PRICE TWO SHILLINGS. The Nottingham Style of Float Ming $ bpinmr. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 188, Fleet St., E.C. BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA -U' f.0. ^Icu^^^ *—*. PH./^ FLOAT FISHING AND SPINNING NOTTINGHAM STYLE. BOOKS ON ANGLING, &c. FLY-FISHING — SALMON, TROUT, AND GRAYLING. By Dr. Edwakd Hamiltow. Small post 8vo, handsome paper, Illustrated, and with a Frontispiece Etching by Dr. Seymoub Haden. 6*. Also large paper Edition, boards, 10s. Qd. FLY -RODS AND FLY-TACKLE. Suggestions as to their Manufacture and Use. By Henby P. Wells. Illustrated, small 4to, 364 pp., cloth extra, 10*. 6d. FISHING WITH THE FLY. Sketches by Lovers of the Art, with Coloured Illustrations of Standard Flies, collected by Chables F. Obvis and A. Nelson Cheney. Square cloth, 12s. 6i. AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE. Imperial 32mo, fancy boards, 1*. Limp leather-cloth, gilt edges, 1*. 6d. AN ANGLER'S STRANGE EXPERIENCES. By Cotswold Isys, M A. Profusely Illustrated, 4to, 5*. BRITISH ANGLING FLIES. By Michael Theakston. Revised by F. M. Walbban. Illustrated, crown 8vo, 5s. TROUT-FISHING IN RAPID STREAMS. By H. Cutliffe. 3s. 6d. NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. By J. J. Manley, M.A. Illustrated, crown 8vo, 6s. ANGLING LITERATURE IN ENGLAND. Small post 8vo, 3*. 6d. FLOAT FISHING AND SPINNING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. By J. W. Mabtin. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. AN EVENING'S FISHING. In 18 Colours. Size, 14 in. by 10 in. After Oil Painting by Tabgett. 5s. THE BOOK OF THE ROACH. By Gbeville Fennell. New Edition. Cloth, 28. post free. THE BRITISH FISHERIES DIRECTORY, 1883-4. Small 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. THE WATERSIDE SHILLING SERIES. By Red Spinneb. No. 1. "WATERSIDE SKETCHES. By "Red Spinneb" (Wm. Senior). Imperial 32mo, boards, Is. post free. FLY-TYING. By James Ogden. 2s. 6i. . FLY-FISHING IN MAINE LAKES. By Col. Chas. W. Stevens. Illus- trated, square crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8s. 6c?. post free. Fifth Edition, Revised and Improved, with 17 other Plates (11 plain and 6 coloured), in post 8vo, 15s., post free. A BOOK ON ANGLING. Being a Complete Treatise on the Art of Angling in every branch. By Fbanois Fbancis, of the Field. Ninth Edition, with Twenty Coloured Plates, 8vo, 14s. post free. RONALD'S FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY. With Coloured repre- sentations of the Natural and Artificial Insect, and Observations and Instructions on Trout and Grayling Fishing. WHERE TO GO FOR FISHING. See the "Angleb's Diaby and Toubist Fishebman's Gazetteeb" of the Rivers and Lakes of the World. With forms for registering the fish taken during the year. Crown 8vo, 150 pages of small type, cloth, Is. 6d., post free. Established 1877. Every Saturday. Sixteen pages, price 2d. Annual Subscription, post free, 10s. 6d. THE FISHING GAZETTE, A Journal for Anglers. Devoted entirely to Amateur Angling and Fish Culture. Frequently Illustrated. Correspondence on Angling, River Reports, Articles on all subjects of interest to Anglers, &c. Send post card for specimen copy. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIYIHGTON, Crown Building-s, 188, Fleet Street, E.C. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/floatfishingspinOOmartrich a. Angler's right hand holding rod jnst ahove the reel. 6. Angler's left hand pulling down line in order to make a cast with light tackle in Nottingham style. Page 41. a. Angler's right hand holding rod just ahove the reel. b. Left hand pulling down two lengths of line in order to make extra long cast. Page 41 FLOAT FISHING AND SPINNING NOTTINGHAM STYLE. BEING A TREATISE ON THE SO-CALLED COARSE FISHES, WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR THEIR CAPTURE. INCLUDING CHAPTERS ON PIKE FISHING, AND WORM FISHING FOR SALMON. By J. W. MARTIN, THE "TBEWT OTTEB." 1 Ye who stand behind the counter, Or grow pallid at the loom, Leave the measure and the shuttle, To the rippling stream come, come." The Invitation. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED EonUon ; SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET 1885. \_All rights reserved. ] LONDON : PRINTED BT GILBERT AND BIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQUABE. II. Angler's left hand holding the rod close to reel, with finger on the edge, to stop the bait. Angler's right hand holding rod, for making cast from the reel in Nottingham style. Page 118. PEE FACE. Some may say that there is no valid reason for another book on fishing, there being so many already, but I would explain in justification that there is a vast army of working-men anglers in the kingdom, men who can only get a day's fishing occasion- ally, and that it is to these working-men anglers I am more particularly addressing the remarks contained in this little volume. I myself am a working man, but I have had very considerable experience in all kinds of Trent angling, when I could spare the time from my work. The large, standard, valuable books upon angling have of necessity a vast number of pages devoted to salmon, trout, and grayling fishing, and as a natural consequence the price is so much that a working man, as a rule, cannot afford to buy them. I must confess, being a working man, I was in the same swim as my fellows in regard to these until two or three years ago, when, owing to the great kindness of some gentlemen, particularly R. B. Marston, Esq., the editor of the Fishing Gazette, I have become the proud and happy possessor of a few of these grand and valuable books. I have a notion that a book which contains some practical information on the art of bottom fishing would be gladly welcomed by those to whom I have referred, or by the would- be anglers generally, if it could be published in a cheap form. Now I am confident enough to hope that this volume will meet the requirements of such* persons. The instructions given here are the results of carefully- conned experience, and as the Trent angler is supposed to be the most scientific of bottom fishermen in the kingdom, I trust the novice will derive some profit from the principles I lay down. I have expended a good deal of time in the preparation of this work, but this has been given willingly, the whole task in fact having been a "labour of love." I have added a chapter on " pike fishing," and in this edition a chapter is also added on " worm fishing for salmon in the Nottingham style," under the impression that it also may be useful and interesting. 289 VI PREFACE. The extent of the pocket of the working-man angler has been constantly before me when describing his outfit, and there is nothing mentioned that cannot be bought or made cheaply. Perhaps, also, the better-class anglers may derive some instruction from this little book. The plainest possible language has been used, so that the veriest novice can under- stand what I mean, and I have been very particular in all minor details, and in describing the tackle and baits, as to how to make and find them, and when, where, and how to use them. The feature of the book is Chapter II., and I most respectfully request the reader to very carefully study that chapter, for in it will be found a full description of the outfit of a Nottingham angler, and a lot of information and recipes that will be very valuable to the fisherman. Chapter I. contains some facts connected with the history of fishing, both ancient and modern, and also some notes on the natural history of the fish. As stated elsewhere, I am principally indebted to Mr. J. J. Manley for the latter, and also to cuttings from various papers, &c. I regret I cannot give the source in all cases from whence these were taken, but I hope I shall be pardoned where I have quoted without an acknowledgment, as the fault must be set down to inad- vertence rather than design. However, I have mostly gone by my own experience in the matter, especially in the prac- tical part of the book, and shall say no more by way of an apology, allowing my little work to stand on its merits. Please, Sir Critic, remember, nevertheless, that I am a poor working-man angler, with a very moderate education. In conclusion, I must say that the fact of a second edition of this book being required so soon is a sufficient proof of the popularity of the "Nottingham style," and to the esti- mation in which that style is held by anglers in all parts of the kingdom ; and I only hope that I have succeeded in my task of describing the various appliances, and the method of successfully following this scientific and deadly plan of fishing. John William Martin. Newark, April, 1885. CONTENTS, CHAPTER L Introductory Remarks xaxix\)v\j\jx\jxs,i. xx&isa CHAPTER II. Trent Fishing CHAPTER III. The Chub CHAPTER IV. The Barbel CHAPTER V. The Roach CHAPTER VI. The Pike . 10 45 70 88 107 CHAPTER VII. Salmon Fishing in the Nottingham Style . . . 127 CHAPTER VIII. The Perch . , . 139 V1U CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE The Bream 146 CHAPTER X. The Carp and Tench 152 CHAPTER XI. The Dace 157 CHAPTER XII. Eels and Flounders 160 CHAPTER XIII. The Bleak, Gudgeon, Ruffe, and Minnow . . .168 CHAPTER XIV. Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1878 . , . . .172 Appendix 176 Index 179 BOTTOM PISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. An old fisherman tells me that thirty years ago, you might count the anglers of my native place on the fingers of one hand, while at the present moment they may be counted by hundreds ; and the same may be said of the other towns and districts in the kingdom. We may safely say that anglers have increased a thousandfold during the last half-century ; and there is no other branch of sport or pastime that has made such rapid strides in the same time, and 'tis well that it is so. Civilization in its onward strides has not even spared the fish ; and they, as time has rolled on, have become cunning and crafty, and so craft and cunning have now to be resorted to in order to capture them. Fifty years ago it was comparatively easy to make a good bag of fish ; but now in such well- fished rivers as the Trent and Thames, it is only an artist in the craft that can do so. Then, an angler was a rarity, met only occasionally, and looked upon as a sort of rara-avis ; now we see him upon every length and reach, from the youngster with his cheap rod and primitive tackle, to the grey-haired patriarch who sits silently ledgering for roach, and yet the vast army of British anglers are steadily increasing, as is shown by the ever-growing demand for rods, lines, hooks, and gut. The great majority of our anglers belong to the working class. Thousands who toil in our workshops and factories, 2 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. stand by the flaming forge, or busy shuttle, and are slowly poisoned by the foul, smoke-polluted air, are glad to get away to the river side, and breathe the pure breath of heaven. These are the men who feel the blessings of the river side, and there is no wonder at it, after being " cabin' d, cribb'd, confined " in unhealthy workshops in the heart of our large towns. These men see the beauty of the country in their brief sojourn by the water side, where country-bred people would fail to observe it. Probably they often wondered why the poet-priest wrote — M Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Are clad in living green," when there are such beautiful fields, and sweet scenes in this vale of tears, without having to cross the mysterious border- land to find them. What health and vigour again have they not drawn into their lungs, and how invigorated do they not feel ! and how much better can they not cope with the cares of the world, when they go back to its duties after a day's fishing ! These are the men, I say, who feel the benefits of the water-side, and it is to these thousands of my fellow working-men anglers to whom I am more particularly writing. I am one of yourselves, only my lines have been cast in pleasant places, and a splendid river flows as it were past my door, so that I have had every facility for following my favourite pastime, and I am willing to convey a little of this knowledge to my less fortunate brethren ; in fact, it will be their own faults if they do not know as much as I do after following me carefully through these pages. Most works upon angling, I have heard, are nothing but learned discussions on the natural history of the fish (which are all very well in their way), and when our tyro has read them carefully, he does not know then the best way of taking the various fish. Moreover, most works upon angling, as I have before hinted in my preface, treat so fully of salmon, trout, and grayling, that they don't do justice to the so-called coarse fish. Salmon, trout, and grayling are utterly beyond the reach of thousands of our humbler anglers, so I shall content myself by only giving a short chapter on worm or bottom fishing for salmon, as it is practised on the Trent, in INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 6 the hope that it may prove interesting and instructive to those anglers who can indulge in this branch of sport, but the so-called coarse fish will be dealt with in a most com- plete manner. Little things connected with the natural history of the various fish will be referred to, and they will, I think, instruct and interest the tyro, so that he may be able to know the habits and haunts, and also recognize the fish when he sees it. I would also have him bear in mind that the instructions laid down here are the results of careful experience, from which, perhaps, the better class of anglers who only get an occasional day by the river side may also derive profit. We will look for a few minutes at Sheffield, as T believe it will be interesting to many anglers at that town, which is the very stronghold of bottom fishers, and it is necessary to go back twenty years or so. A busy and clever community of nearly 200,000 souls existed then, which had made its home in a position of unrivalled healthiness and natural beauty ; hill and valley gave Sheffield a variety of surface ; which lends its aid to sanitary arrangements, the rivers Don and Sheaf meet here and mingle their waters, the town was then not crowded, it spreads itself over twenty thousand acres of ground, stretching ten miles in one direction and four miles in the other. There was then actually an inhabited house for every five inhabitants of the town. Add to this the fact that Sheffield possessed even then a public supply of pure water, unequalled in quality by any other town in England ; and any one would have said at that time, " Surely here is the place where the working man may enjoy life, uncankered by disease, and stretching out to its natural length," yet, what was the state of affairs then 1 There was a death-rate of thirty-four in the thousand, ten or twelve per thousand more than London with all its overcrowding, and double that of the percentage of country districts throughout England ; two or three thousand souls were killed annually in Sheffield by unsanitary conditions, as certainly as though that number had been gathered once a year in some horrid " black hole," and suffocated in their own poisoning exhalations. One could see the alleys from which reeking and undrained cess- b 2 4 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. pools spread the pestilence which walks by night, and rests not by day from its mysterious work of destruction. We heard of young men growing prematurely old, with dirty white and sallow faces, with " dropped wrists," with an ever- present feeling of illness, strange blue lines encircling their teeth, shortness of breath, stooping and bent frames, and of consumption and paralysis. We heard of children driven to the "hulls," to learn to work before they had time to learn to play ; we heard of death in certain trades when the workers reached thirty or thirty-five, and in others, though they lived somewhat longer, they were robbed of twenty or twenty- five years of natural life. All these things make such a picture that we never forget it, and we have or seem to have a vivid conception of the strange results of British freedom and civi- lization, and we could seem to see then baby faces in the agonies of premature death ; sixty-one poor innocents out of a hundred under five years of age dying in one year in Sheffield was a ghastly chorus to the song of that empire on which the sun never sets. But now we find a great change has come over Sheffield, though there is still room for improve- ment. We cannot wonder that the men of Sheffield with such a picture as I have described thrust before their faces, should try by every means in their power to better their con- dition, physically speaking, and we cannot wonder that they should take to fishing to counteract the evils I have just spoken of. But great difficulties lay in the way of the Sheffield anglers. There was no stream near that place in which they could ply, or that fish could live in, and so they had to go further afield, and a vast majority chose the Trent and the Witham as their hunting-ground. In spite, how- ever, of all the difficulties they had to contend with, perhaps in no other town in England has angling and its attendant associations made such rapid progress as in Sheffield ; we hear that there are over two hundred and twenty angling clubs there, and that the anglers themselves have been estimated at nearly ten thousand. This fact alone speaks volumes for the popularity of angling ; the social and sanitary condition of Sheffield have altered for the better since the time of the gloomy picture I have drawn, and one of the brightest signs INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 5 of the social elevation of the workers of Sheffield are these numbers of angling clubs that have sprung up in all direc- tions, in which they can tell one another of their various exploits, and plan some fresh adventure. Now, as I pointed out further back, the vast majority of these anglers are bottom fishers, and some of them are considered to be the best roach and dace fishermen in the country, and they spend a lot of time in their avocation. But by far the greater number are those who can only steal a day occasionally, and with these a visit to the river side is like the visit of an angel, remarkably infrequent. Not only Sheffield boasts of this, but most other populous towns share in the general advancement, from "John o' Groat's " to Land's End, and from the coast of Lincolnshire to the Isle of Man. I am afraid I have made a terrible digression, but my readers must forgive me, for I could not help alluding to the social condition of Sheffield and its connection with the angling world. The history of angling seems to go a long way back, and to be nearly lost in the mists of antiquity, for we read of it in the earlier sections of the Bible, and in the records of ancient Egypt and Assyria, the seat of powerful empires and a civilized people. The story of Antony and Cleopatra is of course known to most anglers, wherein Cleopatra sent her own diver down to hang a dried fish on Antony's hook, which he pulled up to his utter confusion. Shakespeare, it will be remembered, immortalizes this incident in his play, " Antony and Cleopatra." I have read also somewhere that the Chinese practise this plan habitually. The rocks and stones at the bottom of the sea on the Chinese coast, it appears, are covered with small shell fish ; two men go out to fish — one holds a line, attached to which is a baited hook; the other, a diver, takes the hook and a hammer, and dives to the bottom, and there he begins cracking and knocking to pieces the masses of shell fish. The fish draw round to feed; the diver selects his fish, and literally thrusts the hook into its mouth, and his friend above pulls it up. 6 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. It seems to be difficult to determine when angling really did not exist, for in the Book of Job we read, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook 1 or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down % Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?" (By this last word we should presume that hooks were then made of hard wood, or at least some of them.) In the prophet Habakkuk also we find fish being taken " with the angle," and in Isaiah of " those that cast the hook into the river." The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Eomans certainly were anglers, for passages from the writings of some of the most ancient authors indicate the fact. Homer tells us, — "Of beetling rocks that overhang the flood, Where silent anglers cast insidious food, With fraudful care await the finny prize, And sudden lift it quivering to the skies." It would thus appear that the tackle used in those days was very strong, or it would not have stood this sudden strain which the lines quoted above would give us to understand occurred. (It is of course a familiar sight to see youths just beginning their fishing career, when they have hooked a small fish, heave it out as though their very lives depended on sending it flying into the next meadow.) Oppian says also, — " A bite ! hurrah ! the length'ning line extends, Above the tugging fish the arch'd reed bends, He struggles hard and noble sport will yield, My liege, ere wearied out he quits the field." And the ancients, too, were fly-fishers as well as bottom fishers, as the following interesting passage from iElian shows : — " The Macedonians who live on the banks of the Eiver Astreus are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that river by means of a fly called hippurus. A very singular insect it is ; bold and troublesome like all its kind, in size a hornet, marked like a wasp, and buzzing like a bee. These INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 7 flies are the prey of certain speckled fish, which no sooner see them settling on the water than they glide gently beneath, and before the hippurus is aware, snap at and carry him as suddenly under the stream as an eagle will seize and bear aloft a goose from a farm-yard, or a wolf take a sheep from its fold. The predilection of these speckled fish for their prey, though familiarly known to all who inhabit the dis- trict, does not induce the angler to attempt their capture by impaling the living insect, which is of so delicate a nature that the least handling would spoil its colour and appearance, and render it unfit as a lure. But adepts in the sport have contrived a taking device to circumvent them ; for which purpose they invest the body of the hook with purple wool, and having adjusted two wings of a waxy colour, so as to form an exact imitation of the hippurus, they drop these abstruse cheats gently down the stream. The scaly pursuers who hastily rise and expect nothing less than a dainty bait, snap the decoy, and are immediately fixed to the hook." Indeed, hundreds of years before Antony and Cleopatra amused themselves by angling, the craft was practised in different countries, for representations of fish and fishing have been found upon some of the oldest temples, and most venerable remains. In savage and uncivilized countries also instruments of angling are found very rude, but still effective for the wants of those employing them, thus showing that the various arts used in fishing must have had a primitive and almost universal invention. Enough has been said about ancient angling, and I will now therefore turn to a more modern period. Angling can claim the distinction of being one of the first subjects treated of in a printed book, for within ten years of the first book printed in England by Caxton there appeared the famous " Boke of St. Albans," attributed to Dame Juliana Bemers, or Baines, Prioress of Sopwell, near St. Albans. It was published by Wynkyn de Worde in a.d. 1486, and contained chapters on hunting, hawking, horses, and coat-armour, and also one on fishing, which was thus introduced, — "Here begynnyth the treatyse of fysshynge with an Angle." This was the first contribu- tion to angling literature ; and I believe it was not until an 8 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. interval of a hundred years that any other work made its appearance, which came then in the shape of Leonard Mascall's " Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line," about the year 1590. A few more writers of more or less note followed Mascall, until the year 1653, when the well-known work of Izaak "Walton was first published under the title of " The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Kecrea- tion." During Walton's lifetime five editions of his book were published. (A few years ago, at a public sale, these five editions, the five copies being perfect and in good pre- servation, realized 1001.) Since Walton's time his book has run through a vast number of editions, and is still printed at intervals, and I suppose will be ; for we must take it for granted that the M Compleat Angler " is likely to remain a standard and popular work among Englishmen as long as will the works of Dickens or Scott. And now, after the fifth edition of Walton had been pub- lished, very few works on angling made their appearance until another hundred years had passed away; although Walton's book during that period progressed to the four- teenth edition. After that time writers of angling literature came thicker and faster, volume after volume coming in quick succession, and continuing up to the present time ; and I read that there are something like 600 different works on angling in existence ; and the literature of angling is one of the richest branches of literature in England at the present time. As the writers have increased, each one adding his quota to the common stock, so has the art progressed towards perfection, until we almost wonder that there should be any fish left in our rivers, lakes, and ponds. As, however, the fishermen have become learned, nature or instinct has or- dained that the fish should become learned too, and so rods, reels, lines, gut, hooks, and baits have been robbed of part of their destructiveness ; and our old friend and father Izaak, could he revisit this earth, would perhaps find it very con- siderably more difficult to fill his creel with fish (using the same tackle now as he used while on his earthly pilgrimage), for the purpose of awarding its contents to " pleasure some poor body." INTEODUCTOKY EEMAEKS. 9 It is not absolutely necessary that an angler should be a naturalist, but still the more he knows of fish, and the more he studies their natural history, the more pleasure he will get out of his intercourse with the river side. He will find himself amply rewarded for his trouble in acquiring this knowledge, and his studies will show him that fish are among the most interesting of all the classes of the animal world. Fish belong to the great vertebrate division of the animal kingdom, and comprise one of its classes. Some naturalists divide the vertebrate division into six, while others divide it into nine, or even more classes. Our business just now, however, lies with one of these classes, viz. fish ; and this has been divided and subdivided into numerous orders and sub-orders, families and sub-families. Various, too, have been the principles on which fish have been divided and subdivided, some dividing them according to their bones and some according to their scales, viz. flat-scaled, polished- scaled, tooth-scaled, and circular-scaled ; but it is only in the two last that we are particularly interested just now, for to the tooth-scaled class belong the pike, the perch, and the ruff; while to the circular-scaled belong the chub, the barbel, the carp, the roach, the dace, &c, &c. It is also said that the age of fish may be ascertained from their scales when exa- mined under a powerful microscope. Many valuable charac- teristics of fish may also be ascertained from the formation and disposition of their teeth, which are respectively situated upon the jaws, the palate, the tongue, and in the throat, and constructed for prehension, cutting, or crushing, thus indi- cating the character of food mostly taken by the several species. Of the different fish that are treated of in this little book, it will be sufficient to divide them into two orders, viz. " spiny or prickly-finned," and " soft-finned " fish ; to the former belong the perch and the ruff, and to the latter belong the chub, the carp, the roach, &c, &c. Under these two orders we must range the respective "families" of fish; there are many, but only three concern us here, namely, the Percidse family, to which belong the perch and the ruff; 10 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. the Esocidae family, to which belongs the pike; and the Cyprinidae, or carp family, to which belong the carp, the barbel, the chub, the roach, the dace, the tench, the bream, the gudgeon, the bleak, and the minnow. The structure of fish and their animal organization present endless subjects of interest ; though they live in the water, yet air is as necessary for them as it is for mankind. Says one writer, "Just as our warm red blood is purified and restored to its vital and arterial qualities by air passing through our lungs, so is the cold red blood of fish by passing through their gills ; and as by the process of breathing we extract the oxygen and so vitiate the air, in like manner do fish, taking the water in at their mouths, extract from it the air held in suspension, and pass it out under the gill-covers in a vitiated state. A man submerged in water cannot ex- tract air enough from it ; a fish submerged in distilled water, which is water minus air, can get none at all, and the result is the same in both cases ; and as most anglers know, or should know, a fish drawn down stream is simply drowned, because the water is thus prevented entering its mouth in the usual way and escaping through the gill-covers." This is the reason then, I should suppose, that fish making their way down stream for any distance travel tail first. How admirably, too, are fish formed — their elongate, smooth bodies suiting them exactly to the element in which they live ; and observe the fins, how well they are suited for their various purposes. I will just describe these fins, for an angler, or would-be angler, ought to know at least their names : there are the two pectoral, or breast fins ; the dorsal, or back fins (some fish have one and some two back fins) ; the ventral, or belly fins; the anal fin, situated between the belly fins and the tail ; and the caudal fin, that is the tail itself. These fins give the fish their different movements in the water; the caudal fin gives them their chief means of getting along ; the dorsal and anal fins effect their lateral movements ; the pectoral fins promote their elevation and depression, while their suspension in the water is caused by the ventral fins. Perhaps I ought also to say that the air bladder, which is INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 11 capable of compression or expansion according to the will of the fish, is their chief means of raising or depressing them- selves without any apparent use of the fins at all. There are many questions connected with the natural history of fish, that would be very interesting to the observ- ing working-man angler ; I have often heard questions like the following