Also 9 dial. bab. [f. BOB sb.1 7.]
intr. To fish (for eels) with a bob. (Hence humorously, ‘to bob for whales.’)
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb. (1623), 178. Other wayes … to take Eeles, as … with bobbing for them with great wormes.
1672. Davenant, Vac. in Lond., Wks. (1673), 290. All day on Thames to bob for Grig.
1766. H. Walpole, Acct. Giants, Wks. 1798, II. 94. These giants … seldom come down to the coast; and then I suppose only to bob for whales.
1833. Fraser’s Mag., VII. 54. He … bobs and dibbles till he hooks his prey.
1883. G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads, iii. (1884), 22. The eel is the support of numbers of fishermen, who ‘bob’ for it with bundles of worms threaded on worsted.
b. fig. To seek to capture or obtain by artifice; to ‘fish for.’
1672. Davenant, Wits, Wks. (1673), 183. He lies not there To bob for Griggs, but to bob for the People.
1840. E. Napier, Scenes & Sp. For. Lands, II. v. 163. Even captains are not catchable every day; she bobs away at them for a couple of years.
