumn he retires into the deeps, where he remains all the winter and beginning of the spring. The best baits for him are salmon-spawn, lob-worms, gentles, bits of cheese wrapt up in a wet linen rag to make them tough, or steeped in honey for twenty-four hours, and greaves: observe that the sweeter and cleaner your baits are kept, the more eager he takes them. You cannot bait the ground for him too much, when you angle for him with any kind of garbage: as lob-worms cut in pieces, malt and grains incorporated with blood and clay, &c. The earlier and later you fish for him in the months of June, July, and August the better. Your rod and line must be very strong: the former ringed, and the latter must have gimp at the bottom, but I think twisted gut is better. A running plummet must be placed on your line, which is a bullet* with a hole through it: place a large shot a foot above the hook, to prevent the bullet falling on it. The worm will of course be at the bottom, for no float is to be used, and when the barbel takes the bait, the bullet will lay on the ground and not choak him. By the bending of your rods you will know when he bites, and also with your hands will feel him give a strong snatch then strike him, and he will be your own if you play him well; but if you do not manage him with dexterity, he will break your tackle. * I have found lately that the flat plummet is much better. You must have on your rod a winch, and a line on it about thirty yards long. The most famous places near London for barbel-angling are Kingston-bridge and Sheppertondeeps; but Walton-deeps, Chertsey-bridge, Hampton-ferry, and the holes under Cooper's hill, are in no wise inferior. You may likewise meet with them at all the locks hetween Maidenhead and Oxford. N. B. Their spawn acts as a violent cathartic and emetic. His liver is likewise unwholesome. The hooks for this fish, No. 1 or 2. THE EEL. Authors of natural history, in regard to the eel, have advanced various conjectures; and in some measure have contradicted each other entirely on this head; namely, whether they are produced by generation or corruption, as worms are, or by certain glutinous drops of dew, which falling in May and June, on the banks of some ponds or rivers, are by the heat of the sun turned into eels. Abr. Mylius, in a treatise on the origin of animals, describes a method of producing them by art. He says that if he cut up two turfs covered with May-dew, and lay one on the other, the grassy side inwards, and thus expose them to the heat of the sun, in a few hours there will spring from them an infinite quantity of eels. Eels are distinguished into four kinds, viz. the silver eel; a greenish eel, called a grey; a blackish eel, with a broad flat head; and lastly, an eel with reddish fins. The cel's haunts are chiefly amongst weeds, under roots and stumps of trees, holes, and clefts in the earth, both in the banks and at bottom, and in the plain mud; where 1 they lay with only their heads out, watching for prey; also about flood-gates, wears, bridges, and old mills, and in the still waters that are foul and muddy; but the smallest eels are to be met with in all sorts of rivers and soils. They conceal themselves in the winter for six months in the mud, and they seldom rove about in the summer in the daytime, but all night long; at which time you may take a great number of them, by laying in nightlines, fastened here and there to banks, stumps of trees, &c. of a proper length for the depth of the water, leaded so as to lay on the ground, and a proper eel-hook whipped on each, baited with the following baits, which he delights in, viz. gardenworms, or lobs, minnows, hen's guts, fish-garbage, loaches, small gudgeons, or miller's thumbs, also small roaches, the hook being laid in their mouths. There are two ways to take them in the daytime, called sniggling and bobbing. Sniggling is thus performed: take a strong line, and bait your hook with a large lob-worm, and go to such places above-mentioned, where eels hide themselves in the day-time put the bait gently into the hole by the help of a cleft stick, and if the cel is there he will certainly bite. Let him tire himself by tugging before you offer to pull him out, or else he will break your line. The other method is called bobbing. In order to perform this, you must scour some large lobs, and with a needle run a twisted silk or worsted through as many of them, from end to end, as will lightly wrap a dozen times round your hand: make them into links, and fasten them to strong packthread or whipcord, two yards long; then make a knot in the line about six or eight inches from the worms; afterwards put three quarters of a pound of lead, made |
