Part 7

It is to be noted, that if the fish wherewith you stock the waters, were kept so close together, and come from over-stocked waters, which renders them lean and poor, you must double the stock at first; else the two sudden plenty of food at first will surfeit them, and they will die of overmuch blood, as I have found to my great loss.

Of the Manner of feeding Fish.

In a stew you may keep up thirty or forty carps, from October to March in winter, without feeding; and by fishing with trammels or flews in March or April, you may take from your great waters, to recruit the stews; but you must not fail to feed all summer, from March to October again, as constantly as your cooped chickens are fed, and to as good and certain account. The reason you feed in summer, and not in winter, is, because the fish will lie close in cold weather, and feed little, not caring to stir, especially upon the shoals, where it is proper to give them meat.

If you would bring more fish together into your stews, you may preserve and improve them by feeding; but there are bounds, because the water is but small, and will not admit any great number: but if you have a great number of fish to be kept for an opportunity, and you put them into a considerable water, you may in that manner stock to any quantity, taking care duly to feed them; and so not only maintain, but improve one thousand per acre; but if thus over-stocked, and you do not feed sufficiently, they will sink, and you be a great loser.

Now, as for your stews, the care of feeding is best instructed to a butler or gardener, who are or should be always at home, because the constancy and regularity of serving the fish, conduce very much to their well eating and thriving; for they will expect their meat as duly as horses, and appetite in any creature wastes by disappointment.

Any sort of grain boiled is good to feed with, especially malt coarse ground. Pease boiled a turn or two are as good as any other grain. The grains after a brewing, while they are good and sweet, are very proper; but one bushel of malt not brewed, will go as far as two of grains. The chippings of bread, and orts of a table, steeped in tap-droppings of good strong beer or ale, are very good food for carps. Of these the quantity of two quarts to thirty table carps every day is sufficient; and to feed morning and evening, is better than once a day only.

The place to feed is towards the mouth, at about half yard deep; for that keeps the deep clean and fit, as a parlour to retire to, and rest in. The meat plainly thrown into the water, without other device, will be picked up by them, and nothing shall be lost. However, there are several ways to give them meat, especially pease, which are useful, as a square board let down, with the meat upon it, by the four corners, whence a string comes, and made fast to a stick like a scale, is very manageable. A gentleman had found out a very facile way to feed carps, worth noting, because I have heard it was successful. He let down the very kettle in which the pease were boiled, into the water, and the fish would come and take out every grain.

When you feed in the greater waters, where the numbers are also great, it will be a charge as well as trouble; but when you take out the fish, and see how they are thriven, you will allow both well employed. Either malt boiled, or fresh grains, is the best food in this case: and what is not supplied from your own house and brewings, you may take of neighbouring alehouses, who will be willing, for a small matter, to throw into the water, at a place you shall assign, a certain quantity every brewing. Thus carps may be fed and raised like capons. And tenches will feed in stews, as well as carps; but perch, as was said, are not for a stew in feeding time.

There is a sort of food for fish, which I may call accidental, and is no less improving, than the best you can contrive; and that is, when the waters happen to receive the wash of commons where many sheep are fed, the water is enriched by the earth, and shall feed many more carps, than otherwise it would. This is the case at Antlingham in Norfolk, where there are ponds in a common that raise carp wonderfully, although the soil be sandy and poor, and the waters seldom let out; and this earthy wash is the reason of it. When cattle are fed upon the pastures by your great waters, if they have access to them, in hot weather they will take delight to stand in the water; the dung that falls from them, is also a very great nourishment of fish.

It is believed, that about London the fishmongers have ways of making carps fat by the offal of butchers shops and slaughter-houses; which I do not at all recommend to others, if that were to be done, because a sudden filthy feeding can neither be wholesome nor sweet. But I have not observed, that carps do in any sort delight in blood, nor indeed any other fish, except breams; and those will feed much upon new grains mixed with blood; so that if you will be at the charge of feeding them in stews, like carps, you may have large breams in six or seven years, which are a very slow grower, unless it be in springy waters.

One way of feeding fish is worth remembering, though not fit to be used in waters that you ever look upon. It is laying a dead carrion upon stakes in the middle of the water, and it will breed maggots, which falling into the water, feed the fish very considerably; but I have not proved it.

As for pikes, the best food to raise them up to an extraordinary fatness is eels; and without them it is not to be done, but in a long time; otherwise small perches are the best meat you can give them. And the common opinion, that pikes will not eat perches, because of their armed backs, is a great mistake, as I have found by certain experience. Breams put into a pike-pond, will breed exceedingly, and are good enough to maintain pikes, who will take care they shall not increase overmuch. And the great fry of roaches and rouds that come from the greater waters, removed into the quarters of your pikes, will be good diet for them.

Pikes in all waters, and carps in hungry springy waters, being fed at certain times, will come up and take their meat almost from your hand; and it is diverting enough to see the greediness and striving that will be amongst them for the good bits, and the boldness, that by constant and regular feeding, they will come to.

Of disposing your Increase of Fish.

This care presseth when you employ your great waters; and unless you have projected beforehand how you shall dispose your fish, you will find yourself in great disorder.

