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A match that is potentially even earlier, but is limited to a snippet view and therefore not fully confirmed, appears in The Universal Museum and Complete Magazine, volume 2 (1763, date not confirmed) [combined snippets]:

In all three cases (red herring as dog-training scent, red herring as consubstantiated bacon, and red herring as false prize at the end of long service), the fish can be seen as a metaphor for deception. Of the three, the dog-training scent red herring seems the likeliest to be the source of today’s term, but the practical joke red herring seems to have been around the longest, and it is not impossible that all three sources may have influenced today's general notion of a figurative red herring as something fundamentally misleading.

That same year an author describes using a red herring to lure rats into a trap. From Daniel Holland, The New and Complete Universal Vermin-Killer (1782):

How to draw Rats to the places where the Traps or Cages are laid.—Every trap should be placed as secretly as possible, and straw or fern shook round it, that the rats may approach it in private. If you find any holes in barns, &c. that go through into orchards, fields, &c. then take a red herring, tie a string to the tail and draw it round the building, and then to the hole where the trap or cage stands, and bait it also with a piece of the herring.—This will entice rats from any distance.

A match that is potentially even earlier, but is limited to a snippet view and therefore not fully confirmed, appears in The Universal Museum and Complete Magazine, volume 2 (1763, date not confirmed) [combined snippets]:

In all four cases (red herring as dog-training scent, red herring as rat bait, red herring as consubstantiated bacon, and red herring as false prize at the end of long service), the fish can be seen as a metaphor for deception. Of the four, the dog-training scent red herring seems the likeliest to be the source of today’s term, but the practical joke red herring seems to have been around the longest, and it is not impossible that all four sources may have influenced today's general notion of a figurative red herring as something fundamentally misleading.

But if it has happened that your exercise has been so easy so easy as not to sweat your horse thoroughly, then you ought to make a train scent of four mile in length, or thereabouts, and laying on your fleetest dogs, ride it briskly, and afterwards cool him in the field, and ride him home and order him as has been before directed.

 

A train scent, is the trailing of a dead cat or fox, (and in case of necessity a red herring) three or four miles, according as the rider shall please, and then laying the dogs on the scent.

 

It will be proper to keep two or three couple of the fleetest hounds that can possibly be procured, for this purpose.

Lord G. It is right, however, that mankind should pursue it. It is productive of many good effects. The trumpet of fame rouses great minds to great actions.

 

Lord O. And to many bad ones too. Fame, you know, my Lord, has two trumpets. And though the pursuit of it may be good exercise for the general pack of mankind, and keep them in breath, it seems (to speak in my favourite language of a sportsman) to be only hunting a trail, to catch a red herring at last.

But if it has happened that your exercise has been so easy so easy as not to sweat your horse thoroughly, then you ought to make a train scent of four mile in length, or thereabouts, and laying on your fleetest dogs, ride it briskly, and afterwards cool him in the field, and ride him home and order him as has been before directed.

A train scent, is the trailing of a dead cat or fox, (and in case of necessity a red herring) three or four miles, according as the rider shall please, and then laying the dogs on the scent.

It will be proper to keep two or three couple of the fleetest hounds that can possibly be procured, for this purpose.

Lord G. It is right, however, that mankind should pursue it. It is productive of many good effects. The trumpet of fame rouses great minds to great actions.

Lord O. And to many bad ones too. Fame, you know, my Lord, has two trumpets. And though the pursuit of it may be good exercise for the general pack of mankind, and keep them in breath, it seems (to speak in my favourite language of a sportsman) to be only hunting a trail, to catch a red herring at last.

A match that is potentially even earlier, but is limited to a snippet view and therefore not fully confirmed, appears in The Universal Museum and Complete Magazine, volume 2 (1763, date not confirmed) [snippet]:

And though the pursuit of it may be good exercise for the general pack of mankind, and keep them in breath, it seems (to speak in my favourite language of a sportsman) to be only hunting a trail, to catch a red herring at last.

A match that is potentially even earlier, but is limited to a snippet view and therefore not fully confirmed, appears in The Universal Museum and Complete Magazine, volume 2 (1763, date not confirmed) [combined snippets]:

Lord G. It is right, however, that mankind should pursue it. It is productive of many good effects. The trumpet of fame rouses great minds to great actions.

Lord O. And to many bad ones too. Fame, you know, my Lord, has two trumpets. And though the pursuit of it may be good exercise for the general pack of mankind, and keep them in breath, it seems (to speak in my favourite language of a sportsman) to be only hunting a trail, to catch a red herring at last.