raised by some one in a party of anglers : Are the fish very quick-sighted 1 Can they see objects at a great distance 1 Is their hearing very acute ? Do they go to sleep 1 Can they feel pain when hooked? &c, &c. On all these questions interesting discussions might be raised, but it will be sufficient for our purpose if we only just give them a passing glance. First then as to their sight, some naturalists say that the eye of a fish is very perfect, and of all the senses they possess, that of sight is the most acute of them all, and that a shadow, or a rod flash on the water is sufficient to scare them ; while on the other, hand, others aver that fish are remarkably near-sighted, and cannot behold any object distinctly, however large, unless within the range of a few yards, so it will be seen that on this question there is a great difference of opinion. I, personally, have a strong conviction that fish must have a keen vision, for I know that chub will take an artificial white moth, when night fishing, when it has been so dark, that you could scarcely see the rod you held in your hand, much less the fly on the water ; therefore I advise anglers when fishing to keep as much out of sight as possible. There seems to be a doubt on this subject, and so we will give the fish the benefit of the doubt, and say that their vision is comparatively perfect. There seems to be a great difference of opinion also as to the sense of hearing in fish : one says he has repeatedly tried the experiment of firing a gun near fish, when only a few inches under water, without any effect on them whatever, from which we should almost fancy that fish could not hear at all ; in fact, another writer says, " They have no sense of hearing whatsoever." On the other hand, some naturalists say that fish have a most acute sense of hearing. I have also read that fish in a pond may be trained to come to a person when called by the sound of a bell, or of the human voice; here is a great difference of 12 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. opinion on an important question to anglers ; still I think anglers, when fishing, need not fear indulging in a little friendly chat. What they want to particularly observe is this : Don't stamp about on the bank close to the water where you are fishing; that operation is fatal to a roach swim. Can the fish hear the noise 1 or does it cause a vibration in the water ? perhaps the latter, but one thing is certain, roach will forsake a swim, if the angler indulges in an impromptu Irish jig on the water's edge. Can fish sleep ? or do they go to sleep ? is perhaps more correct. I have had this question asked me by various anglers ; my answer has been, " I don't know for certain, but I should suppose they do; sleep is necessary to man and animals, and why not to fish?" No one, as the song says, " ever caught a weasel asleep," and I think nobody ever caught a fish asleep. I have been by the water side all night during the summer, and I could hear fish rising till nearly midnight, and then for a couple of hours or so, or till nearly daybreak, they ceased; and no fish except eels were to be taken during that time, so I should suppose that was the time they enjoyed their nap. Can a fish feel pain when hooked ? is another question that has often been discussed by anglers and writers. Fish certainly seem to feel no pain from hooks stuck in their mouths, for I have caught the shy and cautious chub with a hook and little bit of gut attached to their mouths that looked as though some one had hooked and broken off only a few hours before. We have often heard of jack being hooked, played, and lost, and yet take a bait again on the same day. Cold-blooded animals do not feel pain in the same manner that warm-blooded ones do, and the lower the animal organization the less sensibility to pain it has. I once read two or three lines which ought to be set down as a complete untruth : — " The poor beetle which we tread upon, In corporal suffrance feels a pang As great as when a giant dies." That is a tale that won't wash with me ; when a fish is hooked, and is bolting about, and struggling for his liberty, INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 13 perhaps the only feeling he has at that time is a feeling of indignation at having his liberty interfered with. What the sensations of a fish are when he is jumping about on the grass, after being drawn out of the water, we cannot tell ; not very pleasant perhaps, and it would be as well for the thoughtful angler just to give him a tap on the head directly on landing him, and so, as the old saw goes, " put him out of his misery." Are fish gifted with the senses of taste and smell? is another question which is often asked. We must presume that they are, although some naturalists aver they cannot smell at all, while others say, " they can smell their food at a singular distance, and will track it for many yards." Ronalds speaks of trout that took dead house-flies when plastered over with cayenne and mustard. This would tell us that their senses of smell and taste were not very acute, but then on the other hand, I know that fish can be attracted by scented pastes, and chemically flavoured worms. Some fish also are attracted long distances by salmon roe, prepared in a peculiar manner. I am inclined to the opinion that fish can both taste and smell ; for a chub will take a piece of high-smelling cheese, when he will take nothing else, and the more it smells the better he likes it. Enough, however, has perhaps been said on the different senses of fish, and now just a few more remarks, and I mus, bring this introductory chapter to a close ; it has already drawn itself out to a much longer length than I had in- tended, though I think I have mentioned nothing that will not interest and perchance instruct the working-man angler. We in England cannot boast of having such strange and queer fish as are found in some countries, such as the " flour fish " of China, or the strange variety of carps, or the " crying fish," or the " tree-climbing perch " of that country, but it is said we have a one-eyed fish in the Carnarvonshire lakes, and a peculiar " blue roach " in a pond on the marshes of Kent. I have read, too, of the " booming " of the bearded drum- fish, of the "noisy maigre," and of the " grunt fish " of the Gulf of Mexico, which "can express discontent and pain, 14 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. and when touched with a knife, fairly shrieks, and when dying makes moans and sobs disagreeably human." We have nothing, as I have said, like these in England, although in Wales they have a peculiar "croaking trout," which is found in the Carraclwddy pools, and which when taken utters a sound something like a " croak." Some fish are very tenacious of life, such as pike, perch, tench, &c, and will live a long time out of water; indeed, I have had chub that have been six hours out of the water jump from a shelf on to the pantry floor. There are fish in India that will remain some days out of water, during which time they travel overland in search of more suitable lodgings, when their own rivers are " drying up." I have heard that eels in our country will travel overland from one pond or river to another, but though I have been by the river side at all hours, I have not yet met an eel on his journey, nor seen anybody who has. Fish, too, suffer a good deal from parasites, both internally, and externally ; " thorn-headed worms " are very common in the intestines of roach, and tape-worms are found in most fresh-water fish. Specimens of these tape-worms are sometimes found as long as the fish from which they are taken, and barbel are very much troubled with an external parasite. Fish, too, are able to live a long time without food. I have read that a herring, no matter where it is caught, has nothing in its stomach, and gold fish in a globe will live for weeks without any food being given them. Still, however, they do eat, and that most greedily at times, as any one may soon see, who takes the trouble to open some of the fish he catches. The digestion of fish is very good and quick, and the gastric juice of the jack is very powerful. Solid food is reduced to a pulp soon after being taken, and I have read that it has been proved by experiment that carp, chub, bream, &c, can digest food given to them in metal tubes. The strength of fish, too, is very great, and writers agree in saying that they are, for their size, the strongest of all verte- brate animals, indeed one of them says that the screw of a modern steamship is but a toy compared with the caudal fin of a barbel, taking them size for size. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 15 In closing this chapter I hope I have not wearied my readers with the many details it contains, and I trust they will study out the subject for themselves, for there is endless amusement in the natural history of fish. I shall be amply repaid if some of them take up the study, for I am sure their pleasures would be all the greater and their angling excur- sions all the brighter, for an extended knowledge of this branch of the Great Creator's works. Mr. R. B. Marston, the Editor of the " Fishing Gazette" some time ago gave me a copy of the Rev. J. J. Mauley's " Notes on Fish and Fishing" and it is to this very excellent book that I am indebted for a good many of the hints con- tained in this introductory chapter ; it is only fair that I should state this much, and I strongly advise anglers to purchase a copy. It is published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Ricington, 188, Fleet Street, London. 16 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER II. TRENT FISHING. At the outset of this chapter, we will suppose that all anglers, no matter where they hail from, are sportsmen tried and true, from those who wave the long rod over the great salmon streams of Scotland and Ireland, or capture the dashing trout in mountain stream or Scotch loch, to the more humble follower of old Izaak, who must needs be content to follow his avocation by the side of the less pretentious stream or canal, and who thinks himself well rewarded if he only succeeds in capturing half a dozen roach and dace. I am aware there are black sheep in every flock, and there are some — well, shall I call them anglers 1 — who are not particular to snaring or snatching a jack, or netting a few barbel and chub out of the weeds during scouring time ; but we will say that ninety-nine out of a hundred are sportsmen in very truth, each one of them having his own peculiar notion or means of capturing his finny prey. A Thames angler thinks his style is the style par excellence ; and some of them would be apt to look on any other style with supreme con- tempt ; but I have read that the introduction of the Trent or Nottingham style of angling on the Thames marked a new era in the history of that river and its fishing. Before, however, I proceed to describe the rods, reels, lines, and tackle of a Nottingham bottom fisher, and the method of using them, perhaps a slight digression, in the shape of a few words on a style that was practised in a remote country district will be interesting, as bearing on my present object. A remote village in the Fens of Lincolnshire, where the country round was intersected with canals and a few drains, was the place of my nativity, and where the earlier portion TRENT FISHING. 17 of my life was spent. These canals and drains abounded with small roach and perch, with a fair sprinkling of large ones, and some good jack. There were not above two or three rod fishermen in the whole district, and it was from one of these that I received my first lessons in angling. The tackle used was of a very rude and primitive character. The rod was a willow stick cut from the nearest tree ; line, a few yards of whipcord (the ropemaker's apprentice next door spun my line from shoemakers' flax, with the same wheel and bobbins with which he spun cart-ropes and clothes' lines) ; but oh ! the strength and thickness ; it would do for the cord of a drag hook. The float was made out of a piece of wood, and was of a very rude and original shape, and took nearly an ounce of window lead to balance it, which latter article was wrapped round a foot of coarse gimp, from the end of which was suspended a hook, on which was stuck a worm just dug out of the ground. Scouring worms was unknown there ; and as for jointed rods, reels, fine silk lines, quill floats, gut, and horsehair, my wildest dreams never imagined such things. Nevertheless we could and did catch fish with the rude tackle mentioned above. I have often wondered if I were to revisit those scenes for a few days with my improved tackle and baits, what sort of a havoc I could make among those uneducated fish. Perhaps, how- ever, civilization in its onward march has crept down to that remote district, and the natives have got wise in their gene- ration, and Nottingham rods and tackle are as well known to them as they are to me. London anglers are proud, and justly so, of their grand old river, " Father Thames," and never fail to expatiate upon its natural beauty whenever or wherever occasion offers itself. It may have more capabilities than our Midland river, the Trent, I will allow, but still the Trent is a splendid river, and has a good supply of all fresh- water fish. As the Lon- doners love the Thames, so do I love the Trent. Sitting in my den here at home, thinking of our grand old river, what a host of pleasant memories rise up before my mental vision. In fancy I seem to see it winding through the pleasant meadows, and each pool and gravelly shallow has some plea- c 18 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. sant episode connected with it on which my mind loves to dwell : and if perchance some old friend drops in to have a chat on matters piscatorial, how eagerly we fight our battles o'er again, how we recall that splendid day's sport among the barbel, or that one we had with the chub, or bream, or roach ; or how in fancy we again fight that big pike we had gone after time after time, and which would not be seduced by our most alluring bait till one lucky day, which will always stand on our calendar as a red-letter day. Did we not spin a tempting gudgeon that proved too seductive for his lordship to resist, and after a struggle, the remembrance of which even now makes our fingers tingle, bear him home in triumph 1 " Once an angler, always an angler," I believe to be a true saying, whether we are of Thames, Trent, or any other river ; and the impressions we receive from our fishing excursions are never effaced from our memo- ries. Whether we have good sport or not the chances are that we shall go again at the first opportunity. No bottom fisher perhaps has a better field for his sport than those who live, as it were, on the banks of the Trent, for the great majority of the fishing is bottom fishing, and the river abounds with fish. The Trent takes its rise from the north-west part of the county of Staffordshire, about ten miles north of Newcastle- under-Line. At first it makes a circular turn towards the south-east, bending to the south, as far as within ten miles of Tamworth, where it receives the Tame, flowing through that town. Afterwards the Trent runs north-east, towards Burton- upon-Trent, a little beyond which it is enlarged by the waters of the Dove, which flow from a north-west direc- tion. After this the Trent receives the Derwent, which descends from the mountainous parts of Derbyshire, and the whole of these waters collectively flow towards the north by Nottingham and Newark to the Humber. The Trent has an entire course of two hundred and fifty miles, and is navigable for one hundred and seventy miles from the Hum- ber, and, by means of canals, has a communication with many of the most important rivers of the kingdom. This long river flows through a country rich in natural beauty and splendid TRENT FISHING. 19 scenes. None but a contemplative angler can thoroughly enjoy the beauties of its landscapes, and the river itself, flow- ing along in its silent majesty, except where it tumbles and boils over some weir, or dashes along over the stones of the shallows, suggests to the mind of the angler some of those delicious trains of thought which all who have practised this glorious art experience. How the Trent obtained its name has been a question that has been discussed many times, and never, I think, satisfactorily explained. The origin of the name seems to me to be a long way back, and to be nearly, if not quite, lost in the mists of antiquity. An old legend connects the name Trent with "Trente," meaning thirty; and perhaps that solution of the question may be the correct one ; for we are told that " thirty streams flow down the Trent f that " thirty abbeys used to stand upon the banks," and that " thirty diiferent fish are found in its waters ;" and perhaps with these thirties staring us in the face we may come to the conclusion that it really does mean " thirty." I will not, however, commit myself on this subject, but leave it an open question. As this little book more particularly relates to the Not- tingham style of fishing, it may be as well here to describe the method and the various appliances required for its suc- cessful practice. In the first place we will take the rod. Now, a Nottingham bottom fisher's rod is an article on which he very much prides himself. It has to be tapered, from the butt to the point, to a nicety, and be as light as possible, with a spring in it that will hook a roach by a single turn of the wrist. No heavy clumsy rod is found in the hands of a first-rate Nottingham fisher ; it has to be nicely balanced, or else he discards it at once and selects another. My favourite rod was made expressly for me, so if I explain its construction you will see at once the sort of rod used by a Nottingham bot- tom fisher. It is made in three joints ; the butt is of the best red deal, the middle piece of the same wood and lancewood, spliced together about one-third the distance from the top ferrule, and the top piece is made entirely of lancewood. It is a little over twelve feet in length, and it combines light- c 2 20 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. ness, with, strength and balance, to a remarkable degree. It will hook roach in a moment by a single turn of the wrist, and the most powerful barbel and chub have been brought to bank by it, and even the lordly salmon has succumbed to its spring. The reel fittings are placed nine inches from the butt end, and there the rod is 1| in. in diameter, the ferrule on the top of the bottom piece is five-eights of an inch in diameter inside, and the one on the middle piece is five-sixteenths of an inch inside. The rings on the rod are placed in the following order : — The first ring is immediately under the ferrule on the bottom piece ; and the others measuring from that ring are at the following distances from each other: — 17 in., 17 in., 14| in., 10 in., 10 in., 9 in., 8 in., 6 \ in., and 6 in. The ring or loop at the extreme point of the rod is made of steel. If this were not so the line would cut it, to say nothing of the line being chafed in turn through the ring being worn rough. The rod I have just described weighs eighteen ounces. Not- tingham rods are made in two, three, four, five, or six pieces, according to fancy ; but I prefer a three-piece one. I can most cordially recommend this rod as the bottom fisher's rod par excellence; and as I am more particularly writing to working-men anglers, to whom money is an object, the price will just suit them : it is only 6s. 6d., partition-bag and all, and will be found just the kind for barbel, chub, bream, roach, and dace, &c. For those anglers who fish for roach and dace only, a rod a little lighter than the one just described would do. I have recently had a sweet roach rod made ; it only weighs twelve ounces, and is beauti- fully finished and balanced, and the price the same as the other. I shall probably touch upon this question again in the chapter on roach; but one thing I will say to the young angler, don't buy a common, cheap rod ; they are a delusion and a snare, for you may be in the midst of a good day's fishing, and the fish biting nicely, when suddenly, from some cause or other, your cheap rod snaps under the ferrule or elsewhere. You then have to sit down on the bank, and spoil your pocket-knife in trying to extract the piece of wood out of the ferrule, and find after an hour's work that TEENT FISHING. 21 this is impossible, only thereafter to have to pack up and go home in a not very amiable frame of mind at your fine bar- gain of a rod. The best plan in such a case would be to throw the pieces in the river, and go to the tackle-maker, and buy a good one. These are the cheapest in the end ; tell him what you want, pay a fair price, and leave the matter in his hands, and ten to one you will be suited nicely. Since I penned the above lines for the first edition of this little book, I have had considerable experience in the construc- tion of all kinds of rods, and so perhaps it will be as well just here to look at this question of rods and rod-making a little closer, because, as I have just hinted, a Nottingham bottom fisher's rod is an article on which he very much prides himself, and it must be made so that it is exactly suited for this style of fishing. Years ago, before the famous splice of the middle joint was introduced, Nottingham rods used to be generally made in four joints, and the few three-joint rods that were seen in the hands of certain anglers had the middle joint made of ash, and as a natural consequence these rods never worked comfortably, because the ash, being so much heavier than the rest of the wood, caused the rod to feel heavy and clumsy in the middle. However, since the three-joint rod has been brought out to perfection, the four- joint one is only very seldom seen in the hands of a first- class Nottingham angler. It is really astonishing, and sometimes very amusing, to read the letters I am constantly receiving from anglers all over the country about rods and rod-making. Some of my correspondents say that they should prefer a rod made with the butt of one sort of wood, the middle of another sort, and the top of something else, utterly forgetting that the different woods they recommend are entirely opposed to each other as regards weight, strength, and pliability, and therefore, if made as recommended, would not have in them the desired spring and action. Some rod-makers, in order to turn out a lot of work in a very little time, make their rods by machinery. Now, machine-made rods are very true, and look very nice, but 22 BOTTOM FTSHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. they are open to strong objections, although I am aware that there is a lot more profit to be made out of a machine-made rod than out of one that is made by hand. (Let it be dis- tinctly understood by my readers that I am now writing as a practical angler, and not as a rod and tackle maker.) I have known the butts of machine-made rods to snap short off close under the ferrule (owing, no doubt, to the tool in the lathe slipping or nicking the wood a trifle just there), so I should say, for practical purposes, have a good hand-made rod, even if it is not so perfectly true or got up so smartly as a machine- made one. A good float-fishing rod should be made with plenty of timber in the butt, and tapered evenly and truly right up to the point, so that it will strike a fish directly from the point, and hook him in an instant, and then bend to the weight of him in a perfectly true curve. Sometimes the socket joints or ferrules of a rod split at the ends, and to prevent this some makers have their ferrules ringed, that is, double at each end. Now these double-ended ferrules are to be objected to, and really are not required. I have found that in nine cases out of ten, when the ferrule splits it is because it is a tapered one, from end to end, with the smallest end at top. Now the socket or counter that fits into this tapered ferrule is straight, and fits tightly at one end, while at the other end it is a little less, and consequently does not fit close up. This, of course, flings all the weight on the extreme end of the ferrule, and when a little extra strain has to be put on, the ferrule is liable to split. The best plan is to have your ferrules perfectly straight, with the counters fitting exactly from end to end, and then just open or bell out a trifle that end of the ferrule that grips the wood j and I might just add that the wood should not be shouldered down to take the ferrule, so as to make wood and ferrule quite level with each other, but it should, as it were, fit well over, and tightly grip the wood. And another thing I have seen in rods that must be objected to, and that is the pegs that are on the bottom of the joints ; there is a hole bored down the end of the joint to take this peg, and I have seen this latter so very long and thick, that the hole has to be bored down past the ferrule bottom on purpose to be of the TEENT FISHING. 23 required depth. Now this must weaken the rod where it should be the strongest, i.e. close under the ferrule. So for all practical purposes the peg should not be too long, nor should the hole be too deep, but only just enough to steady and stiffen the socket joint. As the top piece of a rod is a most important factor in its success, it is of the utmost importance that this should be carefully made and selected. There are several sorts of wood that are suitable for tops, but in my opinion a bit of tough, well-seasoned lancewood is the very best that can be used for a float-fishing rod. We practical anglers consider that the fewer joints there are in a rod, the better that rod is for practical purposes, and if it was not for the look of the thing, we should have a rod made all in one length, without any brass sockets to it at all ; indeed, if I lived in a sweet little cottage that stands on the banks of the Trent (a cottage that I have in my mind's eye just now), I should certainly have one made so. But these one-joint rods would be very awkward carrying about, especially if you had to travel by train to your fishing- ground. About a couple of years ago I made myself a chub, bream, and barbel rod in two joints, an article that one of our very best all-round men christened "The Corporation Rod," because I was fishing the " Corporation " swim when he first saw it. In fact, I made that rod on purpose to fish that swim, and as there are several places up and down the Trent as difficult to fish as it is, perhaps it might be as well just here to give some little idea as to the kind of rod required for that work. In the first place then, the swim is an abrupt bend of the river, and is from twelve to fourteen feet deep, and your float has to be cast out cleanly and squarely from twenty to twenty-five yards from where you stand, and I thought I could do this with greater ease if I built a special rod for the purpose. It is, as I have just said, in two joints, is twelve and a half feet long, light, but strong, and strikes beautifully from the very point; in fact, it has been very much admired by some of our best anglers. The only fault there is in it is its extreme awkwardness to carry about when 24 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. packed up ; so, taking all things into consideration, perhaps the three-joint rod is the best the angler can use, and I might add that I have found that if a three-joint rod is made any longer than twelve feet, it is apt to be too springy in the middle, and does not strike so straight and true from the point as a good Nottingham float-fishing rod should do, and that was the reason I made one in two joints, because I thought I could get the extra six inches in length that was necessary to fish that deep swim just alluded to, without any addition to the weight, and still have the timber in the middle to make it of the necessary stiffness. So those anglers who are anxious to get proficient in the Nottingham style of fishing cannot do better than have a three-joint twelve feet rod for barbel, chub, and bream fishing with a float. A little way back I gave the sizes of the ferrules that are on a very old favourite rod of mine ; but I have fancied since I first penned those notes, that the rod would have been better if each ferrule had been a size larger for this heavy work. Some of our very best all-round men have, at least, four dif- ferent sorts of rods, in order to successfully practise this style of fishing, — viz. a twelve-foot one for chub, barbel, bream, gives a plan for keeping and 56 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. scouring these small worms that is very well worth repro- duction here. He says : "If any of your angling readers wish to have a lot of worms always in splendid order and tough, let them get some flax waste, soak it well and gradually in water, put a reasonable quantity of worms in a stout wooden box, fill it three parts full with the flax waste, when thoroughly soaked and soddened j in place of a lid, cover the box with a wet cloth, which should be wetted every two or three days, and the worms will keep for three or more months without changing the stuff or any further trouble. A greased cloth put in among the waste is an advantage, more so if the worms are wanted for immediate use." This is a plan that is well worth consideration, and will be found to be a worthy companion to the breading-heap just mentioned. I have been very particular in my description of these worms, and in the method of treating them, because they are the most useful baits that an angler can have, and I know that two, three, or four of these sorts of worms, according to their sizes, on a No. 8 hook, make a capital chub bait, especially in the months of February and March. At the beginning of the season, say about the latter end of June, and all through July, the caddis will be found a deadly bait for chub. These curious-looking insects are found sticking to the stones, on the under side, next to the bottom of the river. I have found them in the Trent from May to August, and sometimes in September. In gathering them, carefully pull up a stone, and as carefully turn it over , and sometimes you may see as many as a dozen sticking to it. They are protected by an outside shell ; this shell is about three-quarters of an inch long and a quarter of an inch thick ; it is composed of very minute pebbles and shells on the out- side, while the inside looks to me to be composed of sand and slime from the insect. When you have gathered a quantity of them, they are ready for use at once, the sooner the better, for they become soft and flabby if kept any time. I have tried various dodges to keep them for a few days, and have put them in a vessel of water, changing the water two or three times a day, but they soon become soft and useless. Damp moss will keep them good for a few days. Once I left THE CHUB. 57 some hanging in a bag just as I gathered them for nearly a week, and forgot all about them ; when I saw the bag again, I thought they would be dry and withered, but judge of my surprise when I found the grub to be alive and well, although the shell was as dry as a stick. They were smaller, however, than they were at first, so the best plan is to use them the same day that you get them ; the fresher they are the better. When you use them