From Izaak Walton's the Compleat Angler back in the day:
http://anglicanhistory.org/walton/angler/chapter9.htmlAnd your paste must be thus made: Take the flesh of a Rabbet or Cat cut small, and Bean-flowre, and if that may not be easily got, get other flowre, and then mix these together, and put to them either Sugar, or Honey, which I think better, and then beat these together in a Mortar, or sometimes work them in your hands (your hands being very clean) and then make it into a Ball, or two, or three, as you like best for your use: but you must work or pound it so long in the Mortar, as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook without washing from it, yet not too hard: or that you may the better keep it on your hook, you may knead with your paste a little (and not much) white or yellowish wool.
And if you would have this paste keep all the year for any other Fish, then mix with it Virgins wax and clarified honey, and work them together with your hands before the Fire, then make these in to balls, and they will keep all the year.
And if you fish for a Carp with Gentles, then put upon your hook a small piece of Scarlet about this bigness [__], it being soked in, or anointed with Oyl of Peter, called by some Oyl of the Rock, and if your Gentles be put two or three dayes before into a box or horn anointed with honey, and so put upon your hook, as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this way as any other: But still as you are fishing chaw a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the pond about the place where your Flote swims. Other baites there be, but these with diligence, and patient watchfulness, will do it better than any that I have ever practised, or heard of: And yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for a Carp, and you know it is more easily made. And having said thus much of the Carp, my next discourse shall be of the Bream, which shall not prove so tedious, and therefore I desire the continuance of your attention.
But first I will tell you how to make this Carp that is so curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as shall make him worth all your labour; and though it is not without some trouble and charges, yet it will recompence both.
Take a Carp (alive if possible), scour him, and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not, then open him, and put him with his bloud and his liver (which you must save when you open him) into a small pot or kettle; then take sweet Margerome, Time and Parsley, of each half a handful, a sprig of Rosemary, and another of Savoury, bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them to your Carp, with four or five whole Onyons, twenty pickled Oysters, and three Anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp as much claret wine as will onely cover him; and season your claret well with salt, Cloves and Mace, and the rinds of Oranges and Lemons, cover your pot and set it on a quick fire, till it be sufficiently boiled; then take out the Carp and lay it with the broth into the dish, and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of fresh butter melted and beaten, with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and some of the herbs shred, garnish your dish with Lemons and so serve it up.