Pisc. Wel, Scholer, now we are sate downe and are at ease, I shall tel you a little more of Trout fishing before I speak of the Salmon (which I purpose shall be next) and then of the Pike or Luce. You are to know, there is night as well as day-fishing for a Trout, and that then the best are out of their holds; 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 for in a place where the water runs somewhat quietly (for in a stream it wil not be so well discerned.) I say, in a quiet or dead place neer 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 wil take it, especially if the night be dark; for then he lies boldly neer the top of the water, watching the motion of any Frog or Water-mouse, or Rat betwixt him and the skie, which he hunts for if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where the great Trouts usually lye neer to their hold.

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; nay he will sometimes rise at a dead Mouse or a piece of cloth, or any thing that seemes to swim cross 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 dayes as these that we now injoy, afford an Angler.

And you are to know, that in Hamp-shire, (which I think exceeds all England for pleasant Brooks, and store of Trouts) they use 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; this kind of way they catch many, but I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor like it now I have seen it.

Viat. But Master, do not Trouts see us in the night?

Pisc. Yes, and hear, and smel too, both then and in the day time, for Gesner observes, the Otter smels a fish forty furlong off him in the water; and that it may be true, is 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 neer 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 wel observed and demonstrated, as it is by that learned man, has made me to believe that Eeles unbed themselves, and stir at the noise of the Thunder, and not only as some think, by the motion or the stirring of the earth, which is occasioned by that Thunder.

And this reason of Sir Francis Bacons [Exper. 792] has made me crave pardon of one that I laught at, for affirming that he knew Carps come to a certain place in a Pond to be fed at the ringing of a Bel; and it shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am a fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted, which I shal give any man leave to do, and so leave off this Philosophical discourse for a discourse of fishing.

Of which my next shall be to tell you, it is certain, that certain fields neer Lemster, a Town in Herefordshire, are observed, that they make the Sheep that graze upon them more fat then the next, and also to bear finer Wool; that is to say, that that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yeeld finer wool then the yeer before they came to feed in it, and courser again if they shall return to their former pasture, and again return to a finer wool being fed in the fine wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, If I catch a Trout in one Meadow, he shall be white and faint and very like to be lowsie; and as certainly if I catch a Trout in the next Meadow, he shal be strong, and red, and lusty, and much better meat: Trust me (Scholer) I have caught many a Trout in a particular Meadow, that the very shape and inamelled colour of him, has joyed me to look upon him, and I have with Solomon concluded, Every thing is beautifull in his season.

It is now time to tell you next, (according to promise) some observations of the Salmon; But first, I wil tel you there is a fish, called by some an Umber, and by some a Greyling, a choice fish, esteemed by many to be equally good with the Trout: it is a fish that is usually about eighteen inches long, he lives in such streams as the Trout does; and is indeed taken with the same bait as a Trout is, for he will bite both at the Minnow, the Worm, and the Fly, both Natural and Artificial: of this fish there be many in Trent, and in the River that runs by Salisbury, and in some other lesser Brooks; but he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me either so good to eat, or so pleasant to fish for as the Trout is; of which two fishes I will now take my leave, and come to my promised Observations of the Salmon, and a little advice for the catching him.