for bait, carefully open one end of the shell and draw out the grub ; a good one is a bright yellow colour with a black head, but some of them are a dark colour, and some green ; these are useless for the hook, the yellow ones are the best. Some of them are a deal larger than a wasp grub. Being the larva? of various water-flies, they are rather tender, so that you must be careful in putting them on the hook. Nevertheless, tbey are a grand bait for all sorts of fish, two of them on a No. 8 hook are a bait that a chub cannot resist. Rove about and drop them in all likely- looking spots, and if the fish are on the feed, you will not only take chub, but barbel, bream, dace, &c. ; in fact, I have seen some grand bags of all sorts of fish taken with this bait (and with shame be it said, some of them taken in the month of May, when the ova has dripped from the fish as they have been bagged). A fine tackle about three or four feet long, with a quill float that will carry six or seven small split shots, is the very best for this sort of work, and with the same tackle can be used another deadly and irresistible bait, namely, the wasp grub. This is generally used in August and September. If the angler knows of a wasp's nest, let him proceed to take it after this fashion. He procures an ounce or two of common fine gunpowder, and works it up with a little water into a stiff paste ; it is rolled in an oval shape, with a point at one end. I need not say that the angler must operate on a wasp's nest with a good deal of caution. Carefully note the hole from which the wasps pass in and out, and cut a sod that will fill it nicely, then walking boldly up to the hole, light the thin end of the gunpowder paste, then thrust it into the hole, which hole must be in- stantly stopped up with the sod already mentioned. Stamp your heel on this to force it in tight. After a few minutes, 58 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. when the wasps have become suffocated, the angler can dig the cakes out with a spade. Brush all the loose wasps from the comb and pop it into a bag, and make " tracks " away from the spot in case of the return of any wasps. The best time to take a wasp's nest is just after sunset, while you can see what you are about. I have been sometimes asked how- to find a wasp's nest, and in what sort of places to look for them. In a few words, then, you want to rise early in the morning, and walk out into the fields and lanes, and care- fully examine with your eye every sheltered bank that faces the rising sun, and you will in all probability soon see a wasp flash past you, and then another, and still another, and when you do, you may be sure that there is a nest in that bank somewhere, and if you follow the flight of the insect you will soon find the nest, perhaps in a situation that would be unnoticed by the casual observer, half or wholly hidden among the grass and mosses of the bank, in the deserted burrow of a field-mouse, or some earth-burrowing beetle. Very often, of course, the nest is plainly exposed to view, and anybody who walks past can see it ; but this very last year there were no less than nine of these nests in one single bank that scores of people had gone past without dreaming that there was such a thing on the whole length of it. There is a way of taking a nest with a deadly poison, but the angler should avoid all such dangerous experiments. These grubs are very tender, and cannot be used well without some preparation. Some anglers bake them in the oven for a few minutes, but I think the best plan is to put the cakes in a jar, then put the jar in a saucepan of water, and steam them over the fire, but don't let any of the water get to the comb. This renders them tough, and enables them to hang on the hook. A very few minutes of this treatment will be quite sufficient. If you want to use the grubs directly, take those that are uncovered, and with the embryo wasps put them in a bag with some bran for ground-bait. The good grubs are carefully picked out, and put in a tin for the hook-bait. If, after you have steamed your cakes, you don't want to use them for, say, three or four days, the best plan to keep them good is to lay them on a board in a dry 'place, and turn each THE CHUB. 59 cake over every day, i.e. one side upwards one day and the other side upwards the next, and so on, taking care that they are laid separate, and not one on the top of another. By these means the angler will be able to keep his grubs in good condition for several days ; but he must not keep them for any length of time without being cooked, because the grubs then would be liable to hatch out, and prove very unwelcome guests. Some of our best men prefer this bait as it is, without any cooking or preparation whatever, because they say they have then a flavour and an aroma about them that the chub cannot resist. I am rather inclined to the same opinion, but they have this drawback ; every swim you take, especially down a strong current, they are washed off the hook, and every strike you give you lose your bait ; so, taking all things into consideration, perhaps the best plan will be to cook them. A No. 4 hook is the best size for this bait, and when you bait this hook don't be afraid to put plenty on, five or six or even more, for Mr. Chub likes a big attractive bait. " When is the best time to use these grubs V asks somebody. The answer must be, " When the grub itself is in its best and most perfect condition." An old friend of mine, who has fished the Trent now for forty years, and whose opinion is worth something, never baits with wasp grubs until the plum has on it that rich bloom which marks its ripeness (this would be some time about the middle of Sep- tember), and he uses them for about two or three weeks, and then no more that season. If the water is in good condition the latter part of August, during September, and the beginning of October, then is the time for the bait now under notice. " What are the best places to try this bait in for chub?" is the next question. Well, I have found, then, in a strong stream in less than a couple of feet of water, in a quiet eddy in some deep corner, under the boughs, under the overhanging banks, and, above all, in those sweet streams that look to my eye to be the very beau-ideal of chub swims, viz. where the stream is gliding along smooth and serene, like happiness, then it seems to stop for an instant, just to give a quiet curl round, and then on again for a few more yards, and then another pause, and another swirl round. 60 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. All these places should be carefully tried, and it is a good plan to keep the comb from which the grubs have been extracted, and crumble it up a bit, and throw a few small pieces on the surface and watch them as they float down the stream and curl in and out among the eddies, when suddenly there might be a sharp boil against one of them, as a chub rises to the surface to inspect this strange fare ; then throw in half a dozen or so of his ground-bait grubs, and follow these with his carefully prepared hook-bait. On and on goes his float, ten, twenty, thirty yards, with the bait about six inches from the bottom of the river, when like a flash the float shoots out of sight j then in an instant the rod-point must be swept in the opposite direction, and twang, like the music of harp- strings, sings out the tightening line, as the sport begins in earnest. I must impress on the mind of the young angler here that, if he can help it, he must not be any nearer than twenty yards from the place that looks as if it held a chub, and not be afraid to let his float travel down a rattling stream, for there very often the big fish lie, and I have known bags of from twenty to forty chub being made by this bait in a single day's fishing. Chub will also take a lump of paste or a bit of cheese, and the more the cheese smells, or the more gamey it is, the better the chub likes it. A piece the size of a small gooseberry is a very good bait, or a bit of rotten Cheshire cheese mixed with a little bread makes a very good chub bait for a change; even a boiled shrimp will not be refused. A black slug with the belly slit open, so that the white is shown, is also a very good bait for chub at times. And now we will look for a few minutes at a bait that is used during the winter, and is in my idea the winter bait par excellence for chub ; I allude to pith and brains. The pith is the spinal cord of a bullock ; your butcher will draw you a piece out when you want to use it ; the brains are used for ground-bait, they must be washed perfectly clean, and well scalded, or else boiled for a few minutes in a bag. They can then be either chewed and spat out in the river, or else cut up very small with a knife and thrown in. Don't, however, THE CHUB. 61 be extravagant in this matter, a very few pieces are quite sufficient. The pith itself when you first see it looks a very dirty and disagreeable affair ; the pieces are about as thick as your fore-finger, and I have had them a foot long. The skin must be slit from end to end with a pair of fine-pointed scissors, carefully pulled off, and thrown away, being use- less. The pith must then be carefully washed two or three times in clean water, till it is perfectly clear from blood and all other impurities, and as white as curd. Some anglers re- commend that it should be scalded, boiled, &c, but I say don't be deluded into doing anything of the sort, for I have tried it, and boiling ever so little makes it very soft, and it won't stop on the hook at all. I say, do nothing more to it than what I have recommended above. One of the correspondents of the Fishing Gazette, a few weeks ago, recommended the angler to try sheep's pith, as being whiter than bullock's; and another correspondent says, that "he boils the pith till it becomes hardened, and then tosses it in bran till cool. The bran shales when you are using it, and is rather attractive than otherwise." My own experience is not very favourable to boiling ; and when I have seen some of our best men try this bait, they always have it as I have recommended. After it is washed clean, it is ready for use ; and for this bait a No. 4 hook is the best. Cut off a piece of pith about the size of a hazel nut, and put the hook through i*nd through it several times, till you have worked the pith up the shank ; it will then stop on the hook very well. When you have a bite with this bait, play your fish very carefully, for I have found that two out of three of the fish so caught have only been hooked by the skin at the side of the mouth ; handle them roughly, and you will be sure to lose them. I have tried triangle hooks, double hooks, and single hooks of the sizes of 6, 7, or 8's, but I find I lose the fewest fish with a single No. 4, and what I find to be the best myself, I shall in all cases recommend to others. Lately I have tried a new hook for this bait, and it is a double-brazed one with the points reversed, i.e. sneck bent in opposite directions. This is a capital hook, and, I believe, has more holding power than a single hook ; but it is more particularly valuable as a hook 62 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. for scratching fishing, and the locust tackle. An old friend of mine, when he prepares his pith for the hook, never washes it very clean, but leaves it what he calls " a bit streaky." " Should you recommend the pith to be boiled same as the brains 1 " said I to him one day. " Boiled 1 not likely," he replied. " I tried that little game once, and spoilt a whole set ; no boiling for me, but only just skinned, and washed not quite so much as you wash yours, for I believe the chub likes it best when it is a bit streaky." This opinion, coming from a man of his great and varied experience, is worth careful consideration, but still, for all that, I like it washed white. I might just mention that I have found chub, when using this bait, in all the places that I have described a page or two back in wasp-grub fishing ; but at this season they are more particularly found in deep holes under the boughs, or in quiet deep eddies not far from the bank and away from the main current ; and another thing I must say as a caution, and that is, use this bait very care- fully, don't strike at every swim to jerk it off the hook, and when you take the old bait off to put a fresh one on, don't throw it in the water, but leave it on the bank, because we think that a reckless use of this bait soon spoils the swim. With regard to the hook for this pith fishing for chub, I might just mention that a friend of mine tried the new double hook the other week, and his report is most favourable. He says that the pith is easier put on, and is not so liable to be washed off, besides hooking and holding the fish much better. I must say, however, that I have always done well with the single hook ; still, I must mention these facts, and then the angler can try all sorts, and finally adopt that which he finds the best. This is a clinking bait to use in the depth of winter, when the snow lies deep on the ground, and when the thermometer indicates a few degrees below freezing-point Indeed, I think it is nearly useless to try it unless there is a little frost. I have taken fish with it from November round to March, but if you want a change of bait during the winter you can try the flat wriggling tail of a nicely scoured lob-worm. Chub do not, as a rule, bite freely at a worm during a frost, how- THE CHUB. 63 ever, and therefore the angler will find the pith the best. Let him bear in mind that the clearer and finer the water is, the better for pith; but if the water is discoloured, let him try the worm ; also let the angler remember that the finer he fishes the greater is his chance of success with this fish. When the angler has a bite, the next thing is to hook his fish, and this operation should be done as neatly as possible ; a single turn of the wrist will be quite sufficient, for a heavy tug and rough usage will result in the loss of both fish and tackle. I don't like to see an angler strike his fish as though he were trying to drive a whole flight of hooks into a bony old pike, with a mouth like a carding machine. When first hooked, Mr. Chub makes a desperate effort to escape, and bolts for his hold ; he must be kept away at all hazards, if it be under old roots; a steady pressure will soon accomplish this. He fights well for a minute or two, but soon gives up ; and when you have drawn him to you, and he lies on his side, he can be run up on a shelving bank, or the net slipped under him. I think I have said as much as I need say about float fishing for chub, and I will now turn to another branch of chub fishing, namely, fishing on the surface with live and dead insects, &c. This is a very important branch of angling, and is commonly called dibbing or daping; and for this branch of our art no better instructions have ever been given than those by Izaak Walton. The bottom fisher's rod, reel, and line will do for this work, but the lower tackle must only be about a foot long, with a couple of big split shots as close to the loop as possible ; and for baits all sorts of creatures are used, such as butterflies, humble bees, large blue-bottle flies, cockroaches, beetles, grasshoppers, &c, &c, and also a very small yellow frog. Caution, care, patience, and obser- vation are also necessary in a daper. He must approach the place with the utmost circumspection, for the places where this sort of fishing is practised are where willow and alder bushes line the banks, or the hollow under an overhanging bank. I have crept up to such places on my hands and knees, and peered through the bushes into the water below. If it has been a suitable place, I have seen three or four chub about a foot from the surface, and sometimes while I have 64 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. been looking a dried stick has snapped under my feet, and the chub have instantly bolted. It is, therefore, necessary that caution should mark your every movement. A No. 6 hook on the foot of tackle mentioned above will be the best ; put your live insect, or whatever it is, on the hook as carefully as possible, and see that everything is clear. You then wind up all the spare line until only your foot of gut with its two split shots hangs from the rod point, turn the rod round and round until the gut is entirely twisted on the rod top ; it is now ready for use. The rod is poked through an opening in the bushes until the top is perfectly clear, it is then turned the reverse way until the bait hangs clear, let the line run off the reel till the bait hangs about a foot or so from the water ; carefully mark then where the fish are and drop the bait over them, taking care that none of the gut touches or lies on the water. The two split shots are not used as sinkers, but merely to carry the line through the rings of the rod and to allow you to steer the bait where you like. If the angler has conducted his operations properly, and got his bait quietly on the surface of the water, a chub, perhaps, will rise and gobble it down instantly. If he does, then the angler must not strike instantly, but allow him to turn his head well down and then give him a very gentle pull. If the fish be struck on the very instant the chub bites, he will splash about on the top of the water and scare all the fish within yards. The fisher must then look for a handy hole close by, through which he can poke the landing-net, and after carefully land- ing his fish he retires a few yards and rebaits his hook, and after waitiug a few minutes until the chub have recovered their equanimity, he again pokes his rod through and repeats the operation. After a brace of chub have been taken by this means, they generally become disturbed in that place, and the best plan is to leave it and look for another. Small frogs are a very good bait for this kind of fishing. Hang a very little bit of the skin of the back on the bend of the hook, and put it gently on the surface of the water, as described before. As soon as it touches the water the frog will strike out and try to swim away, when if there is a chub within reasonable range, the frog will prove such an attrac- THE CHUB. 65 tion that he cannot help taking it, and with it the hook. July and August, when the weather is very hot, is the best time for this class of sport ; indeed, good bags of chub may be made by this means, when the weather is too hot for any- thing else. When you are fishing this method under an overhanging bank, and no bushes line the bank, it will be necessary to crawl to the spot on hands and knees, or even on your belly. An old friend who once saw me capture a three-pound chub that had his home in a deep hole under a high over-hanging bank, termed it taking a mean advantage of the fish. The weather was very hot, and so after catching a big humble bee, and putting him carefully on the hook, I crawled to the edge and just poked the rod top and my own nose over. I dropped the bee carefully on the water. It began to buzz and spin in a very attractive manner, and presently Mr. Chub came to have a look at him and swim round him a time or two with back fin erect. The attraction was, however, too strong, he opened his mouth and took his last bite. When the angler operates from a high over-hanging bank, he ought to take notice that the bank is sound, for an old friend of mine one day thoughtlessly stepped on one, and the next moment he and part of the bank were in eight feet of water — rather disagreeable, you know, when a little observa- tion would have prevented this. Whipping with a small frog is also a very good plan. The frog is thrown somewhat similarly to a fly. No float is required, nor shots on the tackle. A lip-hook and a double hook just below it is the best form of tackle, the lip-hook is put through the lips of the frog, and the double hook tied to one of the thighs with a little bit of yellow silk, it is thrown or pitched in all likely looking spots and allowed to sink a little below the surface, being worked by a series of shorts jerks. At the symptoms of a bite, the angler instantly strikes. Artificial chub baits have also been made and used with effect, but natural baits, &c, are so numerous and deadly that for my part, I think it is a waste of money to buy artificials. An artificial chafer is used with effect on the Thames, however, and this bait, which is garnished by two or three gentles, giving it the appearance F 66 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. of a natural insect with its inside squeezed out. It is thrown like an artificial fly, only it is allowed to sink under the sur- face for a few inches, and worked with a series of jerks. When I spoke against artificial baits just now, of course I did not allude to fly fishing, for that is a separate art. In some districts, the tail of a cray-fish boiled is successfully used for the capture of large chub ; the locust also is a most successful surface bait for chub, and to use it a special tackle is required. These so-called locusts are peculiar-looking insects, on warm evenings they may be seen about tree-tops and hedges, sometimes in considerable numbers. They are about the size of a small humble bee, of a light brown colour, and are covered with a hard shell. When you have captured a quantity of them they can be kept in a perforated tin along with a few leaves, the leaves from an elm are the best, by this means they can be kept alive for several days. They can be used with the ordinary rod, reel, and line of the Not- tingham bottom fisher, some anglers using a float with a few big shots close to it. The locust, of course, has to swim on the top of the water. I don't like a float myself for this bait, preferring to throw them out like an artificial fly. If the angler has a fourteen- feet double-handed fly rod with a fly reel and line, these will be better for locust fishing than the ordinary rod. The fisher need not be particular about the fineness of his tackle, and for this about four or five feet of middling strong gut with a large loop on each end (one loop is to knot the reel line to, and the largest loop is at the bottom, to which the rest of the tackle is fastened). For the extreme bottom tackle take a longish length of fine gut and double it, it will then be a long loop (about six inches long), take then two No. 8 hooks and whip them back to back on the ends of the last-mentioned loop, so that the two ends of the tackle and the two hooks are perfectly fast together (or one of the double-brazed reversed hooks referred to in pith fishing). The angler will require a baiting-needle, and for this purpose a stocking-needle about three inches long and as thin as you can get one, with a nick filed in the bottom of the eye, will be the very thing ; slip the loop of the bottom tackle in the nick that you have filed in the eye of the THE CHUB. 67 needle, and then push the needle completely through the locust lengthways from head to tail. Draw the locust itself up to the bend of the hooks until the hooks lie as it were upon the shoulders of the bait. You must take care that the points of the hooks are bare, and not hid in the locust at all, as the hard shell will prevent you from hooking your fish. The two sections of the tackle now want fastening together, and this is done by simply putting one loop through the other, the bait through the opposite one, and pull tight ; they are perfectly fast, and can be easily undone when you want to rebait. This bait is cast on the stream as far as it can be thrown, and allowed to float down. It should then be held stationary until it works across stream to the bank on which you stand, and if there is a chub anywhere about the water over which the bait has travelled, he will most certainly take it. Here is one instance out of many where that bait has played a leading part in making a good bag of chub. Some years ago an angler went down the river below Newark to fish the water that ran beside a rather long field ; he had forty- three locusts with him, and when he got down to the bottom of the field he had taken a chub with every locust but one. Forty-two chub with forty-three baits, in three hundred yards of water was not bad sport, and his tackle and method of baiting was exactly as I have described. Since that time, however, the Trent has changed in its character of a great chub sport-giving river ; nowadays, we must be content with a far less bag than that ; indeed, well do I remember when the individual just mentioned again visited the well-remembered field, after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century, and again he, as in days of yore, carefully fished it down, and only got one fish of about a pound and a half. " Strange," says he to an old friend who used to go with him in the days of heavy bags, and saw him catch as many as a hundred pounds' weight in one day, when they used to throw three or four big chub under a hedge to make maggots for ground bait when next they went past the place. " No more strange than true," said the other ; "we shall not catch them now as we did thirty or more years ago." Why, I have heard that angler say that it was an easy matter in those days to go to f 2 68 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. any suitable place during the summer, and catch half-a-dozen chub in less than an hour with a few worms that he had only just dug out of the garden, without any scouring at all. But still the angler must not be discouraged; good fish and good bags are still occasionally to be got; and who knows, per- haps one of the veriest novices, who is now only studying the rudiments of the craft by the help of this little book, may one day get the catch of chub that will be mentioned in all future books on angling. Warm evenings during July and August are the very best times in which to use this bait, although years ago, when the chub were upon the shallow spawning beds, during the latter end of May or the beginning of June, an angler using this bait has drawn out as many as a dozen chub without shifting a yard. These have been in a gravid state, however, and ought not to have been taken. The use of this bait properly is not generally understood by anglers, so I have been particular in my instructions. Another good plan of taking chub is with the artificial fly. For this work some anglers use a single-handed fly rod, but I prefer a double-handed one. The rod that I use is four- teen feet long ; the butt is of hickory, and the other two pieces are lancewood. It is of a medium gauge, neither too stiff, nor too whippy. A fly reel and a waterproof fly-line is necessary, and the cast should be about three yards' of middling stout gut. Some use two or three flies on their casts, but I have always found one quite sufficient. The flies generally going under the name of " chub flies," are red, black, and grey palmers, and a big coch-y-bondhu ; the best fly perhaps being the black, with silver tinsel. Whatever fly you use, they should be big, with plenty of hackle about them, and ought to have a strip of white kid attached to the bend of the hook by way of a tail. I have seen scores of chub flies that are sold at the tackle shops, and they don't seem to me to be dressed big enough ; a good big fly that drops in the water with a flop so as to attract the attention of the chub is the best. Fine tackle is not needed for this work, indeed some use a cast of salmon gut, If you are fly fishing in a boat under the boughs, where the water 5. Wasp, grub, and pith tackle, for Chub. Page 57. 6. Worm tackle, without lip-hook, for Barbel. Page 76. 7. „ „ „ for Bream. Page 150. 8. Locust tackle, for Chub. Page 66. THE CHUB. 69 cannot be fished very well from the banks, stout tackle is necessary, for the hook very often gets hung across flags, rushes, or twigs, and a sharp haul is necessary to loosen it, hence the convenience of strong tackle, for if fine were used the boat would have to be taken into the boughs, and so spoil the spot. Besides, stout tackle is necessary to haul a three-pounder out of his fortress of old roots, &c. Chub begin to get under the boughs about August, and I think that is the best time to go after them with the fly. Your fly should be thrown across the stream as far as you can ; and allow it to work round over every eddy that curls round, and perhaps a bold rise and boil in the water will reward you. As this work more particularly relates to bottom fiahing in the Nottingham style, I think I have said as much as I need say about fly fishing for chub, and as chub is my favourite fish, I have given him the place of honour in this little book, it is rather a lengthy chapter, but I have said nothing but what the angler ought to know. I hope I have been very plain in my directions. 70 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER IY. THE BARBEL. This fish is another distinguished member of the carp family, and derives his name from the peculiar beard or wattles that hang from his mouth. His scientific name is Cyprinus Barbatus. "With these beards or wattles," says Walton, "he is able to take such a hold upon weeds and moss that the sharpest floods cannot move him from his position," but of course this is wrong. His Roman nose seems to me to be peculiarly adapted for rooting among the sand at the bottom of deep holes and overhanging banks, and he is a well-made, handsome, and powerful fish ; still I think he is not quite so good-looking as the chub. The barbel is very active and vigorous, and quite the fellow to try the angler's skill, and the strength of his tackle. The mouth being situated very much underneath, that is, the top jaw being much longer than the lower, he is enabled to pick up food from the bottom, for he is for the most part a ground-feeding fish, although we hear of odd ones running at a spinning bait. These are, how- ever, more often hooked foul than anything else. The upper scales of barbel are of a bright olive-green colour, with a gold tinge towards the white belly, and a fish in good con- dition, of six pounds' weight or so, looks very attractive. The barbel is mostly found in the deepest part of the river, for he does not like the fiery heat or the extreme cold, although in the month of June it may be found in the weed beds or on the shallows, where they congregate in considerable numbers for the purpose of scouring themselves. I have been by the river side during the darkness of the early summer's night, and been suddenly startled by a tremendous splashing in the rapid shallow streams, as though a whole cartload of bricks THE BARBEL. 