Like I always say Smitty, despite our best efforts to Colonialize your butts, you never learned to make a decent cup of Tea...... first use fresh water not salt and second the water should be hot!!!

Now you put boiling water on the tea to make it hot and then ice to make it cold - followed by sugar to make it sweet and then lemons to make it sour............ MAKE YOUR MINDS UP!!!


Faz

This is but another example of why, about 100 years after that book was written,  we threw the tea in the drink at Boston and declared independence!

Smitty

good gosh you Colonials!!! Don't you recognize English when you see it????? Nothing could be simpler....


Here's a partial translation:


get a bit of wood one and a half fathoms long, use a straight wire, heated white hot to burn a hole through, use bigger and bigger bird spits to get a taper through it then let it lie down straight for two days and cool.... etc etc


LOL
Happy New Year,
Faz

Translation please!

S,

If you typed that your hands must really hurt.
Russ

After reading that outloud, I feel more like a redneck!

Forsuth say I.

Smitty

My brother at China Lake, CA, sent me the following, and I thought a lot of you in need of fine fishing equipment would find it...uh...awe inspiring. Or not! But here she be, anyway. Moose Streeter could probably provide at least a couple of the first edition, for your evaluation, and maybe a translation. C&R, Steve 

   "A retired China Laker friend here collects old fishing
hardware and other articles.  He related how he picked up an old book printed
in England in the 1600s, from a box of garage sale books.  I got to
hold it and look at a few pages.  Turns out it's an example of the
earliest book known to relate the art of fishing with a rod.  This and other
things of the sport fishing pastime had to be made by the fisherman as
related below.  He sez he has computer-typed the whole text, here a part
of it, I think in Middle English:"

Title of the book "The Compleat Angler".  Check Amazon used books.


""Here is a sample of the book on how to make a fishing rod:

the subject-

    How the Angler is to make his harnay or tackle and to
provide a rod.

How ye shall make a rodde craftly, here I shall teche you.

Ye shall kytte between Myghelmas and Candylmas, a fayre staffe,
of a fadom 
and an halfe longe, and arme-grete of haysll, willowe, or aspe;
and bethe 
hym in an hote ouyn, and sette him euyn; thenne, let hym cole
and drye a 
moneth. Take thenne and frette (tie it about) hym , fast wyth a
cockeshote 
corde; and bynde hym to a fourme, or an euyn squere grete tree.
Take, 
thenne a plummers wire, that is euen and streyte, and sharp at
the one 
ende; and hete the sharpe ende in a charcole fyre till it be
whyte, and 
brenne the staffe therewith through, eure streyte in the pythe
at bothe 
endes, tyll they mete: and after that brenne hym in the nether
ende with a 
byrde broche (A bird spit) and with other broches, eche gretter
than 
other, and eure the grettest laste; so thatye make your hole,
aye, taper 
were. Then lete hym lye styll, and kele two days; unfrette
(untie) hym 
thenne , and lete hym drye in an hous roof in the smoke tyll he
be thrugh 
drye. In the same season, take a fayre yerde of grene Hasyll,
and bethe 
hym euen and streyght, and lete it drye with staffe; and whan
they ben 
drye make the yerde  mete unto the hole in the staffe, unto
halfe the 
length of staffe; and to perfourme that other halfe of the
croppe,- take a 
fyre shote of Blacke thornn, Crabbe tree, Medler or Jenypre,
kytte in the 
same season, and well bethed and streyght, and frette theyme
togyder 
fetely, soo that the croppe maye justly entre all into the sayd
hole; 
thenne shave your staffe, make hym tapre were; then vyrell the
staffe at 
bothe ends with long hopis of yren, or laton, in the clennest
wise, wyth a 
Pyke at the nether ende, fastnyd with a rennyngevyce, to take in
and out 
your croppe; thenne set your croppe an handful within the ouer
ende of 
your staffe, in suche wise that it be as bigge there as one
place about: 
Thenne arme your croppe at the eour ende, down to the frette,
wythe a lyne 
of ujheeres, and dubbe thy lyne; and frette it faste in the
toppe wythe a 
bowe to fasten on your lyne; and thus shall ye make you a rodde
soo prevy, 
that ye may walke therewith; and there shall be noo man wyte
  where abowte 
ye goo.

1. From a Book of St Alban's with Caxtons letter compiled by a
lady, Dame 
Julyans Berners, Bernes or Barns in 1486.

2. All this from The Complete Angler by I. Walton and C. Cotton
  1653 and 
published in the forth edition in 1760 by Sir John Hawkins, Knt.