And after this manner you may also keep gentles all winter; which are a
good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tough. Or you
may breed and keep gentles thus: take a piece of beast's liver, and, with
a cross stick, hang it in some corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry
clay; and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel and scour
themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to fish;
and these gentles may be thus created till after Michaelmas. But if you
desire to keep gentles to fish with all the year, then get a dead cat, or a
kite, and let it be flyblown; and when the gentles begin to be alive and
to stir, then bury it and them in soft moist earth, but as free from frost
as you can; and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to
use them: these will last till March, and about that time turn to be flies.
But if you be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers seldom are,
then take this bait: get a handful of well-made malt, and put it into a
dish of water; and then was]l and rub it betwixt your hands till you
make it clean, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water
from it, and put a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in
something that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to
boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become somewhat soft,
which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and
when it is soft, then put your water from it: and then take a sharp knife,
and turning the sprout end of the corn upward with the point of your
knife, take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind
of inward husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd and then cut off that
sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear; and so pull
off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you; and then cutting off a
very little of the other end, that so your hook may enter; and if your
hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait,
either for winter or summer, you sometimes casting a little of it into the
place where your float swims.
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