71 had been shot from a bridge into the river ; this sound is made by a shoal of barbel cleaning themselves, and if there is a lot of weeds on those shallows, they go rushing in and out among them, and thread them in all directions. I have seen weed beds twenty yards long and five wide, that have been literally alive with them. Poachers, too, take advantage of this peculiarity of the barbel, and put a long net over the weed beds, and take them to the extent of stones, I might say " tons f for a few years ago a party of three went every morning for a fortnight, and came back every time with as many fish as they could fairly stagger under. I am afraid this was a general plan in many districts on the Trent. It was grievous to see so many fine fish out of condition, to be sold for about one penny a pound as wholesome food, when it was anything but wholesome. I last year saw two or three lots of barbel and chub that had been taken in the same manner, but it was a few days after the fifteenth of June, and I have also seen numbers too that have been taken with the cad-bait during May and June, when they have been in a gravid state. Barbel spawn about the latter part of May, and retire to the deep holes about July ; they should certainly not be taken before then. This fish delights in such places as old walls, where old piles and posts stick up out of the water, or in an eddy under a shelving bank, or about old sunken trees or timber, providing the water is tolerably deep ; he delights, too, in the rushing, boiling waters of the weir and other deep rapid waters, for his power- ful fins enable him to stem the strongest current. I have heard anglers again and again remark on the scarcity of the barbel in the Trent ; there is no wonder at it when we consider the vast quantities that used to be taken in the manner I have described, but we must hope for better things. In my opinion netting ought to be stopped from the first of March till the first of August, or better still for altogether, and then we may hope for a return of the good old days in barbel fishing here, when a hundredweight of fish was not considered anything extraordinary. The baits for a barbel consist of worms, slugs, gentles, grubs, scratchings, or cheese ; although odd fish are sometimes taken by strange baits, such 72 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. as bits of pudding, pieces of fat bacon, or strips of lean beef &c, &c, while a piece of a lampern is a good bait for big fish. In some continental waters we hear of the barbel reaching the extraordinary weight of forty and fifty pounds ; but in England we have nothing like that, from sixteen to eight- teen pounds being the top weight for a barbel in the Trent and the Thames, which two rivers, by-the-bye, are the best barbel rivers in England. The biggest that I ever saw was thirteen pounds in weight, but I heard of one that was taken on a night-line with lampern bait which reached seventeen pounds. Big fellows like these do not, however, often fall to the lot of the angler ; he may be well satisfied with one of ten pounds, and a nine or eight-pounder is not to be despised, indeed, I should question if any angler during the last six years has taken a bag of barbel of, say, twenty fish that have averaged above three pounds each fish. An angler fishing Sir Henry Bromley's water at Stoke, about three years ago, caught, I believe, fifty barbel, and the whole lot only weighed seventy-two pounds. An old angler also told me that the best day's barbel fishing he ever had on the Trent was about thirty years ago. He caught thirty-two fish, five of them weighed from twelve to fifteen pounds each, about a dozen were from six to ten pounds each, and not one of the others was under three pounds — a glorious bag. He says the thirty-two fish weighed 224 lbs., being an average of seven pounds each fish. We must not expect anything of the sort to happen to us, however, until nets are things of the past, and poachers cease to exist. Some anglers may suppose that as the barbel is a strong and powerful fish, strong and powerful tackle is required to take them. Now this is not necessary, for the tackle that will kill the chub will, in skilful hands, kill the barbel, and as the fish have become more and more educated, the angler's chance of success is all the greater if he fishes with fine tackle. What I have said in this respect with regard to the chub, holds equally good with the barbel. The rod, reel, and line described in Chapter II. will be just the thing for barbel fishing, and your bottom tackle should be as fine as you like, providing it is good, sound, and strong. It should THE BAEBEL. 76 be stained as recommended in chub fishing. When you make your tackle, it would perhaps be as well to pick out the strongest lengths, and leave the very finest for chub or roach tackle, but always remember and have the thinnest length of gut at the bottom for the hook or hooks to be whipped to. Your tackle should be about four feet long ; I like a long tackle because you can have all your split shots on the gut without having to pinch any on the line. There are several sizes of these split shots, and the angler ought to have a supply of different sorts in his bag. For a float he should have a pelican or swan quill when fishing a light stream, and a cork float for a heavier one. A No. 5 or 6 hook will be the best for the bottom one, and about an inch above this there is a No. 8, called a lip-hook. The angler, when he whips these hooks on, should use the pink silk mentioned in Chapter II. This is a worm tackle (the tackle required for other baits will be described further on); and there should not be a split shot less than fifteen inches from the bait. Some anglers for float fishing put a long lead on the line close to the loop of the tackle, but I like the split shots on the tackle, the larger ones nearer the top, and the smaller ones lower down. Enthusiastic anglers, or tyros in the art would perhaps be the best name for them, would, perhaps, on receiving information that the barbel were biting, get a lot of ground bait in a hurry and dash off to the river and pitch it in anywhere, in the belief that any quantity of barbel would be attracted into the swim, only waiting for a bait to be dropped over their noses in order to be dragged out wholesale. Now, my dear brother angler, let me caution you in this respect — don't waste any ground bait if you can help it, let caution mark your every movement in this respect You might pitch your ground bait in a place that is entirely unsuited to the barbel, and wonder why you don't catch them, when the fact is there are none there to catch, and then go home disappointed, and say that barbel fishing is all a delusion and a snare, and that there is not such a thing in the river as a barbel. You are furthermore as cross as two sticks, and vow you will give up fishing for ever, when in reality the fault is yours and does not lie in the fish or river at all 74 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. You have not been at home above half an hour when your friend drops in and says that Smith has got such a glorious catch of barbel, " as many as he could carry home," that is the last feather that breaks the camel's back. You then, perhaps, go to look at Smith's fish, and a finer lot you never saw. " Smith, old fellow, how did you catch them % " Ah, there is the rub, by simply using a little judgment in putting in his ground bait where the fish were, and not throwing it anywhere, as you did. If you know a place that abounds with barbel, of course it is different ; but if you don't, keep your eyes open, and you will most probably see them jump out of the water, or go through a gymnastic exercise locally known as " pitching." They are troubled with parasites, and 1 suppose it is in order to try to rid themselves of these pests that they " pitch." As they generally run in shoals, where you see one jump there are probably many more. During the months of August, September, and October, which, by- the-bye, are the very best months to take them, you can scarcely take a walk by the river side without seeing them jump very frequently. Having selected a swim, the next proceeding is to bait it, and there are various methods of doing this. In order to suit the bottom, you should know how the current is. It may, perhaps, be different under the surface to what it is at the top, and you must bait accord- ingly ; a little practice will make you judge this to a nicety. If you fail to see any barbel jump, then you must choose a swim where there is an eddy by the side of a swift stream, a ledge, or a deep hole where some old posts stick up, &c, as these afford shelter for the fish. The big fellows like a lazy eddy by the side of a swift stream, the curl of the water bringing the food round to them as it is swept down the stream. A good place to find barbel is at an abrupt bend of the river, where the stream rushes hard against the opposite bank. At the inside of this stream a big curl or eddy is generally formed, and in this the fish are wont to congregate. If, when you carefully try such places as these, you find a tolerably level bottom with about eight or ten feet of water, you are almost certain to find barbel, and then you must mind and throw your ground bait in so that it glides into the THE BARBEL. 75 hole or eddy, or else it will perhaps be swept away down the stream. The best way to try the course of the stream is to take two or three small pieces of wood or stick and throw them on the water, and you will see by the way they float down where to put your ground bait in to suit the circum- stances of the case. And now, having found a swim that holds barbel, the next thing is to bait it. One way of baiting a swim, as practised on the Trent, is to procure half a stone of scratchings. Be sure and get English cake, don't be put off with anything the dealers might want to impose upon you, for the foreign stuff is not fit even for ground bait. When you have got the right sort, break it up small, and put it in a pipkin, and pour boiling water upon it sufficient to cover it, and let it stand all night. Some anglers, instead of merely scalding the scratchings, boil it for an hour or two ; as they say it is whiter and swells more, done so ; there is something in this that is worth considering. Then take about half a peck of small or refuse potatoes (but not diseased ones), and boil them until they will crush up. Now put them and the scratchings into a receptacle together, and then add a half- quartern of barley flour, and mix the whole mass till it will hang together in lumps. It is now ready for use. The cost of this ground bait is but trifling, and it is used a good deal on the Trent. Lumps about the size of a cricket-ball are thrown in, about two-thirds in one night, and the re- mainder the night after. The swim can be fished the fol- lowing day. The angler must remember that before he fishes the swim he must take a little ground bait with him to use while he is fishing, and he ought to prepare it fresh the night before he goes, because it is of no use saving any of that he prepared first, as it is likely to be sour. Before he scalds his scratchings, therefore, in the first instance, he ought to save about a pound of it, a few potatoes, and a handful or two of the barley meal, which can be prepared either the morning he starts to fish, or the night before. Of course, when this ground bait is used, your hook-bait is scratchings, the nicest, best, and whitest bit you can pick out of some that is specially scalded, and without the addition of the potatoes and barley flour (this should also be scalded fresh before you 76 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. use it). A bit of white pipe is a very good bait, and is much liked by both barbel and chub. The tackle for this bait should be the same as the worm tackle, except in the case of the hooks. A lip-hook will not be wanted, and instead of a No. 5 or 6 hook on the bottom, two No. 7 hooks, whipped back to back, will be the best, or else the double- brazed reversed hook, as described in the chapter on Chub ; indeed, an old friend of mine tells me that these hooks are the very best he ever tried for barbel fishing with scratchings, and I agree with him. In baiting, the tackle can be released from the line, and the pipe slipped over the shots and down, till it is stopped by the bend of the hooks ; the points are then covered by a small piece of the scratchings, and the bait is ready for use. This sort of ground bait, to my mind, has its objections, for, after you have done fishing the swim, very few more fish can be caught in it for a week or two after, it makes them sickly, and I think it spoils the sport for any one who may happen to follow you soon. In fact, I don't like the plan at all, but as it is used a good deal on the Trent, I have thus referred to it. Sometimes I have known when scarcely a drop of rain has fallen on the parched earth for weeks, and the river is running remarkably low and clear, you might as well have thrown your hat on the water for a bait, as try to catch barbel during the daytime, and yet during the darkness of the night they would come " on." I have known several cases of this kind to happen, where a couple of anglers have been fishing a carefully baited swim and got next to nothing during the daytime ; and after they had given it up in disgust, a knowing customer has gone down just at dusk, and quietly ledgered for two or three hours, and got six or eight right good fish. When the water is in the condition as just named, it is necessary to ground bait with your scratchings prepared in a little dif- ferent manner to that just described ; instead of being mixed with the potatoes and barley meal, it should be used just as it is after scalding or boiling, except that the angler must be very careful, and with an old pair of scissors clip it up very, very small, and use it very sparingly (of course this plan of baiting can be followed during the daytime as well as at night). THE BARBEL. 77 When night fishing for barbel, I prefer scratchings to worms ; for in using the latter during the darkness, eels are apt to bother you, and one of these gentry on your tackle then, makes rather a curious performance ; but somehow or other I always fancy that night fishing savours a trifle of poaching ; still it is perfectly legal, and a nice bit of fun for a change. The best of all ground bait, in my opinion, for barbel is about a thousand or so of large lob- worms. These are procured at night out of the meadows where the grass is short after a heavy fall of rain or dew, by the aid of a lantern and candle. In gathering them, step as carefully as you can, and by the light from the lantern you will see the worms stretched out on the grass, or at least partly out on the grass and partly in their holes. Seize each one firmly but care- fully, and draw it out of its hole. Drop them in a bag or whatsoever you have with you, but be as still as you can, for at the least noise they will disappear like lightning into their holes. A pair of creaking boots are fatal to the success of the worm-catcher ; he must be prompt in his actions and move about as stealthily as a mouse. When you have a sufficient quantity of them, and they have been scoured for a few days among some clean moss, you may then proceed to bait the swim. To do this, some cut them up in pieces and scatter them down the swim, and also a little above the hole, if it be a hole you are going to fish, so that the stream may carry them down fair and square into it. If possible, the angler does this three nights before he fishes the pitch. About five hundred the first, three hun- dred the second, and two hundred the third is a good pro- portion. When he comes to fish the next morning, he must be sure, before he puts his rod and tackle together, to cut up a dozen or so and scatter them down the swim. This is an important point; the reason will be given further on. Some anglers throw the worms in whole, for this reason — they say that they live longer in the water and will attract the fish better, whereas the cut-up worms soon turn bad. I think myself it is the best to use whole worms, but I prefer to bait the place first thing in the morning, before or at sun- rise. The reason of this is obvious, for eels and other 78 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. nocturnal fish 'would be attracted into the swim if you baited over-night, and get a lot of the ground bait that was intended for the barbel, therefore I pronounce for morning baiting. If you wish to fish a pitch that you cannot bait very well by scattering the worms down the stream — if, for instance, the water runs too fast — then a good plan is to have a small net, something like a cabbage or onion net, and put clay and worms in it. Then tie a strong cord to it, and cast it in the stream a little above where you are going to fish ; the action of the water will cause the worms to work out of the net and attract the fish into the swim. When you come again to bait, draw the net out by means of the cord, fill it again, and repeat the operation until the swim is fully baited. There is now a baiting-can in use that is a great improve- ment on the net — after the pattern supplied by that cele- brated Thames angler Mr. J. P. Wheeldon, I believe, — but this is more for use from a boat, and while you are fishing the swim. The worms are put in this thing, and with a cord it is lowered over the boat's side and down to the bottom, then a jerk of the cord releases the lid, and out roll the worms along the river bottom. The practical utility of this thing must now be apparent to the veriest novice ; for, supposing you are fishing from a boat, and the swim is rather rapid, and the water fourteen or more feet deep, and you throw your worms loose over the side, they would be carried by the stream clean out of your reach before they grounded, so I consider this can to be a very useful article in a barbel fisher's outfit, especially if he does his fishing from a boat. Walton says " the barbel is curious for his baits, that they may be clean and sweet, that is to say, to have your worms well scoured, and not kept in sour or musty moss, for he is a curious feeder ; but at a well-scoured lob-worm he will bite as boldly as at any bait, and especially if, the night or two before you fish for him, you shall bait the places where you intend to fish for him with big worms cut into pieces, and note that none did overbait the place, or fish too early or too late for a barbel." If this held good in Walton's time, that THE BARBEL. 79 a well- scoured lob-worm is the best bait for a barbel, it holds equally as good now. The next business, therefore, is to procure a well-scoured lob-worm. The maiden lobs are the very best for the hook ; and may be known very easily, they are the smallest of the dew worms that you pick up from the grass, and have no rings or knobs on them. Their colour is a bright pink, and they are usually about two or three inches long. These sorts should be picked out from the others and kept separate, among some fresh moss that is slightly damped. To make them a clear red colour, you should have a piece of very soft red brick, and when you have placed your worms on the top of the moss (a small bar- rel or a large earthernware vessel is the best to scour, them in), you should take a nutmeg grater and grate the piece of brick, so that the dust goes among the worms. Examine them every day, and pick out all bruised and diseased ones, and repeat the operation with the brick and nutmeg grater. This operation will make the worms a splendid red colour, very tough, and a perfect honne bouche for the barbel. They will be ready for use in about a week, and if you are careful with them and adopt this plan, you will have a well- scoured attractive lob-worm. It is an advantage to have a reserve stock of worms for use when the weather prevents you from gathering them ; for this plan procure a very strong and sound packing-box, and partly fill it with clay, and get a lot of worms, when the weather is favourable, and turn them into it, and then put on the top of the clay some damped moss ; when you want to use these worms, take as many out as you require, and scour them as directed. I have known anglers, by this plan, to always have a plentiful supply of worms, sometimes as many as twenty thousand at once. The worms that you use for ground bait should be well-scoured, for, as Walton says, "he is a curious feeder," that is, he likes to have his food clean. As an illustration I might just mention a little incident that came under my own observation. Two anglers were fishing the barbel swim at the Corporation fishery, Winthorp ; they had both scoured their hook baits separately, only with this slight difference, one had had his worms scouring 80 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. for over a week, the other for only a day or two ; one lot was bright, tough, and of a splendid colour, the other was dark, dirty, and tender ; each used their own bait ; the one with the bright baits kept getting fish, the other with the dirty ones got none ; they changed places, but with the same result; they both then used the bright and well-scoured worms, and then both of them took fish. This is one instance out of many, and goes to prove that the barbel likes a clean, well-scoured worm. And now we will suppose the angler has his tackle all right, his barbel swim baited, and two or three hundred well-scoured maiden lob-worms in a bag among some moss for his hook baits, and also about two hundred coarse worms in another bag to cut up and throw in during the time he is fishing. He will now be ready for any amount of barbel, but he must remember to make no more noise than he can help. Whether he fishes from a boat or the bank, he should never be less than fifteen yards from the hole he intends to fish ; and having carefully anchored the boat lengthways down the stream, or taken his stand on the bank, before he puts his tackle together, he should take his cocoanut shell and put two or three dozen worms in it. With a pair of old scissors he cuts them up in pieces and throws them down his swim. This will make the fish feel, as it were, at home, and they will not be so easily frightened ; because when a swim is pro- perly baited, and you have a nice bait on fine tackle, you very often hook a fish the first Swim, and if you have not thrown a few worms in before you begin, the fish are apt to be frightened at seeing one of their companions in trouble, and fly from the swim. You will then, perhaps, be at considerable trouble to entice them back again, and all for the want of just throwing a few cut-up worms in. Personal experience, and the experience of old angling friends, prove this to be correct. Another thing these old friends have told me, besides my own expe- rience in the matter, and that is — if when you begin to fish for barbel, and you take a dace or two the first few swims, you may make up your mind that there are not many barbel in the swim, for they do not seem to agree very THE BAEBEL. 81 well together ; on the other hand, if you take a barbel or two the first few swims, you may congratulate yourself, and know that the barbel have got it to themselves. And now the angler must bait his hooks. Two of the maiden worms will, in my idea, be the best ; roll the worms in the bag of sawdust before mentioned, and put the hook in the first worm about three quarters of an inch from the head end, and work the worm up to the lip-hook ; leave about half an inch of the tail end hanging below the bottom hook, and then stick the lip-hook right through the head end of the worm, and bring the points of both hooks out of the worm. Take another worm smaller than the first, and just hang the head on the lip-hook and the tail end on the bottom hook, your bait will then be in the shape of a link, with three or four ends to wriggle about in a most lively manner; that, in my idea, is the best worm bait you can use. Sometimes I have put the worms on the hooks head downwards, and taken fish with, them ; these were at odd times when I had been an hour without a bite in the ordinary way of baiting ; but whether this result was an accident or not, I cannot say. Having your bait now ready (and you must be sure that it touches the bottom of the river), let it glide down the swim thirty, forty, or even fifty yards from the boat or stand. When you have covered the entire distance where you suppose your ground bait to be, without a bite, wind up the line on the reel and repeat the operation. If you have a bite, don't be in a hurry, give him a second or two to take the bait, and then strike pretty smartly to fix the hook well. Should your float be forty yards away, you must strike a little harder than when it is only twenty yards from you, as you have a good length of line to lift off the water, and when you find you are fast in a fish, wind him out of the hole as quickly as possible. Let him run as near the boat as you can, and then he won't dis- turb the others. When I say wind him out as quickly as possible, I don't mean a sort of a pully-hauly system — a dragging out of the fish neck and crop, because your tackle would not stand it, but as soon as you can, get him under the rod's point ; keep a tight line on him, and when he is G 82 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. exhausted your companion should put the landing-net in the water as carefully as possible. You then bring the fish over it, and with a sharp lift you have him. Never dash the net in the water right in front of his nose, or perhaps the sudden fright may make him give an unexpected bolt when you were not prepared for it ; be very cautious in this respect, or you may lose both fish and tackle, and then you will perhaps think of the quotation — u The waters wild closed o'er the child, And I am left lamenting." I inferred a little time back that when the barbel were biting you would catch no dace, and when the dace were feeding you would catch no barbel ; of course, I allude to the two fish in the same swim at the same time. Now, I don't want it to be understood, for a moment, that you never catch the two together, for occasionally dace and barbel are taken together, but I mean it is not a general thing to find the two fish feeding very freely at the same time and in the same swim. I remember once fishing in a good barbel swim a short distance above Newark, with an old friend — a capital angler. We had baited the swim properly, and reckoned on a good take of barbel, but that time we had reckoned without our host ; water was right, tackle was right, bait was right, in fact everything was right except the barbel, and they were conspicuous by their absence, for not a single barbel did we take in the two days, but nearly every swim we took a dace ; now I supposed that there were no barbel in the swim or else the dace would not have fed so freely, and I have still every reason to believe I was right in my suj^position. On the other hand, I can remember taking half a dozen barbel and the same quantity of dace out of one swim, though as a set off to this I have known good catches of barbel and not a single dace among them. When I was first initiated into the mysteries of the Trent and its fish, I supposed, as the barbel was a big fish, I should require very powerful tackle to take it. I had for a companion an old friend with very much the same opinion ; THE BARBEL. 83 in fact, you may put us down as being very much un- initiated just then. Well, as it happened, we had got our ground bait in all right, more by good luck than good management, I must now confess ; the water was very bright, the tackle very coarse. My old friend, who had a predilec- tion for spectacles, had them as usual astride his nose, when, by accident, they fell off, and sank to rise no more. There, in fact, we were in fine water with coarse tackle, trying to catch barbel. Of course it was " no go." The result was only two small fish in five hours. " There are no barbel in the swim," said my old friend ; " let's give it up and go home." " Oh, no," said I, " let's try a little longer. I believe it is all owing to your spectacles that we are getting no barbel, for I believe there are a lot down there, only they keep putting your gig-lamps on in turns to examine the bait." The idea of a big barbel with a pair of goggles on was too much for my old friend's risible faculties. He looked at me and laughed, then drew the cork from the bottle, and, as he said " the joke was too good to pass by without wetting," took a good swig. About half an hour after, another angler came down with his rod and tackle, we explained our difficulty to him ; he knew his business ; he looked at our worms, they were all right ; so, at our invitation, he put his tackle together, and now, for the first time, I saw my mistake. His tackle did not look strong enough to land a roach, while his line, I thought, would hardly do to whip hooks on with, so fine was it. In about an hour, however, eight more good barbel lay on the grass, all killed with his fine pale blue tackle, without losing a single fish. This was rather a severe eye-opener to us, and proved by demon- stration that fine tackle was decidedly superior to ours. Those anglers who go in for extra fine fishing, use a sort of gut that is sold at the tackle shops, called "drawn gut:" it is very fine and very strong. I like a length of it on the bottom of my barbel tackle. I have seen Mr. Eudd, of the Eeindeer Inn, Newark, use a barbel tackle made entirely of this fine-drawn gut, and with a very light float he has succeeded in making some grand catches of barbel. Once, in particular, I remember he and three visitors were g 2 84 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. barbel fishing and used that sort of tackle, and at nearly every swim he was fast in a barbel till he had landed a very good catch, whilst his companions could scarcely show a single fin. Fishing for barbel with this extra fine gut is perhaps not a very safe plan. I find the ordinary fine gut as recommended for chub, and stained as directed in Chapter II., to be all that is required. Some anglers like round bent hooks, and some like sneck bent ones. I think a round bent Carlisle hook is the best, for you can put a worm on it so much nicer than you can on a sneck bent one. An old friend of mine, when barbel fishing, after the first mad rush or two of the fish and when he once begins to wind on him and gets the float above water, hardly ever allows the float to disappear again, but holds him tight and lets the spring of the rod kill him. I don't recommend this, but still it is done by that old friend of mine, and he is a very good and successful angler. If your barbel is only a small one, it is perhaps as well to hold him tight, but if he feels heavy don't risk losing fish and tackle by not allowing him to have a little of his own way. The mouth of a barbel being situated very much underneath, and as he has some very hard leathery jaws, it is certain if you hook him firmly you need not fear the hook cutting through. A moderately sharp stroke is necessary to fix the hook well, and when he is once well hooked, the hold very seldom gives way. " Tight corking " is a plan that is adopted by many barbel fishers on the Trent. For this style a cork float a trifle larger than the one in use for "traveller" fishing is the best, except that it must be adjusted so that the bait lies well on the bottom, say about two feet deeper than the distance between the float and the ground. The bait is thrown in and allowed to swim down as far away from you as you think requisite ; it is then held stationary, and you can tell at once by the bobbing of the float when a barbel attacks the bait. This plan is chiefly used if the swim be a deep hole or eddy not far from the bank. I like the plan under these circumstances, but as a general rule I prefer to fish with a traveller float, so as to let the bait be always moving about over the swim, or in other words, wherever the ground bait may be. (I have given THE BARBEL. 