Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.).djvu/37

 

I'll bottom fish, or troll for pike,
Or whip a trout stream, which they like;
I'll spin a minnow, dib with drake,
For fifty pounds aside, and stake
With any piscatorial elf,
Who 's game enough to back himself
Some amateurs presume to speak
Of mighty deeds performed at Leek.^[1]
I fear them not, alike I take
From river, pond, from pool, or lake,
The scaly tribe; and as for roach,
I've caught enough to load a coach;
With paste and gentles, malt that's stewed,
How I have thinned that "red-finned" brood!
Aye, and how justly proud I feel
Of the mode in which I bait for eel.
The Barbel mystery I'll unravel,
Who poke their leather snouts in gravel.
With bullocks' pith, their favourite grub,
I've killed some hundred-weights of "Chub."
For "Carp" and "Tench," when weather's clear,
Wind in the south, and "wheat in ear,"
Of surface weeds just mow a bit out,
And I'll be bound to clear a pit out.
In fact, I'll meet the challenge gaily.
Of any man excepting "Bailey;"^[2]
Letters addressed, Post Office, Hull,
Will find me always——M. T. Skull.

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1. An extensive and beautiful sheet of water, more than two miles in length, in Staffordshire.
2. The Champion Fisherman of Nottingham.