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 i