85 full instructions for throwing the float and hait to any dis- tance required in Chapter II.), but if the water is over eight feet deep I should use a slider or " traveller " float. At the beginning of the barbel fishing season, say during the month of July, two caddis on a No. 7 hook and a light float and tackle will be found a good bait, especially in such places as the piles or at the bottom of the woodwork of old bridges, or in the eddies and streams that run from a weir. Barbel will sometimes take a lump of cheese or a bunch of gentles, or in fact almost any bait, for I have known them to take a bit of paste or a grain of creed wheat or malt, when roach fishing, and the sport a three-pounder will give you on fine roach tackle is something for you to remember. Worms and scratchings are, however, the principal baits for barbel, and as I have said and directed, it is necessary to well ground bait for them. Fair catches of barbel have been made without any previous baiting, a dozen worms or so being clipped up and thrown in as you go along, but it is not a very safe plan. Indeed, it may be said that even after a pitch has been well baited it is not certain that one will catch fish, and the angler is more often disappointed than not. Barbel fishing now-a- days is a very precarious job, for barbel are more often " off" than " on." Years ago they were nearly always "on" during the months of August, September, and October, but of late years the angler has to put up with two or three disappoint- ments for one success. If you find it is not possible to fish the place with a float, if, for instance, the stream runs too fast, or you wish to fish in the rushing, boiling waters of a weir tail — which latter place I may impress upon my readers is a capital one for barbel — (there are generally two or three lazy eddies in the close vicinity of a weir, and in these the big ones love to lie), you will have to do what is locally known as plumbing or ledgering. For this plan a bottom tackle about a yard long with a few split shots on it is required, and the " ledger " is either a long pear-shaped lead, or a flat triangular one. Some anglers put this lead on their lines and pinch a split shot below it close to the loop of the tackle, but I think it is best to put the ledger on a small length of fine gimp, and make 86 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. a loop at each end. The reel line can be fastened to one loop and the loop of the tackle can be put through the loop on the gimp. The hook is brought through the tackle loop and drawn tight, it is then perfectly fast. The lead is liable to cut the line if it is put on that, so I think the gimp is better. When this plan is adopted in the rough waters of a weir, a stronger line and tackle is used. The waters are mostly discoloured by the stream stirring up the sand at the bottom, and there are mostly a lot of big stones, piles and obstructions generally in the neighbourhood of a weir. When also a fish is hooked and bolts for his " hover," it has to be a clear case of " pull devil, pull baker." The hooks and baits for this style are the same as for float fishing. If the angler has not the time to properly bait a swim, he can fish in a style known as "roving" for barbel. Having found a likely-looking spot, he cuts up a very few worms and throws them in, and then fishes it with either the traveller float, the ledger, or tight corking ; if he gets a fish or two, well and good, if not, he looks for another place and tries again. Should the water be low and bright you will find, as a rule, the barbel in the deepest holes, but if, on the other hand, the water is high and very much discoloured, you will find them on the shallows ; for they, like pigs, like to root amongst the sand on the bottom. I remember only last year that one of the night-line parties set their lines during a fresh on the shallows below Winthorp, and for two or three nights, while the water was up, they had some very nice catches of barbel, but as soon as the water went down they ceased catching barbel there, the fish having retired into the deep holes. During a fresh in August and September some good barbel are often taken by ledgering or long corking close to the bank, for they are then roving about in search of food. A friend of mine told me some time back, that he had given instructions for the baiting of a barbel swim with worms some few years ago. He anticipated it had been done according to his instructions, but judge of his disgust when they went to fish it to find that, instead of throwing the worms in the hole where there were ten or twelve feet of water, they had been thrown into the wrong place, so that they worked into an eddy of about four THE BARBEL. 87 feet deep on ordinary occasions. However, there had been a lot of rain a few days before, and the water was just rising, and it was the luckiest chance in the world (as it afterwards turned out) that the bait was put in where it was. The water rose a yard during the day, and at night they had one of the best catches of barbel he ever saw. If the bait had been put in the hole, ten to one if they would have caught a single fish. This case goes to prove that barbel rove about the shallows during a fresh. I have always found that just when the water is rising, you can catch barbel ; but it is no good to bait a swim during a fresh. The first day the water conies on is worth all the rest of the time it is up put together. A piece of a lampern on the ledger tackle is a very good bait for big barbel ; these baits (lamperns) are a peculiar eel- shaped fish. Very heavy fish have been killed by its agency, especially late in the season when the lamperns were running. There is one thing finally I must mention as a caution to the angler. It is this, don't overfeed the barbel while they are biting. Many a day's sport has been spoilt by this very foolish plan. If the fish go off biting a little, throw in about half a dozen broken worms to set them on the feed again ; this number will generally be found sufficient. As a fish for the table, the barbel is one of the very worst ; it is coarse, watery, bony, and flavourless ; but if the angler fancies he should like one cooked, he can prepare it the same as I directed for big chub. 88 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE, CHAPTER V. THE ROACH. To be a successful roach fisher is the highest attainment in the bottom fisher's art. He must be possessed of great skill, patience, and ingenuity, and also a thorough knowledge of the habits of the fish. Further, he must be able to detect the places where roach are likely to be found, and know what places they avoid ; he must pay particular attention to a number of the most minute details, a good swim must be selected, and then must be fished at the exact depth. A very fine tackle must be used, and in hooking a roach, the angler must have a regular roach trick, that is, he must do it without a jerk of any kind, simply in a momeDt by a single turn of the wrist. Walton says, " When you fish for roach, you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a nimble hand." Walton, too, says that the roach is " accounted the water sheep for his simplicity or foolishness ;" but roach now- a-days are not so foolish and simple as they were in old Izaak's time. 'Tis true the roach in a pond, where they are small and half-starved, and where they seldom see the presence of an angler or a rod, might be foolish, and allow themselves to be caught by any sort of bait and tackle (and I know that roach in our well-fished river, during the latter part of May, are perfectly reckless, and will allow themselves to be caught by dozens with the cad bait, when the spawn and milt has been running from them) ; but the well-fed, good-conditioned, and aldermanic roach of our well-fished river are not to be caught by any tyro during August and the following months, for they are amazingly shy of the hook. They seem to me to be highly educated then, and pretty wide-awake to the angler's proceedings. A reckless THE ROACH. 89 stamping up and down the bank, or a peering over into it, or working a plumb all over it, to see how deep it is, are all fatal to the success of the roach fisher. His motto must be "fine and far off," thus to keep out of sight as much as possible. Then, and then only, with suitable tackle, baits, and a good swim, he may stand a chance of deceiving a few roach. The roach is a member of the carp family, and his specific name is Cyprinus Rutilus. When in good condition he is a handsome fish. One writer, paraphrasing Yarrell, thus describes him. " The colour of the upper part of the head is dusky green, with blue reflections, becoming lighter on the sides, and passing into silvery white on the belly, the irides yellow, cheeks and gill covers silvery white ; dorsal and caudal fins pale brown, tinged with red ; pectoral fins orange red ; ventral and anal fins bright red ; the scales are rather large, marked with consecutive and radiating lines ; large eyes, the circles of which are of a gold colour, and the iris red ; their scales are very smooth, except during and just after spawning time, when they feel to the touch like a nutmeg grater." This seems to me to be a pretty fair description, and any one reading it, who has never seen a roach, would come to the conclusion that he is a very handsome fish. He also has a small head and a leather mouth, with a pecular top lip. This lip, if you take hold of it, raise it, and bring it forward, shows to you that it has the power of elongation, and that it is shaped something like a hood. This power seems to prove that the fish can take his food on the bottom like a barbel ; or retaining the lip in its ordinary position that he can take a bait in midwater, or on the surface like a dace. I have found, however, that roach are, for the most part, a ground- feeding fish. As an illustration I may say, I was only last year fishing a good swim with a friend. The swim was well baited, and we both had to stand side by side, and allow our floats and baits to travel down together ; we each fished with the same bait. I fished, however, on the bottom, and he was some eight or ten inches above it. We did this by mutual consent, and during the whole of the time he never caught a roach, and I did not take a single dace. We both 90 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. had very good catches, and strange as it may appear, that my fish were roach and his were dace, the conclusions I arrived at then backed up my former observation, viz. that roach are for the most part, a ground-feeding fish ; I know that they will take an artificial or a natural fly on the surface ; it is the formation, therefore, of the mouth that allows them to take a bait at all depths. (The above will be found a good plan to fish a swim that you know contains both roach and dace. ) I have been rather particular in my description of a roach, because the would-be roach anglers ought to know the pecu- liarities and habits of these fish, and also because during certain stages of their growth, they may be confounded with fish of an apparently similar character, but which on closer observation, side by side, are widely different. Koach spawn about the latter end of May, and are very prolific fish. They are then very slimy, and have a lot of rough pim- ples on their scales. When they have done spawning they retire into deep holes, or among the thick weeds, and live upon the weeds and the insects found among them. About the latter end of July or so they come out of the weeds, and take more to the open water ; and they may be found some- times in considerable quantities by the side of rushes, flags, or weed beds, especially if the water is from five to eight feet deep. About this time, when as old roach fishers say, " The weed is out of them," and the slimy coat they wore among the weeds has worn off, their scales are smooth and bright, and their fins nice and clear. They are in very good condition, and are very shy ; and it is now that it requires an artist in the business to take them. Eoach prefer a sandy bottom, do not like a muddy one ; in fact, a river roach, I may say, is a very clean fish. His baits have to be clean and sweet. If there be any suspicion of dirt or sourness about them, he will have none of them. The roach fisher should be able to find out what sort of a bottom the river has before he fishes it. I know a very good roach fisher, who, when he is on the look-out for a new swim, has a lump of lead with a flat bottom, on which he sticks a piece of soap, and by letting this down to the bot- tom, generally manages to bring up enough of the sand or THE ROACH. 91 whatever it is to judge by. Roach very seldom exceed three pounds in weight ; and we have very few instances where the fish reach this. A two-pound roach would be considered a giant if taken from the Trent; and I have only seen one roach that reached this weight. This was caught by a labourer with a large lob- worm for a bait ; it weighed 2 lb. 5 oz., and it was literally quite greyheaded. The Avon, I believe, has the biggest roach j I have heard of them being frequently taken from that river of the weight of from two pounds to two and a half pounds. Two-pound roach are sometimes taken in the Thames ; but in the Trent I only know of the solitary one mentioned above. A half-pounder is a sizeable fish, a pounder is a good one, while a pound and a half fish would make the heart of a Trent angler rejoice ; indeed, I have known the first prize for a specimen roach to be taken with a pound fish. I once took fifteen roach that weighed fourteen pounds; and again, seventeen fish that weighed fifteen pounds ; and an old friend of mine once took six grand fish close to Newark, weighing seven pounds, and not an ounce difference was there in the weight of them. It appears that big roach are more plentiful in the Trent than I had thought possible. When the bream hole at the bottom of Foottitt's meadow was netted some years ago (so one of the men who were engaged in that business told me), there were several roach got out that weighed from two to three pounds each, and since I penned the foregoing notes, there have been several caught and weighed in our local clubs that have turned the scale at from one and a half pounds to one and three-quarter pounds a-piece, and only a few weeks ago, two were weighed in that scaled two pounds, one ounce, and two pounds, four ounces, respectively. Eoach are very fond of a lazy eddy by the side of a swift stream, and being a bulky fish are not found much in very strong and rapid waters. They like the slow, lazy curls under bushes, or the slow streams by the side of flags, rushes, &c; quiet lie-byes or corners away from the main stream are very much affected by roach ; streams that flow at the rate of not more than two miles an hour ; or in the curls and eddies in the vicinity of a weir, or in the neighbourhood of an old 92 BOTTOM WISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. wooden bridge, and sometimes they are found in the shallows of a mill tail. These are the places where roach are princi- pally found, and it is in such places as those that the suc- cessful roach fisher pursues his quarry. The food of roach consists of grubs, flies, grasshoppers, worms, cad baits, weeds, and water insects, gentles, bread, paste, rice, pearl barley, creed malt, wheat, &c, &c. The last few that I have men- tioned are the very best hook baits you can have. Indeed, to put it correctly, gentles stand first, cad baits second, worms next, then paste, pearl barley, creed wheat, and malt. These baits, if they are properly used, are all that is required by the bottom fisher for roach. As a fish for the table, they are a little better than chub and barbel. Nicely fried, a good roach out of a gravelly stream, during the autumn and winter months, is not to be despised, and is a very palatable addition to the breakfast- table. "The Freshwater Fisheries Act of 1878 "seems to me to be hardly satisfactory as far as roach are concerned, for on the 1 5th of March these fish are in the very best condi- tion, and could very well be taken for another month — that is, as regards the Trent ; while on the 15th of June they have not all of them done spawning, and for another month at least they are slimy, lumpy, and in a generally wretched state. I think, therefore, that anglers ought not to take them before the middle of July. Having looked at the roach and his habits, we will turn to the tackle that is necessary to take him ; the rod, reel, and line described in Chapter II., and recommended for chub, will do, but if the angler goes in for roach fishing alone, then a rod that is lighter will be better \ such an one, for instance, as I have now before me. The length is about eleven feet tapered from the butt to the point to a nicety ; wire guards are on the rings, and these prevent the line from catching or hitching round them. Such a rod will hook a roach in an instant, by that almost imperceptible turn of the wrist so necessary in a good roach angler. It is well balanced, and only weighs about 12 oz.; this is a splendid roach rod, but, as I have said before, for the working-man angler who goes in for general bottom fishing, and can afford only one THE ROACH. 93 rod, the first-mentioned one will be the best ; if he goes in for roach alone, he can, if he likes, have one of the very finest Derby twist lines, instead of the next size recommended for chub ; and his bottom tackle should also be of the very finest gut he can buy. He should make his bottom tackle from three to five feet in length, to suit the depth of the water ; though a five-foot tackle will be long enough if he has to fish fifteen feet deep. Some anglers use horsehair for their tackle, which will do very well ; but I have seen gut thinner than horsehair, and I am sure that fine gut is better in all respects than hair. I have used no hair lately, and I have come to the conclusion, after careful practice, that extra fine gut is best I think the best plan for roach tackle is to have an extra fine-drawn gut bottom or trace, about a yard long, with a loop at each end, and a dozen or so of various-sized roach hooks, tied or whipped on single lengths of this extra fine drawn gut, with a loop at the other end ; this loop is to be joined to one of the loops of the trace, in the manner already described elsewhere ; and the other loop of the trace is to be fastened to the reel line, the number of shots required for the float being put on the trace. This plan of your roach tackle has two very good points in its favour ; first, it is cheaper in the end, because I have found that I don't waste so many as with ordinarymade drawn gut tackle ; and secondly, it is much easier for you to change the hook, if you want to use a different size; instead of being at the trouble of taking the whole tackle off, and re-shotting another, you would only just have to take the bottom length off, and replace it with another that had the necessary-sized hook to it. A very important article in a roach fisher's outfit is his float ; if the water is quiet or very nearly so, he must have a float made of the smallest of goose or crow quills, one that will carry about three or four split shots ; but if there is a bit of a stream, he can increase the size of his float, and the number of shots on the tackle. He need not on any account have a float any larger than will carry about eight small shots ; indeed in very quiet waters a self-cocking float will be the best. This can be easily made out of two small quills. Use the two tops and join them together with a little 94 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. plug of wood in the middle, in the bottom piece of quill two or three small shots are placed. This float should be about four inches long, and it can be fastened to the line with a quill cap on each end ; to make this float watertight, it should be bound where the join is, tightly and closely, with a bit of well waxed silk or cotton. The utility of this float is apparent to all thoughtful anglers, because when you scatter your ground bait in a still water it breaks up and sinks very gradually ; and then if you plump the hook bait in, and there is a long necklace of split shots on the tackle, the bait sinks so much differently to the way in which the ground bait did, and the shy and suspicious roach would see the fraud at once. When the water is clear in these still quiet places, the nearer you approach nature the greater is your chance of success. The ground bait as just noticed sinks down gradually, and the hook bait ought to do the same ; so if the weight is in the float, without there being any on the tackle, the hook and the bait will sink down as gradually as did the ground bait, and be more likely to de- ceive the fish. The float for roaching in ordinary swims on the Trent will carry about half a dozen split shots ; and I must again impress upon the angler, that he ought not to have one of them less than eighteen inches from the hook. The others also ought to be down the tackle at distances of six inches or so from each other ; the bait will then swim straighter in the water, and the fish will be less wary than if all the shots were huddled together in one place on the gut. The float of a roach fisher should be so nicely weighted that it will indicate in an instant a roach bite. The angler may ask himself the question, What is a roach bite % The answer would be, " When the fish snaps at the bait and takes it;" but I believe that in quiet or semi-quiet waters, a roach does not snap at a bait and swallow it instantly ; in paste fishing this is so especially. I remember reading some time ago of experiments tried with different fish in an aquarium. Dace and trout snap at the bait ; but the roach generally took it in a different way ; he would swim up near the bait, open his mouth and draw in a current of water, to- gether with the bait. Should it please the fish, it is imme- THE ROACH. 95 diately swallowed, and the water ejected through the gills, hut the moment he finds out that there is something amiss, such as a line attached to it, or the taste does not suit him, he instantly blows it out with great force, along with the mouthful of water he has just taken in ; and the bigger the fish, the more cautious they are in this proceeding. In fishing with gentles for roach it is a very common occurrence to find the gentles blown up the tackle, sometimes a couple of inches from the hook ; the roach had tried to blow the bait from his mouth, but the angler had been too quick for him, the hook had penetrated the mouth, and the bait had been blown up the gut, instead of both hook and bait being forcibly ejected, which would most certainly have been the case had the angler waited another instant before he struck. The would-be angler will now see at once the necessity of having a float that will indicate a bite of this description, and the smaller the quill, the better it will be. Some anglers in roach fishing only have the extreme tip of the float out of the water. Now I think this is scarcely enough ; he should have half an inch at least out, on purpose to pro- perly indicate a roach bite. When the roach draws in the bait, in the manner described, the float perhaps does not bob down, but merely tilts over a little sideways, and the angler ought to respond on the instant. How many times has an angler seen his float give a hardly perceptible bob, and has waited until he has had another and more decided one, and then found on striking that his bait was gone, and there was no fish on his hook 1 The crafty old roach had drawn the bait into his mouth at the first little bob of the float, and that was the time to have met him by the magic turn of the wrist. In the moment between the first bob and the second, the roach found out that there was something wrong, and so blew the bait out, and it was the very act of blowing out that caused the second and more decided bob of the float. One of the very best roach fishers we have in Newark tells me that he has very often noticed this peculiar biting of the roach when he has been fishing with a stationary bait in quiet waters. He says he always gives a short twitch, let the float move as it likes ; sometimes, he has noticed that 96 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. the float has been thrown upwards a trifle ; and then again it might only tilt over a little ; and he is now of the firm con- viction that all these moves indicate a roach bite, a conviction that I most heartily share. It is always the largest and best roach that bite in this sly and unobtrusive manner ; it is nevertheless true that anybody can catch roach at those odd times when the fish are quietly sucking down the bait and hooking themselves ; but it is not very often that he is " on," like that. Very small fish will bob down the float and make the angler think he has got a most important bite ; but the big fellows in a quiet water, when they are not very well "on," are not to be taken by anybody. When you are fishing with gentles in a slight stream, and your float is travelling down, you cannot notice this action of your float, but it will be the best to strike promptly on the least indication of a bite - y more roach have been lost by waiting a trifle for a second bo b, than have been taken. I think I have shown the necessity of having a float to properly indicate a roach bite, and now we will look for a minute or two at the roach hooks ; these should be carefully selected and tested before whipping them on the gut. Some anglers like a hook that is short in the shank and very fine in the wire ; as they say " you can thread a gentle on them so much nicer," but I don't care for them, because if your hook is very short in the shank you cannot hook your fish properly (they do not strike sufficiently true on the point of the hook). Tie two hooks on two pieces of gut, the one with a short shank, and the other with a shank a little longer, and fix the points in something, and then pull the gut gently, and you will see then what angles the hooks and gut form. The one with a short shank will approach a right angle a great deal nearer than the one with the longer one ; so you will see by this that when you strike a roach with the short shanked hook, you will most probably draw the hook out of his mouth instead of into his jaw ; or, in other words, when you struck the fish, the hook failed to penetrate the jaw, because the angle formed by the point of the hook on the gut and shank was too great : whereas a longer shanked hook would have pulled straighter from the point. Hooks that are extra fine in the wire, too, have their objections. They will spring THE EOACH. 97 open when you strike a fish with them. A fish with a hard, leathery mouth takes a hook of this fine wire, and instead of it at once penetrating the jaw, it springs open, and the barb is not buried, and the result is the loss of the fish. I like a hook of a medium length in the shank, and moderately stout in the wire ; and if you take notice of your hooks, you will see that the points of some point outwards from the shank, while others point inwards. I like those pointing inwards, for I have fancied that I have hooked my fish better with them. When the point stands very much outwards, the hook is liable to cut itself out ; but when they stand inwards they are more liable to take, as it were, a fresh grip the further tliey go in. These hooks should be very neatly and closely whipped to the gut, and the best sizes you can use will be No. 8 lor the tail, end of lob- worms ; No. 9 for cockspurs, paste, creed wheat, or malt: Nos. 10, 11, and 12 for gentles, according to the biting of the fish, or the fineness of the water, and all these hooks should be the bright, round bend, Carlisle hooks. If the water is fine, use a small hook, and when you whip these hooks to the gut be sure and have the gut on the inside of the shank : and, as I have before said, use gut that is round smooth drawn, and of the very finest description. If the angler, however, fancies he would like a hair tackle, the best hairs for the purpose are those from the tail of a young chestnut horse. Black hairs are not so good J in fact, don't have them if you can get anything else. Personally, I have long since discarded hair in favour of the very finest gut, and this gut should be stainel as recommended in Chapter II. During the summer and autumn, or, indeed, any time when you can get them, gentles or maggots are the best bait you can have for roach. Some fishers like white maggots, and some yellow ; the yellow ones are the best ; they are best procured from a bullock's liver; hangth s liver up somewhere where the blowflies frequent, only before so doing slash it all over with a knife, the flies will then lay their eggs in the crevices ; when it appears to be sufficiently blown, it should be taken down and put in a vessel of some kind ; in a few days the eggs will have hatched, and in a few more will have fed themselves up to their full size. They should then H 98 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. be removed into another vessel half full of bran, and only a few pieces of the liver left with them to feed on ; as soon as they lose the dark spot, and assume a pale yellow colour, they are scoured and fit for the hook. They should be kept in a cool place, with plenty of air. The white gentles are bred from fish ; three or four cods' heads well blown, and treated in the same manner as the liver, make capital white maggots ; but the yellow ones are the best. Gentles can be kept far into the winter, and if the angler desires this, he should get his bullock's liver, or whatever it is, well blown late in the season, and then press it into a box that is half filled with sand and bran ; it is then covered over with the sand and buried in the earth, and when the angler wants to use his gentles a couple of months after, he will mostly find them in good condition ; gentles for ground bait can be procured from a bone or knacker's yard. These are not fit for the hook : "a quart or two of them will be sufficient to bait the swim ; in slow-ruuning swims on the Trent this is as good a ground bait as can be used. The angler scatters them in during the time he is fishing, and good sport is often obtained by this means ; indeed, it is more often practised by Nottingham anglers than any other plan for roach fishing. Two gentles are put on the hook, and the fisher throws in and lets his float swim down as far away as he thinks fit, very often thirty or forty yards from him. When the fish slacken in their biting he scatters them another handful of the coarse gentles, and a very few of the scoured ones. It sometimes happens when the angler is fishing with gentles and the fish are very shy — biting and nibbling very cautiously, though sufficiently to move the float — that the angler strikes time after time, and yet cannot hook his fish or only just feels them for a moment, and that when he has drawn out his bait he finds that his gentles are nothing but a bit of skin. The fish have sucked and squeezed the insides out. When this is the case I have found the best plan is to take off the No. 10 hook you are using, and whip on instead a No. 1 2, and instead of having two gentles on, only use one, and sticking the hook through the thick end of the gentle, just let it go twisting down the stream in a lively manner. VI. cieo^J* THE EOACH. 