You are to know, there is night as well as day fishing for a Trout; and
that, in the night, the best Trouts come out of their holes. And the
manner of taking them is on the top of the water with a great lob or
garden-worm, or rather two, which you are to fish with in a stream
where the waters run somewhat quietly, for in a stream the bait will not
be so well discerned. I say, in a quiet or dead place, near to some swift,
there draw your bait over the top of the water, to and fro, and if there be
a good Trout in the hole, he will take it, especially if the night be dark,
for then he is bold, and lies near the top of the water, watching the
motion of any frog or water-rat, or mouse, that swims betwixt him and
the sky; these he hunts after, if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in
one of these dead holes, where these great old Trouts usually lie, near
to their holds; for you are to note, that the great old Trout is both subtle
and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not usually stir out of his
hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her
form; for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in
the night, and then the great Trout feeds very boldly.

And you must fish for him with a strong line, and not a little hook; and
let him have time to gorge your hook, for he does not usually forsake it,
as he oft will in the day-fishing. And if the night be not dark, then fish
so with an artificial fly of a light colour, and at the snap: nay, he will
sometimes rise at a dead mouse, or a piece of cloth, or anything that
seems to swim across the water, or to be in motion. This is a choice
way, but I have not oft used it, because it is void of the pleasures that
such days as these, that we two now enjoy, afford an angler

And you are to know, that in Hampshire, which I think exceeds all
England for swift, shallow, clear, pleasant brooks, and store of Trouts,
they used to catch Trouts in the night, by the light of a torch or straw,
which, when they have discovered, they strike with a Trout-spear, or
other ways. This kind of way they catch very many: but I would not
believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen
it.

Venator. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night?

Piscator Yes, and hear, and smell too, both then and in the day-time: for
Gesner observes, the Otter smells a fish forty furlongs off him in the
water: and that it may be true, seems to be affirmed by Sir Francis
Bacon, in the eighth century of his Natural History, who there proves
that waters may be the medium of sounds, by demonstrating it thus: "
That if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those
that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise without any
diminution of it by the water " . He also offers the like experiment
concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a very long cable or rope, on a
rock, or the sand, within the sea. And this being so well observed and
demonstrated as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that
Eels unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder, and not only, as
some think, by the motion or stirring of the earth which is occasioned
by that thunder.