The Compleat Angler

or and

rked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem him

e clean his throat from the grass and weeds that are usually in it; for if that be not very clean, it will make him to taste very sour. Having so done, put some sweet herbs into

much better than a Chub of a day's keeping after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a tree, and others that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water. But the Chub being thus used, and dressed presently; and not washed af

ss the Chavend

the time he is a-broiling, baste him with the best sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it. And, to this, add a little thyme cut exceedingly small, or bruised into the butter. The Cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which so many except against him. Thus was the Cheven dres

l give you some rules how to catch him: and I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching a Chub, for

down towards the bottom of the water, at the first shadow of your rod (for Chub is the fearfullest of fishes), and will do so if but a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow on the water; but they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again. I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best Chub, which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see, and move your rod, as softly as a snail

have offered me as fair as I could wis

that which joys my heart, caught j

olar of you. I now see, that with advice and practice, you will make a

what if I could not ha

ny kind of fly, as the ant-fly, the flesh-fly, or wall-fly; or the dor or beetle which you may find under cow-dung; or a bob which you will find in the same place, and in

with your line about two yards long; standing behind a bush or tree where his hole is: and make your bait stir up and down on the top of the water. You may, if you stand close, be sure o

er, I pray, good master, what me

ather, or skin, of the mouth of such fish, does very seldom or never lose its hold: but on the contrary, a Pike, a Perch, or Trout, and so some other fish, which have not their teeth in their throats, but in the

s observation. But now what shall be done

in clay walls. And he never refuses a grasshopper, on the top of a swift stream, nor, at the bottom, the young humble bee that breeds in long grass, and is ordinarily found by the mower of it. In August, and in the cooler months, 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 colour. 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

ressed so presently after he is taken, I will commend to your co

ep them living in glass bottles in their dining-rooms, and they did glory much in their entertaining of friends, to have that fish taken from under their table alive that was instantly to be fed upon; and he says, they took great pleasure t

rd day-

eding of the Trout, a