99 Sometimes I have managed to deceive a few after using this " dodge." If you can manage to find a few cad baits or if you have a few wasp grubs with you, you will find it to be to your advantage to change the baits pretty often, that is, if the fish are biting very slow and shy ; i.e., sometimes use one gentle, then two, or a wasp grub and a cad bait. 1 have found all these dodges to answer ; in fact, if the angler wants to be a successful roach fisher, he must try all the dodges that suggest themselves to him, but he must beware of overfeed- ing the fish, his business being to attract them and not to overfeed them. A quart or two of coarse gentles are plenty to fish a forty yards swim all day. Two or three handfuls of them are scattered in before the fisherman's tackle is put together, and then after he has got the proper depth he puts in another handful After this he takes about a dozen of his scoured gentles and throws them in, just to give the fish a taste of what they may expect. He only now renews his baiting when the fish give over feeding, and this must be done sparingly. Thus by all the dodges I have named, viz. changing the baits, fishing fine and far off, keeping out of sight as much as possible, he may manage to secure a bag of roach, should the day be anything like, even if the fish are only biting indifferently. If the angler has not been able to procure any coarse gentles and has only a few scoured ones with him, a very good substitute can be made for his ground bait as follows : — Take a basin-full of broken bread or refuse crusts and put them in a small receptacle, arid pour boiling water upon them sufficient to cover them. Put a cover over it then to keep the steam in, and let it stand an hour or two ; the water is now to be drained and the bread squeezed up so that no lumps are left. While the bread is going through the process of scalding, the operator can have a pound of two- penny rice in a bag boiling on the fire (be sure that the bag is big enough to allow the rice to swell), and when it is thoroughly cooked and the bread ready, a quartern or so of bran is added, and the whole mixed well together till it is a very stiff pudding. A handful or two of barley meal is an improvement to this. It is necessary to be sure that this h 2 100 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. mixture is made fresh just before it is wanted to be used, for it is apt to turn sour. Mind and make it up as stiff as you can, for if it is too soft it will rise to the surface and swim away. The. cost of this ground bait is only trifling, and I have proved its efficacy to my own satisfaction. The quantities I have given will make about a dozen lumps the size of your fist, and will be plenty for any ordinary swim. It is all the better if you can manage to drop two or three lumps of it in your swim the night before you fish, a round stone about the size of a large walnut being placed in each lump, which should be dropped in quietly. Be sure that the bran is sweet and not musty when this ground bait is being made, or your chance with the roach will not be a very good one. When this ground bait is used and one is fishing with gentles, a very few of the latter scattered down the swim will be an improvement. A little wrinkle I will also give you now : the biggest fish very often lie at the extreme end of the swim, and so don't be afraid to let your float go a few extra yards. I have seen splendid roach struck time after time when the float has been forty yards away, ay, and hooked too. Of course, paste, creed malt, or wheat, can be used in this style of fishing, and with that ground bait ; but good roach anglers adopt a different plan for paste baits. They use the paste and grain in nice quiet waters by the side of streams, just over some flags or weeds are very good spots, or where a corner or any obstruction forms a slow eddy ; in fact, anywhere in a very lazy stream that they know or think contains roach and is of four or five feet depth. Paste baits are fished as a stationary bait, and this style is locally known as " pegging." The tackle is the same as for the other method, and is hardly ever used or practised above a yard from the bank, unless the rushes or weeds extend further out. Your pill of paste is put nicely on the hook and then thrown out, the slight stream gradually works the float and bait down till it is from five to fifteen yards below you, according to circumstances, and it is then held stationary, the float indicating when you have a bite. I have taken good roach by this plan when the stream has THE ROACH. 10 L worked the float to within a foot of the bank. It is necessary in following this plan, to sit on the bank as low down as possible, so as to be as much out of sight as you can ; there should be a steady, gentle current for this style : you throw your ground bait in a yard or two above you, so that it works down the stream, you then try the depth, and arrange the float so that you are at least six inches deeper than the swim ; or deeper than this, if the current is a little stronger, and then you fish it, as already indicated. Capital bags of roach are often taken by this plan ; especially if the angler roves about after them, and tries every likely-looking pl;ue he comes to ; and I know places, or stretches of the river, a mile long, and every yard almost has been a suit- able place. Various plans are adopted for making paste*, but as good a paste as you can have is made of a bit of white bread crumb, the bread being dipped in water and squeezed until all the water is expressed, it is then worked up with the fingers to the proper consistency. This makes a capital paste for this " pegging " business. Some anglers say this paste is improved by adding a little honey and gin to it, but I have never found that to be any better than the plain paste. Coloured pastes are sometimes used with advantage; they are made exactly the same as the plain bread paste mentioned above, excepting the colouring. To colour a paste red I roll the paste about a lump of red lead, and work it well, until it assumes a nice pink colour. Don't get any more of the lead, however, among the paste than you can help. A little vermillion added to the paste is better, however, than red lead. Another coloured paste I use is made by adding a little chrome yellow to the bread paste. Some good roach have been taken by these coloured pastes, but I don't personally think they are an improvement, on the whole, on the plain paste ; when I fish with paste, it is very seldom I use anything but the plain. Nevertheless, I know a very good roach fisher who uses these plain coloured pastes, if I may be allowed the term, and he certainly does make some oood catches at times. The angler can, however, please himself, but whether he uses the plain or the coloured, when he makes it his hands must be perfectly clean, and it would be ]02 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. an advantage when the angler goes for a long day's paste fishing and the weather is warm, to take a bit of bread with him, so that he can make another lump of paste by the river side if necessary, as the one he mixed before he started would have a tendency to turn sour after a few hours. These pastes should be rolled up in a bit of damp white rag, and I suppose I need not tell you this ought to be clean. I might just say that new bread is nothing like so good as bread a day or two old, and home-made bread is not so good as that from the baker's. The ground bait that I have described can be used in this fishing, but anglers generally take a few pieces of bread with them, and chew them up and spit into the swim, or rather blow them out of their mouths, and some good catches of roach are sometimes made by this plan without any previous baiting. Creed wheat and malt are very good baits during the months of August and September, and are used a good deal on the Trent. An old angler has often told me that he does not consider the roach are in condition until they will take malt, and I agree with him. When I cook my malt and wheat I put it loosely in a calico bag and boil it in the kitchen boiler. Be sure you allow the corn to have plenty of room to swell however, that is, don't tie the string of the bag too close to the corn. I boil it in the boiler, because it then has plenty of water, and after two or three hours, when the skin cracks open and shows the white inside, it is ready. It looks nice, white, and clean when it is cooked like that, whereas some anglers stew it in a jar ; and when cooked like that it looks black, dirty, and disagreeable. This bait is used in the same manner as the paste, one or two corns being put on the hook ; for ground bait use brewers' grains. Beware, however, of overbaiting with brewers' grains, for many a good day's sport has been spoiled by a too free use of this ground bait. I have seen anglers come down to the river with a huge bag of grains and dash them in by the peck, when about as many as would fill a quartern measure would be ample ; the roach feed on these grains, and when fishing with malt I have taken roach with their mouths full of it. It is of no use fishing with malt and wheat before THE ROACH. 103 August. We don't expect cherries and plums on the trees in January, and the fish don't expect grain to be coming down the river only at harvest time. Instinct is sometimes stronger than reason, and to be a successful angler we must take lessons from nature herself. Before I have done with this paste fishing for roach, I will just shortly consider a very vexed subject among anglers, and that is, the question of scented pastes. Some say that roach are attracted long distances by scented baits, and grow quite eloquent about the merits of their chemically prepared pastes. Now I could never find out that they ever made a better bag of roach than could first-rate anglers using plain paste. True, we have odd cases of certain individuals who have made a good bag of roach by using these scented pastes, when other anglers in the same water and on the same day have failed to take any, but in the course of my experience I have only dropped across one angler who could do it, and he was an old pensioner living in the fens of Lincolnshire. He used to prepare his paste with something, and certainly it did smell very nice, and I know he has taken great catches of fish out of those large fen drains, but whether it would have acted among the educated roach of the Trent I cannot say. The old man promised to give me the recipe of how it was made, but I suddenly left that part of the world, and when I went back to visit the old man he was laid in the village church- yard. I have tried these scented pastes a time or two, but I must confess that my experiments have not been crowned with a deal of success. We know that experiments have been tried and fish have been attracted by chemically flavoured food, but whether they would not have been equally attracted by plain food is not shown. A short time ago a bait was advertised and sold under the name of " Ching," and the advertiser said it would take fish by the bushel, or rather, fish would take it and be caught by the bushel. 1 know some anglers who bought and tried it, but it turned out a delusion and a snare. I examined a bit and it looked to me to be nothing but a bit of bread, and it smelt as though it was flavoured with aniseed. I have an extract which has been taken from some fishing-book, in which the 104 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STtLR. following passages occur : — "An old Nottinghamshire angler to whom, when a boy, I was indebted for many valuable hints, told me that when fishing in the Trent, he used to meet an old collier, who was not only a most successful angler, but one who could lure the fish on to his hook when 'everybody else failed; this naturally excited the curiosity of the neighbouring fishermen, and as the taciturnity of the collier equalled his skill, they resolved to find out his secret. They watched him, and found that his pastes were coloured and scented ; but with what 1 After an investiga- tion not much unlike espionage, they discovered that a variety of essential oils, saffron, and balsam of Tolu entered into the composition of the old man's pastes, and that he changed them month by month to suit the varying appetite of the fish he angled for." A friend also told me a little while ago that when he lived at Stratford-on-Avon, there was an angler there who could catch quantities of roach with his scented paste ; he said he told him how to make it, and it was nothing but " oil of rhodium " that was mixed among the bread. My friend says he has been to and worked in several counties since then, and he could never do anything with it in any other river than the Avon ; in short, I don't believe in scented pastes, and I will leave the experi- ment of trying them to those who have more time on their hands than I have. Plain bread paste is good enough for me, when I feel inclined for a bit of paste fishing. Mr. King's " Natural Bait," however, is an exception to the general rule of bought nostrums. This powder, when mixed among the bread paste, forms a very white and tenacious bait, and is very attractive ; I have tried it and found it to be a genuine lure, as I have made several very nice bags of roach by its agency during the last two or three seasons ; a threepenny packet mixed in a lump of paste the size of a small hen's egg being plenty for a long day's fishing. As the winter advances and the roach begin to get in the deep holes, the cockspur worm is a good bait, as also is the tail end of a lob-worm ; large worms clipped up very small are the best ground baits you can use for this method, only, as I have before said, be very sparing with your ground bait, THE EOACH. 105 especially in the winter. When the water is very much discoloured any time during the year, worms are the best bait for roach, and when the water is rising the angler can fish on the grass slopes by the side. The fish are roving about, and are looking for food ; also when the water is low, keep your eyes open, and note where a nice grassy slope comes gradually out of the river, that is free from obstructions. This, when covered with a rising water, will be found a capital place to take roach with the cockspur or the tail end of lob ; but as soon as the water begins to go down again, the fish retire with it into the main stream, and it is very little good fishing in a falling water during flood time. I have taken good roach during the winter, when snow has lain on the ground, and the weather has been altogether disagreeable, by a little judicious baiting, and using the tail end of the hook bait ; anglers, therefore, need not despair, and think they cannot get any roach fishing. If they know the winter haunts of the fish, they can get some sport, and the roach they do catch in the winter with the tail end of lob are generally big fish and in splendid condition. Although roach, as a general thing, are found in deep, quiet water, yet in the early part of the season they are sometimes found in the shallows of a mill tail, or in the gravelly shallows that flow from a weir, and they may then be caught by a cad bait, or with gentles, fishing with a float and a short tackle. Jf the angler is so minded also, he can whip for them with an artificial fly — red and black palmers will be the best — and as an improvement he can put a gentle on the point of the hook. Eoach can also be taken by daping a live insect on the surface, in such places as follows : — Where a lot of weeds, &c, hinders you from float fishing, or in any place that you know contains roach, providing that there is something on the bank that will allow you to keep out of sight. A blow and the cowdung fly are the be.st for this purpose. There is also a certain water-weed (conferva rivalis) that roach will take as a hook bait, when they are vegetably minded. That roach are sometimes vegetarians I know, because I have 106 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. opened roach that have had some half-digested weeds in their insides, though catching roach with a weed bait is a branch of sport I have yet to learn. Ledgering for roach is not often practised on the Trent, but sometimes during a thick, heavy water it is tried with success. It resembles what I have described in ledgering for barbel, only the lead is smaller, the tackle finer, and the hook is a No. 8. The bait is of course a worm. The wind comes in for a fair share of odium, when the angler is only having indifferent sport, and east winds I know are not good for roach fishing, although I have known good catches to have been made when the wind is in the north, which I have heard some anglers say is a much worse quarter than the east. Roach can be caught when the wind is settled in any one quarter; it is when the wind is shifting about to all points of the compass in a few hours, that it is fatal to the success of the roach fisher. A rough wind is not good for the roach angler, and if we could have it as we liked, a west, or a south-west wind is the best of all. A morning when the rime frost hangs about every- thing should be carefully avoided by the roach fisher. If the sun should manage to struggle out and lick the rime off, then the angler might venture to go towards noon, with some chance of success. I remember that an old friend and I were once roaching on the Trent ; it was very cold, and the snow was falling fast. We were fishing with bread paste, and yet we managed to take a bag of fish, though the wind was in the east. I must confess, however, that in the winter roach fishing is very uncertain. More often have I been disappointed than I have taken fish, but neverthe- less, as I have before said, roach are to be taken in the depth of winter, if you know their winter haunts, and the day is anything like fair. Snow broth is fatal to your chance of success. Before I finish with the roach, I might say that occasionally the angler takes a fish that he sup- poses to be a roach, but which in reality is a rudd ; it has a more coppery tinge than the roach, is shorter and deeper, the back fin is nearer the tail, and while the roach has a projecting upper lip, the rudd has a projecting under lip. THE PIKE, CHAPTER VI. THE PIKE. 107 As this little book more particularly relates to tt Bottom Fishing in the Nottingham style," I ought strictly, perhaps, not to mention the pike, but as there are plenty of bottom fishers who occasionally indulge in a little pike fishing, per- haps a few hints to the tyro as to what a pike is like, and how to catch him, will not be unacceptable. The pike is a member of the Esocidse family, and his scientific name is Esox lucius. He is more frequently called the " Jack " by anglers nowadays, though formerly he was only called Jack when he was under four pounds, and " pike " when over that weight. The fish has also been termed " the freshwater shark," and certainly he deserves the name, for in very truth, he is a tyrant of the water. When hungry, the voracity of this fish is very great, few things seeming to come amiss to him. Hundreds of anecdotes are told about how he will seize anything from a flat leaden plumb, to the hand of a child. Among such anecdotes are references to his seizing a swan's head and neck, a mule's lip, a Polish damsel's foot, tender kittens and puppies, &c, &c. I have seen a pike come up with a dash, and snap at a water wag- tail that has stood on the edge of the water-weeds ; and once I had hooked a nice roach, and was getting it towards me, when, with a sudden rush, a large pike seized the roach, and the next instant both were gone. Pike will sometimes dash at a highly-coloured float under the impression, I presume, that it is something edible ; and will even swallow one of their smaller brethren or offspring perhaps. In fact, when hungry, the pike is perfectly ferocious, but when his appetite has been appeased, he is scarcely to be tempted. Practised pike fishers are well aware of this, and know the difference between the "runs" when he is hungry and when he is not. When not very hungry, he will mouth a bait and play with it, with- 108 BOTTOM FrSHLNG IN THE NOTTCNGHAM STYLE. out any intention of swallowing it, and will then allow him- self to be hauled about, and pulled up to the surface of the water, only, with a flap of his tail, to drop the bait from his jaws, and roll again over into the deep water. In spite of his voracity there are, however, some fish he does not care about. A tench is not a good bait, neither does he like a perch, although some do fish for him with small perch which have been denuded of their back fins. Although also he will take a frog, he will have nothing to do with a toad. Notwith- standing this, his voracity is great, for we read that, " shrouded from observation in his solitary retreat, he follows with his eye the shoals of fish that wander heedlessly along ; he marks the water-rat swimming to his burrow — the duck- lings paddling among the water-weeds — the dab-chick and the moor-hen leisurely swimming on the surface, he selects his victim, and, like a tiger springing from the jungle, he rushes forth, seldom indeed missing his aim : there is a sudden rush, circle after circle forms on the surface of the water, and all is still again in an instant." The pike when in good condition is a handsomely marked fish, his whole body is mottled with green, yellow, and white. One great characteristic of the pike is his dorsal or back fin, which is placed a deal further back than in most fishes ; it is opposite the anal fin and is very near his tail. The body is rather long and slender, rounded on the back, and the sides are very much compressed. What a head and mouth he has ! The very look of it is suggestive of ferocity, the head is de- pressed, the jaws are large, oblong and flattened, and furnished with a perfect phalanx of formidable teeth of various sizes ; his eyes are on the top of his head, and have a very villainous look with them. We can fancy the sensations of a shoal of roach or dace, when his head and eyes are suddenly thrust into view. I once saw a pike rush at and seize the leg of a duck, and a great quacking and flapping of wings was the result, and it is common to hear of pike drowning ducks, geese, and even swans, when they have seized them. In the case of the duck just mentioned, however, the pike was only about a four-pounder, so after a struggle the duck got away. In Ireland, 1 believe, a big pike will sometimes drown an THE PIKE. 109 eagle ; the eagle, it appears, having pounced on the pike when the latter has been basking near the surface, has embedded its talons in the flesh of the fish so deeply as to prevent its extricating them. A traveller corroborates this story by say- ing that he had himself seen a big pike with an eagle fastened to his back lying dead on a piece of ground which had been overflowed, but from which the water bid retreated. It will be seen from this that the pike, voracious as it is, is sometimes the prey of feathered enemies. The pike is a solitary fish, though big ones are often found in pairs. After floods and frosts, however, they may some- times be found collected together in numbers in favourable eddies, or in a backwater, or at the tail of an island, reed beds, or at the end of old locks, &c. Good ones are some- times found in the rough water of a weir also, and they are occasionally met with in a full stream. Generally, however, they prefer the quiet parts of the river. A deep corner away from the main stream, where a lot of reeds and rushes grow by the side is a sure find ; a backwater or a cutting that has an entrance from the river generally holds a few good fish ; while a big lake often is a perfect pike paradise. These spawn about March, and deposit their eggs on the weeds in shallow waters, such as ditches and backwaters, and after a short rest they scour themselves in the stream. After this they take up their regular haunts for the season. While they are performing the operation of spawning, such is their lazy and absorbed manner that they may nearly be taken out with the hand, and poachers profit by this, and either snai-e the fish or else catch them by snatching, though they are at this time very unwholesome as food, and ought not on any account to be taken. A pike in good condition is a good fish for the table, the flesh is white and firm, and of a deal better flavour than chub or roach. Those from a river and running water are a great deal better than those taken from a pond, and a pike out of season and condition is about as filthy a mess as can be tasted. Formerly, the pike was a scarce and expensive fish in England. During the reign of Edward I. (about the, close of the thirteenth century), jack was so dear that few could 110 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. afford to eat it, the price was double that of salmon, and ten times higher than either turbot or cod. In 1466, pike was one of the chief dishes in the high church festivals given by George Neville, Archbishop of York. In Henry YIII.'s time, also, these fish fetched as much again as house lamb in February, and a very small pickerel would sell higher than a fat capon. Pike under favourable circumstances and in good localities will grow to a remarkable size. I have heard that in some of the large lakes of Ireland they will attain the ex- traordinary weight of eighty pounds, and in Wales it is said there are enormous fish in its deep mountain tarns, but in England they do not exceed the weight of forty pounds, and it would require to be a carefully preserved and a very favourable water to possess one of even that weight. The lakes, broads, and meres of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Hunting- donshire are credited with holding some big fish. There is a story also of a monstrous pike being caught at Lillieshall Lime Works in 1765 out of a pool about nine yards deep, which had not been fished for ages. The water was let off by means of a level, and brought up to drain the works, when this enormous pike was found at the bottom ; he was dragged out by means of a rope in the presence of hundreds of spec- tators, and was said to have weighed upwards of one hundred and seventy pounds, and was thought to be the biggest ever seen. Such is the story, but whether it is correct or not, I cannot say ; it has, however, been placed on record as a fact. The celebrated naturalist, the late Frank Buck land, in writing about this fish, says, "From the days of Gesner downwards, more lies — to put it in very plain language — have been told about the pike than any other fish in the world ; and the greater the improbability of the story, the more particularly is it sure to be quoted." Jack, as a rule, do not run very large in the Trent, and it is only occasion- ally that one of twenty pounds is taken, but there are some districts where fish of that size or even a pound or two over are taken. The occasions are, nevertheless, very rare, and a Trent angler must be content if he gets one of that size during the term of his natural life. A ten-pounder ought to content him, a twelve-pounder make him happy, while one THE PIKE. Ill of fifteen pounds or over ought to make his heart rejoice to such an extent that he would call his friends and neighbours together and give them a banquet in honour of the occasion. An eight-pound fish is not to be despised, while one of six or seven as a fish for the table, and a bit of sport for the angler, especially out of a stream, is hardly to be equalled. It is true the pike is not a very good lighter j a ten-pound jack being nothing like a five-pound barbel for pluck and dogged resistance ; still, however, a five or six-pound jack on the light tackle of a Trent spinner, in a stream, is not to be despised. Two of the finest pike, I suppose, that have ever been taken out of English waters by the rod and line were taken a year or two ago by Mr. Alfred Jardine. They weighed thirty-six pounds each, or the two together seventy- two pounds. These are grand fish in the estimation of all anglers who have seen them, and are preserved, and were exhibited at the Norwich Fisheries Exhibition. I believe they received a valuable prize there as specimen fish. There must, however, be a great deterioration of the race of jack during these last few centuries ; for what are Mr. Jardine's fish, or indeed the monsters that have been taken from the Irish lakes, compared to that historical pike captured in the vicinity of Mannheim in the year 1497 a.d. 1 To one of the gills of this fish was found suspended a medal with the follow- ing inscription in Greek : "I am the first fish that was put into this pond by the hands of the Governor of the Universe, Frederick the Second, on the fifth day of October, 1232." By this it will appear that the fish had reached the ripe old age of two hundred and sixty-five years, and he is said to have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, measuring nineteen feet in length. His skeleton is said to be preserved in the Museum at Mannheim. Various are the methods employed for the capture of the jack. He can be shot, trimmered, huxed, and snared or snatched, but these are methods unworthy of a sportsman, and should be carefully avoided by the true angler. He legiti- mately is taken by live baiting, dead gorge fishing, and spin- ning with both the natural and artificial baits. Of all the methods that are adopted for the capture of the pike, spinning 112 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. is certainly the most scientific, and is practised more on the Trent than is any other style. I will commence with that, therefore, and shall be as brief as possible in my instructions, merely giving the tyro a few hints, so that he may know how to go on. Those anglers who would like to know the whole art of jack fishing, I would recommend to purchase Mr. Pennell's " Book of the Pike," which treats the subject in an exhaustive manner. The rod for pike fishing differs from the ordinary bottom rod in one or two particulars. It is stronger and stitfer, and is nothing like so fine at the extreme point, the rings also on it are larger, so as to allow the line to run freely through them without the possibility of a catch or tangle. My favourite pike rod is in three joints, twelve feet in length, fitted up with very strong and large-sized safety rings, as described in Chapter II. It is not necessary in a pike rod to have the Bell's Life rings on, although the angler can please himself, as scores of pike rods are so fitted. In a river like the Trent, where it is often necessary to swing your bait out extra long distances, and the rod is subjected to a severe strain, it should be built specially for the purpose. I like plenty of timber in the grasp of the hand, and the ferrule on the butt should be a size larger than the ordinary three-quarter inch one that is generally put on this class of weapon. Of course, when a rod is made after this pattern, extra long and powerful, it is apt to be heavy, but it need not on any account weigh more than from one and a quarter pounds to one and a half pounds at the most ; and in order to use this long rod comfortably, I have a big, hard-wood knob or button on the butt end, so that when I am spinning it can always be pressed and held tightly in the hollow of the thigh ; by this plan the bait can be swung out great distances with the utmost ease. For all ordinary purposes of jack spinning, perhaps, a light eleven- foot rod would be better, as being more handy to use, especially on a small river, or from a boat ; and pike rods are