As for carps for the service of your house, and also tenches and perch for winter, they are to be disposed into your stews. The rest of your fish, except the fry, you may put into the great water, and in March or April after, with flews or trammels, take out good quantities to recruit your winter’s expence taken from your stews; the fry goes to your pikes, except carps, tench, and perch, which may go to some of your auxiliary waters to be raised, in order to become stores again when you want. And if, after all, you find your stock too high, you must feed as I have already discoursed.

But you may contrive to keep your stock within compass; for you may enlarge the expence in your house, and gratify your family and friends that visit you, with a dish as acceptable as any you can purchase for money; or you may oblige your friends and neighbours, by making presents of them, which, from the countryman to the king, is well taken; for many that have waters, not being in a method of husbanding them, as well as others that have none, want and desire fish, and look upon such a present, as of a rarity, valuing it not by your plenty, but their own scarcity. And where fish is plenty, it is a positive disgrace to appear covetous of them, rather more than of venison, or any other thing; so that presents are not only expedient, but necessary to be made by him that professeth a mastery of fish.

Another way, more prudent, though in the account of shallow people, less reputable, is that of selling. If there were any colour for disreputation in that matter, I should bestow some words upon it; but seeing it resides only among vain women, or women-like men, I let the humour pass, and should as soon preach against the opinion of fairies and Robin-Goodfellow, as that. Only by the way, I presume to advise the censorious sparks to do nothing unjust; let their dealing be plain, though in selling of horses, spend what is their own, provide for their families, and be true to their friend; and after this, whether they sell corn, cattle, conies, sheep, deer, horses, or fish, I will insure their honour for a farthing. It is the truth and substance of things, and no person’s opinion, that governs honour, which consists wholly in doing what is truly just and good, and nothing otherwise.

This matter being dismissed, I proceed to direct the course to be taken when you propose to sell. First contract with the person you deal with for a quantity; which, if for sale to eat, will be by the measure of so much per inch, for every inch above a foot; if for stores, then so much per hundred, or dozen, between certain lengths, as between nine and twelve, and seven and ten inches, to be delivered alive where it is agreed.

This trade will be easy, if you are planted within forty miles of London, which will take off quantities for retailing, else it will be hard to find contractors; but for stores, there will be some always beginning in fish, with whom you may deal; and so few will sedulously apply to the conduct of their waters, as is necessary to a command of fish, you need not fear the country will be over-stocked. If the humour of living in the country once repossesseth the gentleman, there may be much more occasion for stores than at present there is, because their seats are let to tenants, and the waters uncultivated.

When you have contracted, you are at a certainty, and may proceed; for it is a great inconvenience to take and carry fish, and then be paid with a wrangle; therefore let your terms be certain, and you can have no dispute, because all is to be declared by measure.

You will find your stews and auxiliary waters of great use to you upon such occasions; for you clap in what fish you please for fourteen or fifteen days; for instance, five or six hundred carps to a brace of stews, and they take no harm: if they continue longer, it is but feeding them until they are fetched or carried away.

Of fishing for Carriage.

As for the particular ways and methods of taking fish, such as I have dealt in, is at present besides my design, though I may not perhaps altogether pass it by, so much as concerns the carriage of fish, which I look upon as a considerable item in the managery as to profit, which I principally aim at, I shall now observe.

When your fishing is in order to remove far, whether the waters are great or small, it must be done in winter, between the first of October, and the last of March; and the colder the weather is, the better. One great caution is, not to handle, or any way to batter or bruise them; for it is a great truth, and common sense speaks it, that fish battered and bruised, will not thrive upon transplanting, so well as others; therefore when your pond is drawn, and you come to the fish, take them out of the water with hoop-nets fixed upon staves about ten feet long, and ten or twelve fish at a time in a net is sufficient, though but a foot long; more, by their weight and struggling, will damage each other insensibly, so as to hinder their growth and thrift, and perhaps be the cause that many die. Let the fish be as little out of the water as may be; for when fouled, and almost choaked with mud, they will clean and recover themselves with water, which freshen upon them often, till you come to put them up for carriage.

If you fish with nets, and make a great draught, as probably you will when the water is low, be not hasty to draw the fish upon the ground, but secure them by taking the lead line upon the ground, and holding up the cork line, and so let them stir a little, they will be the cleaner; and then take them out with hoop-nets, as before. And if there be occasion to keep them any time out of the water, let it be upon the grass, when there is no sun, or else in the shade, for heat is the greatest enemy to the life of fish out of water that can be.

The best vessel for conveyance (if you carry above twenty miles) is a great tun that holds five hogsheads; but if no more than ten, fifteen, or twenty miles, ordinary hogsheads will do well enough. I know by experience you may safely carry three hundred carps, six and seven inches long, in one hogshead; but from seven to a foot, not so many by a fourth part. If they exceed a foot, then not above seventy or eighty in a hogshead. Let every hogshead have ten or twelve pails of fresh clean water (not well-water), every six or seven miles, if it may be had. There is no need of any great liberty for the fish, if their water be fresh, and often renewed; for one great use of the water is to bury the fish, that with mere weight they might not crush and destroy one another.

When you are arrived at the place of discharge, pour the fish into an hoop-net a few at a time, and dispose them forthwith where they are designed; and with this care you will scarce lose a fish.