Izaak Walton

“ You will find excellent sport that evening, till eight of the
clock: then cast in the residue of your ground-bait, and next morning,
by four of the clock, visit them again for four hours, which is the best
sport of all; and after that, let them rest till you and your friends have a
mind to more sport.
From St. James's-tide until Bartholomew-tide is the best; when they
have had all the summer's food, they are the fattest. ”

“ Some say, that Breams and Roaches will mix their eggs and melt
together; and so there is in many places a bastard breed of Breams, that
never come to be either large or good, but very numerous.
The baits good to catch this Bream are many. First, paste made of
brown bread and honey; gentles; or the brood of wasps that be young,
and then not unlike gentles, and should be hardened in an oven, or dried
on a tile before the fire to make them tough. Or, there is, at the root of
docks or flags or rushes, in watery places, a worm not unlike a maggot,
at which Tench will bite freely. ”