Babber

We began the business of settling in. Tom took to watching over the babber, when it wasn't getting its milk.

Ow bis me babber? […] How's it going?

Another way of taking eels, and by far the more ingenious, is that known as "babbing," or "bobbing." A series of large worms are strung on cobbler's worsted and coiled into a knot. […] I have known a couple of "babbers" to take as many as four or five stone of eels in a single night.