You must fish for him with a small red worm; and if you bait the
ground with earth, it is excellent.
There is also a BLEAK or fresh-water Sprat; a fish that is ever in
motion, and therefore called by some the river-swallow; for just as you
shall observe the swallow to be, most evenings in summer, ever in
motion, making short and quick turns when he flies to catch flies, in the
air, by which he lives; so does the Bleak at the top of the water.
Ausonius would have called him Bleak from his whitish colour: his
back is of a pleasant sad or sea-water-green; his belly, white and
shining as the mountain snow. And doubtless, though we have the
fortune, which virtue has in poor people, to be neglected, yet the Bleak
ought to be much valued, though we want Allamot salt, and the skill
that the Italians have, to turn them into anchovies. This fish may be
caught with a Pater-noster line; that is, six or eight very small hooks
tied along the line, one half a foot above the other: I have seen five
caught thus at one time; and the bait has been gentles, than which none
is better.
Or this fish may be caught with a fine small artificial fly, which is to be
of a very sad brown colour, and very small, and the hook answerable.
There is no better sport than whipping for Bleaks in a boat, or on a
bank, in the swift water, in a summer's evening, with a hazel top about
five or six foot long, and a line twice the length of the rod.
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