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.

There are also divers other kinds of worms, which, for colour and
shape, alter even as the ground out of which they are got; as the marsh-
worm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dock-worm, the oak-worm, the
gilt-tail, the twachel or lob-worm, which of all others is the most
excellent bait for a salmon, and too many to name, even as many sorts
as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds of
birds in the air: of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what
worms soever you fish with, are the better for being well scoured, that
is, long kept before they be used: and in case you have not been so
provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly, is, to put
them all night in water, if they be lob-worms, and then put them into
your bag with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an
hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use: but if you
have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved
in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every
three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter;
or, at least, the moss taken from them, and clean washed, and wrung
betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And
when your worms, especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose
of his bigness, then you may recover him, by putting a little milk or
cream, about a spoonful in a day, into them, by drops on the moss; and
if there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will
both fatten and preserve them long. And note, that when the knot,
which is near to the middle of the brandling, begins to swell, then he is
sick; and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. And for moss, you
are to note, that there be divers kinds of it, which I could name to you,
but I will only tell you that that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best,
except it be soft white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard
to be found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put to an
extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into water, or salt in
water, to make it bitter or salt, and then that water poured on the ground
where you shall see worms are used to rise in the night, will make them
to appear above ground presently. And you may take notice, some say
that camphire put into your bag with your moss and worms gives them
a strong and so tempting a smell, that the fish fare the worse and you
the better for it.