made in greenheart, very light and powerful, and also in mottled cane ; but, however, the would-be pike angler can please himself. Let him go to a good practical rod-maker, tell him what he wants, and in the end he cannot be very far out. THE PIKE. 113 The reel described and recommended in Chapter II. for the bottom fisher will be just the thing ; except that the size should be a four and a half inch one, as it will hold the line better, and the bait can be spun home much more comfort- ably ; and for a line I should use a plaited one, as they are better than the twisted ones. Select one of middling stout- ness, but not too thick or heavy. A Nottingham spinning line or one that is made by the Manchester Cotton Company is the best. Undressed ones are best, the dressed lines for spinning are not so good in my idea. The lines recommended are very cheap, and will do for any sort of pike fishing. To spin a bait properly the angler requires a trace, a lead, and a flight of hooks on which to fasten his bait. The trace consists of a yard of stoutish gimp with a steel loop and swivel on one end and a large loop on the other, to which the reel line is fastened. Some anglers use stout twisted gut for these traces, but gimp is the cheapest. On the bottom of this trace, and fastened to the steel loop and swivel is a lead, and a lead that hangs below the line is the best. I used to make these leads something in this fashion : — I took one of the long pear-shaped leads that are termed heavy corking weights on the Trent, and bent it slightly in the middle, so that it was in the form of a crescent. I next put a piece of gimp through the hole, and then one of the spring loops and swivels on the gimp, lapping the two ends of the gimp over each other, and binding them tightly together with a bit of waxed silk. The bound ends are then worked round till they are inside the hole of the lead, and the two pieces of gimp are next bound together to each end of the lead. A loop of the gimp is now at one end, and one of the spring loops and swivels at the other. The gimp loop of this contrivance is then hooked on the spring loop at the bottom of the trace, and this forms a first-rate lead. The desirability of having these leads is because they hang as it were below the line, and keep it from twisting and kinking, which it must do if the lead is only a straight one merely threaded on the gimp. A better lead than this has been brought out by the Proprietor of the Fishing Gazette, and is a decided improvement on the old system. I 114 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. At the bottom of the lead there is another foot of gimp or so. with a loop on one end and another of the spring loops and swivels on the other, and at the end of this last there is another foot of gimp with a small loop at one end, and the flight of hooks at the other. Some tyros may want to know why this trace, &c., cannot all be in one piece, without having so many pieces and so many swivels in it ? The reply is that the bait must revolve or spin in the water, and if there were no swivels on the trace it would not do that very well, to say nothing of twisting and kinking the line. I like plenty of swivels on my trace, and the spring loops and swivels may be bought at any tackle shop, being very cheap. These spring loops and swivels are also fastened together and are very useful things, as they enable the angler to disengage any part of his trace from the others in a moment. Some anglers only have their traces divided into two parts, with one swivel, but I like it divided into three or four with as many swivels, because if one swivel gets fast during the process of spinning, there is another to keep twisting. This, then, is the spinner's trace : and now for the flight of hooks. There are various flights in use, but the one that is known as the " Pennell " flight is the best. It is chiefly remarkable by having the lower hook or hooks formed like the letter S ; it also has a sliding lip hook and one or two flying triangles. This is a very simple arrangement and is a very deadly one. The sliding lip hoop, as you may infer from its name, is made to move up and down the gimp of the flight, purposely to adapt it to any-sized bait. A piece of line wire or gimp is whipped to the side of the hook, so as to leave two loops, one at the end of the shank and the other near the bend of the hook. The gimp of the flight is then put through the loop nearest the bend, and twisted two or three times round the shank, and then passed through the other loop. By loosening the coils of gimp that are round the shank, the lip hook can be shifted up or down to suit the requirements of a large or small bait. The lower hook, as I have said, is like an S, and between this hook and the lip hook there are one or two flying triangles, so called because they hang loose, and are not fastened in the bait at all ; they are on short pieces of THE PIKE. 115 gimp, which in turn are whipped firmly to the gimp of the flight. If dace are used as bait, two flying triangles are deemed best, but if gudgeon or bleak are used one is better. To bait this flight, it is best done in the manner described by Mr. Pennell himself ; the bottom or tail hook being inserted first : " The point is inserted by the side or lateral line of the bait near to the tail, and passing it under a broadish strip of the skin, and through the end of the fleshy part of the tail, bring it out as near the base of the tail as practicable Next insert the small reversed hook (the top hook of the S) in such a position as to curve the bait's tail to nearly a right angle ; finally pass the lip hook through both its lips, always putting it through the upper lip first when the bait is a gud- geon, and through the lower one first with all others. This is very important in securing a very brilliant spin." The flying triangles of course hang free. This is a splendid flight, but I fancied when I first made and used one, that it might be improved on a trifle. The bait spun well, but there was such a long distance between the bottom hook and the lip hook, and nothing to hold the gimp to the side of the bait, which would often buckle in the middle, and cause the gimp to stand away from the bait in an awkward manner. I there- fore had a smallish hook, and whipped it on the gimp the reverse way to the lip hook, somewhere between the two triangles, and then stuck it well in the side of the bait. I found that it acted well. Another kind of flight and one that is more used on the Trent than any other, is made with two or three fixed triangles and the sliding lip hook. These triangles are all whipped tight to the gimp, and just above the bottom one there is a single hook whipped on the reverse way. To bait this flight, take the bait and put one of the hooks of the bottom triangle into the flesh of the tail, bringing the point out on the same side ; draw up the tail so as to bend it well, and then put the reversed hook in to keep it bent, next insert one of the hooks of the second triangle in the side, and then one of the third triangle in the side near to the shoulder ; and lastly put or slide the lip hook down to the mouth of the bait and put it through both lips. The three triangles should i 2 116 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. be straight by each other along the side of the bait, and no loose gimp between them, or the bait will not spin so well. Another kind of flight that is mostly used by the more expe- rienced of the Trent professionals, and is considered by them to be the simplest and most deadly in use, is made with only one or two fixed triangles, and no lip hook at all ; I consider the two triangle flight to be the best. These two treble liooks are whipped tight to a length of gimp (sixteen or eighteen inches long, is right) as near to one another as possible, so that there is not above a quarter of an inch of gimp between the end of the shank of the end one, and the bend of the hooks of the other ; and there is a loop at the other end of the gimp. In baiting this flight, put the loop of the gimp in the eye of a baiting needle ; and pass this last in at the vent of the bait, and bring it out at the mouth, drawing the gimp after it, until the shank of the first treble hook is in the vent ; you then stick one of the hooks of the end treble well in the bait towards the tail, taking care however, before you do, to bend this latter downwards a bit; so that the hook will keep it bent ; and in order to keep the bait in good condition as long as possible, it is necessary to give it some little protection, or the strain of throwing soon tears open the vent and lets out the insides ; for this purpose the best plan is after the flight is baited as directed, you bring the loop of the gimp back again, and pass it under the gill covers, and again out at the mouth and draw tight ; this you will see holds the head of the bait as it were in a loop, and puts most of the strain where the bait is the strongest to bear it. The trace that we generally use to spin this flight with, is rather more simple in its construction than the one described some time back ; the bent lead is the same, only there is a brass box swivel at the thin end, and a buckle swivel at the other ; and you must be sure that this lead hangs below the line. Joined to the brass swivel is about a couple of feet of gimp, with a loop at the far end to attach the reel line to ; the loop of the flight is just looped in the buckle swivel at the thick end of the lead, and it is ready for use. This flight and spinning trace hcis the merit of being very simple, easy to make, and very VII. Trent spinning flight and trace. Page 116. Rod rings. Page 26. THE PIKE. 1J7 cheap, and yet very deadly in its use, for when a pike once takes the bait in his mouth, it is very seldom we miss him. The great attractiveness of a bait on this flight lies in the fact that it does not spin with perfect precision, but '* wobbles ;" it travels through the water in a curious spiral course, and not like the " Clipper," that in spinning looks like a glittering line of silver. Long and careful practice has taught me the fact that in spinning a natural bait for pike the more" it wobbles and the more strange its gyra- tions through the water, the more likely is it to attract the attention of the fish. In an artificial bait, now, the case seems to be different, for I have nearly always had the best success when the artificial used has been the truest in its spin, although I remember on one occasion trying a " Clip- per " well over a place where I knew there was a good fish without any success ; and some half-hour. or so after I got him the first cast with an old wobbling spoon bait — indeed one of our very best anglers told me some time ago that out of all the lot of artificials ever made, none of them would lick the old spoon ; but this is an opinion that I cannot agree with ; still I should advise anglers to carry a spoon bait with them when jack fishing. The flight as just noticed is not generally understood by anglers, so I have been very particular in my description of its make, its use, and its peculiarities. All sorts of flights are made that the ingenuity of man can suggest, or his hands form for the destruction of the jack ; but those described will be found entirely sufficient for the angler's purpose. I may just mention two more contrivances, however, that have been brought out for spinning with dead bait ; one is Mr. Gregory's 4t Archimedean " spinning tackle ; it is thrust in the mouth and down the belly of the bait ; the tail requires no bend as the fans at the mouth of the bait causes the spin. The other is a contrivance brought out by the Proprietor of the Fishing Gazette^ called the "Fishing Gazette Spinner," and is a capital contrivance with which to spin a dead bait. The triangles of an ordinary flight are simply inserted in the sides of the bait, without bending the tail, and the " Spinner " performs the spinning operation itself, which it does to perfection. 118 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. The baits for spinning are dace, gudgeon, bleak, and small roach. A bleak I may say is more frequently called a whitling on the Trent ; it is a brilliant bait, but soon wears out on the hooks j the others being tougher, last longer. A Thames spinner when he throws his bait pulls off the reel a sufficient quantity of line, and either gathers it in the palm of his hand, or else lays it in coils at his feet ; the Trent spinner avoids this by casting directly from the reel ; he winds up all the spare line till only the trace and bait hang from the point of the rod ; he has the forefinger of one hand laid lightly on the barrel of the reel, and then brings the point of the rod behind him, and makes his cast by sweeping the rod and bait smartly over the river, in the direction he requires. If the angler is not careful the reel is apt to turn so much faster than the line can travel through the rings, and a sad tangle is the result ; this can be avoided, however, and regulated by the forefinger that is on the barrel of the reel. When the cast is made the forefinger is lifted off, and if he sees it is likely to travel round too fast, he can check it again by laying the forefinger lightly on the edge of the revolving part of the reel. So soon as the bait strikes the water it can be stopped at once by pressing a little harder. It is rather difficult to get into the throw all at once, but as the saying goes, "It is easy when you know how ; " a little practice will soon put you up to it ; and when you do get into it, you can throw your bait anywhere you like to within a foot or so ; and thirty or forty yards are by no means uncommon distances. In casting from the reel, some anglers throw with one hand and some with the other ; that is, some have the right hand above the reel and some the left. I always throw in what I consider to be the proper manner : I tightly press the knob of my long rod into the hollow of the left thigh ; the fingers of the left hand are tightly clasped across the back of the reel, with the forefinger at the top and reaching over the barrel to the front plate, so as to be in readiness to stop the reel as already noticed ; the thumb is clasped over the rod, i.e. the rod is tightly clasped in the hollow between the thumb and forefinger; the right hand firmly grasps the rod about a foot above the THE PIKE. 119 reel, and then the cast is made as already indicated. I find this is the best plan to hold the rod, especially if the rod is a heavy one and the bait of the largest size. In the picture on the cover of the first edition of this work the angler is making a left-handed cast, with the left hand above the reel and the right below it, and is regulating, or stopping, the reel with the forefinger at the bottom edge of the reel instead of the top as in the right-handed cast. (I might say that the picture as just noticed would have been better if it represented the rod as being a little longer.) AY hen this left-handed cast is about to be made the rod point is in the opposite direction to what it is for a right- hand one, i.e. on your right hand for a right-handed throw, and on your left hand for the left. However, the angler will find it to his advantage to learn both styles, for some- times he may drop across a place that cannot be fished by a right-handed cast. "When you have thrown your bait, you wind up the line on the reel, and the bait comes spinning and glittering towards you like a thing of life, or more properly like a partly disabled fish trying to escape. Wind the bait as near to you as you can, lift it out of the water and repeat the cast ; never let the bait sink to the bottom, or the hooks may catch hold of some obstruction, and give you a lot of trouble to disengage them. Try all sorts of dodges also during spinning ; spin slowly, spin quickly, let the bait spin near the surface, or down deeper in midwater, or jerk it a little with the rod point ; act, in fact, all sorts of dodges. When you know there is a jack about, search all the water within reach of the cast well, don't let a yard of water go unfished. When a jack takes the bait, and he is hungry, he generally takes care that it shall not be a doubtful matter. Hit him rather smartly, as the hooks having rank barbs, would fail to penetrate the hard mouth of the pike if you did not strike well home. Some anglers, when they feel a fish, give him a few seconds' grace. This is not absolutely necessary, as a pike when he means to take a bait, seldom misses his target, and striking and hooking can be done at once, as well as if one waited. Pike are very often lost when spinning, but mostly through the carelessness of the 120 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. angler. Play the fish firmly but carefully, and keep a tight line on him, for if the line be slack and the hooks not very fast in, he will shake his head like a bulldog sometimes, and probably shake hooks and bait out of his mouth. We had rather a curious experience of this character two or three seasons ago. A very large pike had its home in the deep water of the u Corporation swim " at Winthorp ; every now and then he would startle anglers by suddenly, with a mighty swirl and rush, coming surging into the bream swim just below, and on one or two occasions robbing their hooks of a large roach or a pound bream. Of course he was not allowed to continue this little game without some effort being made to stop him ; and several of our best pike-men made that particular one the object of their especial attention. During that season he was hooked no fewer than half a dozen times, and always — lost. " Strange this," you may say, but nevertheless it was no more strange than true ; he clean beat several of us (and I have to own that I was among the list of beaten ones). He seemed to prefer a small roach on the wobbling flight, as noticed a little while ago ; and we fancied that he seemed to enjoy the fun of being hooked. When a favourable breeze used to ripple up the water, and tiny waves liplapped among the stones at our feet, some one or other of us used to stand on a particular ledge of the bank and throw over him ; when, sometimes at the very first cast, out he used to come with a rush that made our hearts leap into our throats, and snatch at the bait like a hungry dog at a bone, hardly ever missing his grab ; then we used to strike — well, some — till the line tightened with a heavy " thung." Back into his home went the fish with a bang that made the reel screech again, and then in an instant he would double again, and come towards you at a pace that fairly baffled all efforts to wind the line on the reel, so as to keep a tight line on him ; the next instant he rose to the surface, shook his head like a terrier with a rat, the hooks would then come out of his mouth, and with a swirl of his mighty tail he vanished into the depths below. This was the experience that a full half-dozen of us had to undergo, and some of them two or three times over. I am THE PIKE. 121 afraid there was a good deal of language let loose on those occasions that will not bear printing in this book : anyhow, he was an oldish customer, a u regular sneezer," said one defeated angler j u an out-and-out top sawyer," said another ; but, however, he met with an inglorious end, after having had a narrow escape at the hands of Joe Corah, who got a flight made with some extra large hooks, and got him partly out — (no landing-net or gaff-hook with him of course). He having incautiously put his fingers under its gill covers for the purpose of landing it, got the skin scraped off for his pains. The fish now made a last despairing kick and plunge, the hooks flew from his mouth, and he rolled into the deep water, and was seen in that swim no more ; sic transit Gloria Mundi. A few months after he was taken in the salmon nets, but his past glory and strength had vanished ; he was as long and as thin as a rail, his inside partly eaten away with some dire disease, and his weight was only twenty- two and a half pounds, if my memory proves correct, whereas in the days of his prosperity he was thought to be thirty pounds at the very least. There are two useful lessons that the angler may learn from this anecdote ; one is, if beaten with a big fish by using an ordinary flight, try some bigger hooks j and the other is, never go jack fishing without a big landing-net, or a strong gaff-hook ; the latter for choice, because you might get hold of a big fish, and if you do, your chance is all the better by having one of these to help you. When you have landed your fish, the next job is to get the hooks out of his mouth, and it is "ware hawk " here. Don't put your fingers in his mouth, or indeed, close against it, for he can bite, and to some tune too. He will snap at you like a savage dog, and if he once gets a fair hold, you will most likely remember it for the rest of your natural life. The best plan would be to rap him over the head with something heavy, and then force his mouth open with a bit of stick, pulling out the hooks with a pair of flat-nosed pliers. Contrivances have, however, been brought out on purpose to prop open the mouth of the pike, so that the hooks can be disengaged without fear of the fish closing his jaws over your hand. Before concluding spinning 122 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. for pike, I may be allowed to again refer to Mr. Gregory's " Archimedean Spinner " in detail. Its merits are so obvious that it were a pity to omit description. It consists, as I have said, of a long brass hook and lead to thrust down the belly of the bait, three triangles, a single hook to stick in the head of the bait, and the " Archimedean fins " at the head to cause the spin. To put on a bait properly, thrust the brass hook with the lead, in the mouth of the bait, and down the belly, with the point towards the belly, taking particular care that the head of the bait is brought as closely up between the Archimedean fins as possible j when you have done this, the bait will be perfectly straight ; next bring over the hook at the top, and send it well into the head of the bait, and adjust the treble hooks to suit the size of the bait you are using. This can be done by draw- ing the gimp through the tubes, but take care the hooks are not twisted before putting on the bait, or the gimp will not draw properly through. A six-inch dace is as good a bait as you can use with this tackle. Do not bend the tail at all, let it be perfectly straight, and the fins of the tackle will cause the bait to have a brilliant spin. Mr. Gregory tells me that with this very tackle, in the season 1880-81, he killed fifty-eight fish. I might just mention that these tackles are made in five sizes, two for pike and three for salmon and trout. I must now just caution the angler to examine and test his hooks, and the spring loops and swivels, before he makes his tackle, or if he buys his tackle ready-made before he uses them, for I have lost a good fish or two by the spring loop snapping at the bend, and the hooks of the flight either breaking, or pulling straight. If the angler wishes to fish in a backwater, or any other place that is choked up with weeds (and he cannot very well use the spinning bait there), he fishes with what is called the gorge bait. The gorge hook is a double hook securely fastened to some stout twisted brass wire, about six inches in length. Around the shank a piece of conico- cylindrical shaped lead is cast, and to bait this it is necessary to have a flat baiting-needle, about seven inches long. Put the loop of the tackle in the eye of the needle, and push the THE PIKE. 123 point of the needle in at the mouth of the bait, then drive it right through the body, and bring it out between the forks of the tail. The lead is now pushed into the belly of the fish, until the hooks lie by the side of the mouth ; next the tail can be tied to the gimp, then hang the loop of this contrivance in the spring loop at the bottom of the trace, and it is ready. In the weedy places where this is used, there may be a few holes and openings that are comparatively free. Drop or throw the bait into these openings, and work it with a series of jerks up and down, letting it sink to the bottom, and then drawing it to the surface with a jerky motion. When a fish seizes the bait, the angler must let him take it where he likes, letting out the line from the reel, so that the fish shall not feel any obstruction. The fish begins to swallow the bait ; when he stops, — and the angler allows him ten minutes to perform this operation, unless he begins to move off before, — at the end of that time, wind up the line and pidl a little ; striking is not necessary, as the pike most likely has got the bait down his belly, and all the striking in the world won't make it any faster. This is a plan of fishing that I don't like, because if you only hook a pound fish or he swallows the bait, you cannot return him to the water — he must be killed. I don't practise this plan, if the place can anyhow be spun over. Another method of pike fishing is by live baiting. For this method, the spinning trace is dispensed with, and a single length of gimp, about two feet long, is used. At the bottom of this there is an arrangement of hooks, and at the top a loop ; the hooks are generally a triangle at the bottom, and a little above it there is whipped a smaller single hook. This small hook is fastened to the fish, at the side near to the back fin, by the help of the baiting-needle, and the triangle hangs loose against the side near to the belly of the bait. A double hook is sometimes used instead of a triangle, especially if the water is fine, because the hooks will lie closer to the side of the fish, and the pike not notice them. Another sort of live-bait tackle is made by merely having a double hook on the bottom of the gimp : the baiting-needle is passed under the skin, near to the shoulder of the bait, and brought out a 124 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. couple of inches lower down, the gimp is then drawn through until the shank of the hook is under the skin, and the hooks are laid close to the side of the bait. The " Jardine " live- bait snap is a very useful and simple one, being merely two treble hooks (but one of the hooks forming each treble is smaller than the other two) fastened at the proper distance from each other on a length of gimp. In baiting, the small hook of the end treble is put well into the shoulder fin of the bait, and the small hook of the other treble in the back fin ; very good, very simple, very cheap, and a good killer. Tho " Saddle " live-bait snap is another very useful one ; it has two treble hooks of the same pattern as the " Jardine," but each one is on a separate bit of gimp, about six inches long ; the other two ends of these bits of gimp are fastened together in a small brass swivel, so that each hook hangs independent of the other ; at the other end of the swivel there is another length of gimp, about two feet long, in baiting this the small hook of one treble is firmly fixed in the bait on one side near the head, and the small hook of the other treble is fixed in on the other side near the tail, so that the bait swings as it were in harness. A large float is used with these baits, and is put on the line, and there- after a running lead which is fastened halfway between the float and the bait. When a pike takes these live baits, I advise you to give him a minute or so to get it well into his mouth, but don't give him time to gorge it, and then strike smartly. A single hook is sometimes hung through the lip of a bleak, or a small dace, by way of a live bait ; but a pike when he takes this bait must have time to gorge. There are several other sorts of snap hooks and live-bait tackles that have been introduced to the public, and amongst others an arrangement in which a live bait can be fastened to the tackle by means of india-rubber bands, instead of having the hooks stuck in the body of the bait. For that, however, and other inventions, I must refer the angler to the nearest tackle-maker. All sorts of creatures have been recommended as baits for pike, such as frogs, rats, mice, small birds, &c, but I don't much believe in any of them, except, perhaps, the frog. THE PIKE. 125 I might just mention that there has heen a live-haft tackle lately brought out and patented, called " The Derby Live-Bait Harness/' which is an arrangement for fastening a live bait secure, without having to stick any hooks in him at all, and according to all accounts this is a great improvement on previous attempts to make pike tackle after this plan. Pike are not confined to fish or spinning baits, for I know that sometimes they will take a worm. A friend once took lour pike about four pounds each with a worm on fine roach tackle out of one hole in about an hour ; he hooked the lot in the corner of the mouth, or else perhaps they would have cut the gut and escaped. I also have taken an odd one or two with the worm, and I have lost some owing to the fish severing the gut with their teeth. Artificial baits for pike are so numerous and various in design, that to give a de- scription of them would require a very long chapter. The old-fashioned spoon bait is still used a great deal, and kills fish ; but improvements have been brought out these last few years, that we now very seldom see the old spoon bait in the hands of a scientific pike fisher. First and foremost among the artificial pike-bait makers stands Mr. Gregory of Birmingham ; his baits are splendid articles and beautifully finished. I have tried the " Colorado," the " Clipper," the u Windsor Bee," and the "Fishing Gazette Spoon." These are all grand baits, and spin well in dead water ; and where there is a difficulty in procuring fish baits, they are very good substitutes. I can most cordially recommend any of thot*e baits to the angler. Another sweet little bait Mr. Gregory has just brought out is called the " Wheeldon." It is a lot smaller than the others, and for small pike, or waters that contain no fish heavier than four pounds, it will be found just the thing ; it looks to me to be admirably suited for perch spin- ning. If perch are inclined for running at your spinning bait, one of these will be just the lure for them. There are also "Phantoms," " Plano-convex baits," "Archimedean minnows," and artificial fish in every shape, style, and size, which, as I said before, would take a very long chapter to describe ; but this is already drawn out to a greater length 126 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. than I had intended, and so I must refer the reader to the tackle makers. The baits mentioned above are plenty good enough for me, and any one of them will kill when the pike are inclined to feed, but I suppose I need not say that natural fish baits are the best, if you can get them. Pike will sometimes take a very large artificial fly, if fly it can be called. Its body is as thick as a man's finger, and the wings are two peacock's feathers, and it is as big as one of the stuffed humming-birds that you see in glass cases. It is worked over weeds and open places, with a series of jumps and bobs. The late Frank Buckland gives such a funny method of making an artificial pike bait, that I really must reproduce it here. He says, " Procure the tip of the tail of a brown calf ; remove the bone, and substitute a slip of cork ; make a head with a champagne cork ; put into it boot buttons for eyes, attach a piece of leather boot-lace for a tail, and dress with ordinary hooks. These big lake pike, who are very artful fellows, will not be up to this calf's-tail bait — they will take it for a swimming water-rat, and the chances are that they will snap at it, especially on a windy day." One word, and I have done. The angler should always pay very great attention to weed-beds, reeds, and flags, or a sheltered shallow corner, in the immediate vicinity of a deep hole, or just below an island, where the stream is, as it were, broken in two, and a quiet eddy formed in the middle. These are all favourite places, and some good pike are often found therein. SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 127 CHAPTER VII. SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. When I first struck out the lines and put my rough notes into shape for this little volume on bottom fishing in the Nottingham style, I had not the slightest intention of giving the novice any instructions at all on fishing for salmon ; but this famous style is rapidly getting into universal use and increasing popularity in many of the fishing districts of this empire ; so in the hope that it may prove interesting and useful to those anglers who can occasionally indulge in a little sport of this kind, I am tempted to add a short chapter on the subject ; but it will only be a very short one. just giving the outlines of worm fishing and spinning as it is practised on the Trent for those fish. At the outset it is only right and fair to say that I am only a working-man angler, whose experience of fishing is almost exclusively confined to the lower Trent ; I have not travelled all over the three kingdoms in my search for sport ; consequently I cannot say whether this plan would answer well on the famous salmon streams of the north. Being a navigable river, and in some parts of its course winding about most wonderfully, the Trent has a remarkable diver- sity of surface and streams ; at some points there are long deep stretches that flow on calmly and gently ; at others it goes rippling along over the gravelly shallows ; then anon it is compressed into its narrowest bounds, and the water goes surging through in a strong current j then again it widens out very considerably, and forms those still and quiet lagoons that is the home of the bream and the pike ; or after weeks of dry weather when the parched and thirsty earth has been cracking open in all directions, then our river is as sluggish as possible, and can be fished in most places with the very lightest of tackle ; or when the scene changes, and constant 128 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. and heavy rains on the hilly districts causes it to rush along in a tearing, foaming flood, sometimes obliterating well-known and familiar landmarks, undermining the banks, till with a gurgling splash, great masses roll into the depths below, and often altering completely the character of what had been well-known swims till then. When we take into consideration all these facts, and prac- tical experience has taught us that the tackle that can be comfortably used in one stretch would be next to useless in another, perhaps it would be difficult to lay down a hard and fast line as to the tools required for this especial business. The old saying that " When doctors differ who can agree 1 " can be applied to salmon fishing with much more force than to any other branch of angling ; for even in such a simple method as the Nottingham style we find great authorities differ very widely in the general mode of pro- cedure. Some of the Derby men — and they are considered good hands at this particular business— use cane rods fifteen or sixteen feet in length, and consider none others will do so well, as a swim fourteen feet deep cannot be fished with a shorter rod, utterly forgetting when they bring in a verdict like this that the Slider float is specially made to meet a case of this kind, and to render it comparatively easy to fish a swim even double and treble as deep as the rod is long. Then, again, some great authorities assert that in order to fish for salmon in the Nottingham style it is necessary to have a heavy and long greenheart rod ; others say that the line must be fished as a tight line, while others go quite opposite, and say it must be loose ; another will say that you must have a float, and still another that a float is of no earthly use at all. In the face of all these conflicting opinions, the novice is apt to get puzzled, and scratch his head in sheer despair. In this short chapter I shall try in the plainest possible language to put him in possession of what I by practical experience consider to be the best and safest plan. I don't want it to be understood for a moment that the plan I describe will answer well in any and every salmon stream, for there is a wide difference between a navigable river like the lower Trent and one of those famous northern SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 129 streams with the water rushing and swirling among the huge boulders of its rock-bound course, with here and there a deep and mysterious pool; perhaps flung into sombre shadow by the dark reflection of some giant mountain. Salmon angling as practised by some of the cleverest adepts in the art, those who know the use and mysteries of the long fly rod, the reel, the line, and the whole of the beautiful flies that excite the admiration of us poor bottom fishermen, is a sport of the very highest order j and when other sports are given up in favour of this, it is very seldom that the sports- man lays it on one side again, until his tottering feet refuse to carry him in safety over the stony bed of the river, and his enfeebled hands cannot grasp the rod with their past strength and vigour. Even some of us humble bottom fishermen — to whom I claim to belong — can feel some of this attractive power; for who can forget it when he lias once seen his float shoot under the surface, and felt the first wild, mad rush of a fresh run salmon ? certainly not I. " Hech mon," said one worthy Scotch parson to another, " when ye get up o' the fine Sabbath morn, and find the river i' splendid ply, don't ye jist feel tempted to tak' a cast o' her ? " " Nay ! nay ! brither," replied the other, " I dinna' feel tempted, but I jist gang." Ah ! well I suppose it always will be so, this feeling of sport ever uppermost, and " once an angler, always an angler," will be the motto emblazoned on our escutcheons. Volumes have been written about the art and glory of fly fishing for salmon, and some of the writers have utterly condemned any other plan for capturing the "King of Fishes," while to use a vulgar worm is dubbed " unsports- manlike," and even "rank poaching;" but why the plan should have applied to it these terms I fail to see, because it is a well-known fact that on some salmon rivers the angler may flog the water with his fly till his arms are stiff and then not succeed in rising one single salmon (fish, I was going to say, but a big chub might take the fly) ; where- as if a bunch of worms was tripped along the bottom the chances will be all in the angler's favour ; or, to come a step nearer fly fishing, a good artificial " Devon " or a 130 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. " Derby Killer " would prove successful when a fly would be utterly useless, although, as the Editor of the Fishing Gazette forcibly put it in a footnote to a letter in that paper a few weeks ago, " the salmon might be educated to it by persis- tent fly fishing," There is something in this that is well worth the attention of our salmon fishermen, because the Trent is a salmon river on which the fly, let it be fished ever so cunningly, seems to meet with little or no success. As to the natural history of the salmon, his nature and habits, I shall say nothing in this chapter beyond what I have already hinted in the few remarks above, nor shall I give a single hint as to fly fishing for him ; but as briefly as possible I will glance at the modus operandi of the worm fisher and spinner. A diversity of opinion exists even among our Trent men as to the length, the weight, and the pliability of the rod for this business ; but I fail to see the utility of carrying about a rod one foot longer or one ounce heavier than is absolutely necessary to meet the requirements of the case. The ordinary twelve-foot strong barbel rod will do very well for worm fishing for salmon, for it is a patent fact that if a rod will kill a ten or twelve-pound barbel easy, it stands a very good chance of killing a salmon ; in fact, I can remember a light eleven-foot roach rod and one of the finest of drawn gut tackle, killing a very nice fresh run fish of nearly eight pounds in weight, and another of sixteen pounds was got on an ordinary light chub rod j it would, however, take up more space than can be spared in this chapter to give an account of all the odd salmon that have been killed in the Trent by these rods when barbel and bream fishing, even those that have come under my own observation ; but I must mention the case of the very biggest that ever I saw killed by one of these ordinary barbel rods. Tom Bentley was fishing with worms a short distance above Newark, when he, at twenty minutes past twelve one day, hooked a fish, and at twenty minutes past four — or after a struggle lasting exactly four hours — succeeded in landing a magnificent salmon; short, thick, and in splendid condition, weighing no less than thirty-two and a half pounds. It was exhibited SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 131 on a slab in the shop of Mr. Kelly, fishmonger, Castle Gate, Newark, and was much admired. There is no question as to the accuracy of this statement, for I saw the rod when it was bending to the weight of that fish ; besides this, the local bench of magistrates had something to say on the subject, as our old friend Tom was fishing without a licence from the Trent Board. If the angler wishes to combine spinning with float fishing, or even fishing with a running lead where float fishing would be out of the question, it would perhaps be as well to have a rod built for the purpose, one that shall be light and handy enough to throw out a float well, and yet strong enough to stand the wear and tear of spinning, as an ordinary barbel rod would hardly have this much to be desired combination. I had hold of a rod the other day that seemed to me to be just the very thing ; it was built after the pattern of a Nottingham barbel rod, except that it had rather more timber in its construction, and was when put together twelve feet six inches in length ; it was not so stiff as an ordinary pike rod, but notwithstanding this I believe it was more powerful ; it had a hard- wood knob on the butt end for the purpose of resting the rod in the hollow of the thigh while fishing. It tapered beautifully, and struck splendidly straight from the very point ; altogether it looked to me to be just the very beau ideal of a Nottingham rod for fishing for heavy and powerful fish; I might add that it only weighed one pound six ounces. I carefully took its measure, and intend before very long to make myself one as near like it as possible. The ordinary plain 4J inch reel, or the centre pin, or Mr. Slater's patent reel as described in Chapter II., will be just the very things for this business, and it won't matter which the angler has, as one will do about as well as the others; however, he will have to regulate that according to his pocket. For a line I should recommend the strong silk twist, barbel size ; some anglers say that an eighty yards length would be quite sufficient, but he might meet with a fish that would take that lot out, and still want more ; and as these lines are less than two shillings each, it would be k 2 132 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. scarcely wise to risk losing fish and tackle for the sake of an extra line, so I should say have two and join them very neatly together, then he will he prepared for any emer- gency ; besides, when one line gets worn he could change it end for end, and so use the other one ; these lines are plenty strong enough, and yet not too thick to comfortably use with a float. For fishing slow-running streams, the angler can have if he likes a large-sized pelican quill float, but I prefer three or four cork floats of various sizes, because in salmon fishing with the worm it is necessary to have a large-sized bait, and to have your tackle weighted so that the bait is always well on the bottom ; so that a small cork float that will carry some eight or ten BB split shot in addition to a small corking weight will be found the best for streams that only run moderately fast ; while for deeper, heavier swims, he can have a larger float and increase the number of shot on the tackle or the size of the corking weight lead ; and he must not forget to have a fair-sized slider float for fishing swims that are above twelve or thirteen feet in depth, although I can fish a swim fourteen feet deep without a slider, but with an ordinary cork float and a twelve-foot rod, and throw the bait out thirty yards from where I stand ; but, however, it will be necessary to have a slider float as all anglers are not alike in their management of a rod (full directions for making a slider will be found in Chapter II.), only it should be a good-sized cork float. The bottom tackle is a very important part of the outfit, and the angler should be very particular when he makes this, and see that every length of gut is strong and sound ; it need not be too thick and coarse ; the best, the cleanest, the roundest, and the strongest lengths picked out of a hank of good strong barbel gut will be found all that is required ; he need not go to the expense of giving say fifteen shillings or a pound for a hank of salmon gut, when the other will do just as well ; and he should also see that every knot is firm and strong, so that the salmon, heavy as he is, cannot pull them asunder ; this gut should be stained with the slate-coloured dye as described in Chapter II., and the angler must re- SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 133 member that before he ties the lengths together he should steep them at least half an hour in lukewarm water, so as to render them pliable, and the knots come together firm and strong. In tying the lengths together, the knot as described in Chapter II. will be found aU that is required. Although some anglers object to salmon tackle being tied with this knot, they prefer another sort of double knot that is tied after this fashion : lay the two ends of two separate pieces of gut together till they overlap one another about a couple of inches, with the other ends pointing in opposite directions ; a single knot is then tied with the two overlapping ends in the centre, but it is not drawn tight, but left as a sort of small ring or eye ; then take the long length and the short one that are on the right side of this eye and pass them both through again from the opposite side, and then draw tight. This is a very sound and secure knot, but it looks much more clumsy than the other. These knots will be all the better if the ends are not cut close off, but about a quarter of an inch left at each side, and bound neatly and closely with a bit of well-waxed silk each side the knot ; about four feet will be the proper length for this tackle. And now the angler will want some hooks, and the very best in my opinion will be the round bent, bright Carlisle, and the best size for the bottom one will be a No. 2, and there should be a No. 4 as a lip hook, tied so that they will be about two inches apart from bend to bend ; these hooks should be whipped on with thin but strong silk, waxed with shoemaker's wax, and as near up to the bend as possible, or rather, I might say, till the whipping is level with the barb, taking care, however, that the whipping should be done as closely and as strongly as possible ; then the angler should get a pinch of vermillion and mix it with two drops of the spirit varnish described in Chapter II., and with a small camel's hair brush just touch the whipping over with it, and this will make the hook whippings the same colour as the worms you use for bait, besides protecting the lappings, and giving them a good and glossy finish ; the split shots can be added when the angler gets to the riverside to use it. I think I have now made it pretty clear to the novice as to the tackle required for 134 BOTTOM PISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. worm fishing with, a float for salmon ; no lengthy list of articles is required that would involve him in a very great expenditure ; but I had nearly forgotten to mention that he ought to have a good strong gaff hook and staff, but this need not cost him above three or four shillings. A stout clearing ring and cord would be a very useful thing in one of his coat pockets, in case his tackle should get fast over some obstruction on the river bottom. If the angler is in the habit of spending a lot of his spare time by the waterside, he will probably notice the places that the salmon frequent, for they very often jump clean out of the water, and drop on the surface again with a splash as though a big dog had been thrown in. He will soon notice that the places where they are seen to jump the most are those deep steady swims which the barbel fishermen patronize so much ; although sometimes he may see them jump from a shallow rapid current ; but still the deep steady swims are the best to try for them in, as these are their resting-places in their journeys up and down stream. We will suppose now that the angler has selected a swim, and clipped up some half a dozen or so big worms and thrown them in by the way of a bit of ground bait, and has put his tackle together with the corking weight on the line close to the loop of his bottom tackle, and his split shots on the latter, sufficient to cause his float to ride nicely down the stream, with the red-tipped quill and about half an inch of the cork out of the water, and has baited his hooks after the following plan : he takes a fair-sized well-scoured lob-worm, and sticks the bottom hook in it about an inch from the head end, and brings it out again about the same distance from the tail, till, in fact, his worm has been worked up the gut as far as the lip hook, then this latter is stuck through the head of the worm to hold it in its position, the point and barb coming right through; he then takes another worm about the same size as the first and hangs its head end on the lip hook, and its tail on the bottom hook, so that there is at least an inch of each end left free to wriggle about ; then he wants another worm rather smaller than the other two, and this he hangs on the bottom hook by about SALMON F1SHENG IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 135 the middle, so as to form altogether a real good lump of worms with plenty of ends to wriggle about. You want a real good-sized bait for a salmon, and if you could firmly thread on your hooks four good big worms your chance of getting a run would be all the greater. You now make your cast either direct from the reel or by pulling down the line from between the rings of the rod, as most fully explained elsewhere. When the cast is made and the float has settled into its position, the knob of the rod is, as already indicated, dropped into the hollow of the left thigh, the left hand firmly grasping the rod close against and partly on the top edge of the reel back with the fingers in readiness to act as a brake or check to the revolving part of the reel the very moment that check is required ; then with the finger and thumb of the right hand you pay off the line, so that the float shall travel down the swim without any catch or hindrance whatever, taking care, however, that there is no slack line between the rod point and the float if you can help it When the float has travelled down the swim, say thirty or forty yards, or whatever length it is, without a bite, you wind it back again and repeat the operation. I believe I have before given an outline of fishing a swim in this style, but in spite of this the plan does not seem to be thoroughly understood by anglers generally, so I hope it will not be thought a waste of time if I have just looked at it again in detail. If the angler gets a bite, he allows the salmon a second or two to get the bait well into its mouth and then strikes sharply, at the same moment pressing his finger-ends on the edge of the revolving portion of the reel, so that his stroke shall take effect and the hook be driven well home. After this takes place, of course the angler has to be guided very much by circumstances, checking his reel, letting it run, or winding it home as well as he can ; but he will soon find out the best and quickest plan to kill his fish, I myself prefer to use my finger ends as a check, and would not give a penny for a check action to the reel, if that check action was only to be used as a help to kill the fish ; indeed, I think this killing the fish with your fingers on the edge of a fast revolving reel to be the true Notting- 136 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. ham style of salmon fishing. It sometimes happens that the angler sees a salmon roll up out of a sharp, rattling stream that is not above four feet deep, and has a tolerably level sandy or gravelly bottom without any big stones or obstruc- tions in its course. A place like this is best fished with a rolling lead, and no float at all. For this plan the tackle can be the same as for float fishing, except that it need not be above a yard in length, with two or three swan shots on it at intervals. The hooks and the bait are exactly the same as before, and the lead can either be a flat ledger or a couple of the long pike leads ; I should prefer the latter, as they will be less likely to catch over any obstructions on the bottom, and easier set free if they do catch. These leads can either be threaded on the line close against the loop of the tackle, or they can be done as recommended by some of our very best fisherman, i.e. fastened on a separate short bit of gut, a lot thinner and weaker than the rest of the tackle, so that they hang independent of it ; a short bit of gut will do with a loop at one end, so that when the angler fastens his reel line to the loop of his bottom tackle he can fasten the leads on at the same time. If during the passage of his bait down the stream the leads should happen to get firmly hitched under a stone, why, by the gut there being the thinnest it would break first, and the angler only lose his leads, instead of both leads and tackle, as he would do if they were threaded on the line. This bait is thrown direct from the reel as described in ledgering and spinning for pike, and is allowed to travel down the stream (the angler will feel the leads roll along the bottom), letting the line run off the reel so as not to check the bait, but remembering always to keep a tight line as the bait runs down the swim. After it has travelled the required distance, which need not be above forty yards unless special circumstances require it, the angler winds up the line on his reel and repeats the cast. This plan of fishing a salmon swim is in my opinion a very good one, but it must not be confounded with plumbing and ledgering, in which the bait is fished as a stationary one ; it is, as I have just hinted, a travelling bait, pure and simple — your bait is all the while travelling or rolling down the swim SALMON FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 137 from one end to the other of it. I know of several swims where it is absolutely necessary to fish in this style, there not being above four or five feet of water and a very strong current, so much so, in fact, that no matter how heavy your lead is, it will travel along the bottom at a very rapid rate ; in fact, it is very hard work to fish a strong swim properly in this style; you cannot throw your bait out and rest the rod across a forked stick and sit on the bank and lazily watch the rod point for a tug, but you must always have rod in hand and eye and fingers always on the alert. By this plan the angler is enabled to cover a lot of water, and if he is sure of his ground as to what sort of a bottom it is, it will be best to first have a few swims as near to the bank on which he stands as possible, say within five or six yards, and then to keep increasing his distance, or cast, till he has covered the whole of the water between where he stands and as far across the river as he can comfortably throw his leads and bait. Of course the angler can, if he likes, hold his bait a bit, that is, to not let it travel down the swim as fast as it likes, but only pay off the line very gently so that it will take more time in its passage down ; in fact, I have seen a bait thrown nearly across the river, and before it has travelled thirty or forty yards down stream it has worked to within a very few yards of the bank on which the angler stood by his merely checking it a few times for a second or so at once. But the angler will soon find out the best and safest plan to fish a swim after he has once mastered the ground-work of his proceedings. Long corking is a plan that is sometimes adopted in certain swims, and these swims are within three or four yards of the bank and, say, from eight to twelve feet deep, with a very steady current. The tackle for this plan is exactly the same as for float fishing, only you must arrange the float so that the bait is well on the bottom, say a couple of feet more between the bait and float than the swim is deep. This is a very easy and lazy plan, for the place is such an one that the angler can sit down on the bank and just toss his bait out and allow it to float down some eight or ten yards and then hold it stationary, or let it creep down inch by inch if 138 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. he likes, but so steadily that it would only move a couple of yards or so in five minutes. This is a very good plan to fish those deep steady swims close under the bank or nearly so, and I know that in such places as these salmon are some- times found. Sometimes a salmon might choose as its rest- ing-place a spot without any current at all and a good distance from the bank ; and when this is the case he is fished for with a lead or stationary bait, locally known as plumbing or ledgering. A flat ledger lead is used, and the bait and tackle are the same as for the rolling bait ; it is then cast to the required place, and the angler can just hank his line over the handle of his reel, rest his rod in a forked stick, and wait for a bite. Personally, if it can be managed anyhow, I prefer to fish a swim with a float travelling down, as first described ; but it cannot be always managed, and the angler must learn to adopt that plan that is best suited to meet the circumstances of the case. A shrimp or a prawn fished on a single hook in the same manner as the worm is a pretty good bait for salmon on some waters, but I cannot say how it would act on the Trent, never having seen it tried. I need not give any directions in spinning for salmon, as the modus operandi of the spinner has already been most fully described in the chapter on pike ; it is only necessary to say that instead of the trace being gimp, it should be very strong gut, with the hanging lead and plenty of swivels. Natural baits are sometimes spun on a spinning flight or an Archimedean tackle ; and here I might add that while the pike seems to prefer a wobbling bait, the salmon likes one that spins most truly and glitters most beautifully, but artificial baits seem to be the most in use, and the " Derby Killer " and the " Devon n the most successful. In bringing these few instructions for fishing for salmon in the Nottingham style to a close, I will just say that let the fly fisherman scoff at the plan as he likes, he cannot alter the fact that some considerable skill is required in order to successfully kill a big lively salmon on the, comparatively speaking, fine lines and tackle of a Nottingham bottom fisherman. THE PERCH. 139 CHAPTER VIII. THE PERCH. The perch is a member of the Percidae family, and is a true representative of the " spinous finned " fish (of which there are very few different sorts found in the waters of Great Britain), and his scientific name is Perca Fluviaiilis. When he is in good condition, he is a handsome fish ; the body is oblong, and is covered with small, hard and rough scales. He has a large mouth, and the gill covers are spinous or prickly. His jaws and palate are well furnished with teeth ; in colour he is a sort of a pale green, with a white belly, and there are some dark transverse bars striping his sides ; his anal and tail, or caudal, fins are of a bright red, and the golden irides of his eyes are very beautiful. The back is very humped, the dorsal or back fin is surmounted by sharp spines or prickles ; there is one very great characteristic, and that is, he has two dorsal fins. Taking the perch altogether, he is a very handsome fish. One drawback he has, and that is, he is not a very comfortable fish to handle. You hook one, and swing him into your hand, like a roach or dace, and he will elevate the spines on his back, or you may perhaps catch your hand against the edge of his gill covers, and a very sharp stab will be the result. He might very well be called the water hedgehog, in that respect. The baits for perch fishing are worms (a well-scoured tail end of lob- worm is, perhaps, as good as any, though he likes a bunch of small red worms, or a brandling) ; minnows are an excellent bait for him, or a very small gudgeon, or dace (all fry, in fact, not above two inches long) ; minnows, however, if you can get them, are the best. He will sometimes take a lump of paste, or a bunch of gentles, when one is roach fishing, or a cad bait when fishing 140 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. for dace in a stream, and he will very often take the very- small hook and scrap of worm of the gudgeon fisher. When ledgering for barbel with worms in a weir hole, he is often taken, but I believe his principal food is the small fry of fish. I have taken them when I have been spinning for pike with an artificial bait, and have seen them dash at a six-inch dace on a spinning flight, with back fin extended, and mouth open, to within a few inches of it, and then turn tail and re- treat j and very often they have only been perch of half a pound or so, In lakes and waters where perch run very- large, it is astonishing the size of the bait a three-pound perch will take. You are perhaps fishing with a live bait, a dace or roach, intended for (at least) a ten-pound jack, and a three-pound perch will insist on trying to swallow it. A big perch has a tremendous mouth, in proportion, and perhaps he thinks that anything he can get into his mouth he can swallow. "When I see a three-quarter pound perch hanging from the triangle of a spoon bait (for instance), I always think of the old saying about the eyes being bigger than the belly. Perch are found in almost any river, canal, lake, and pond in the kingdom : and in ponds, &c, where they run small, and are ill-fed, can be taken anyhow — a worm on coarse tackle they will then take greedily. A good river perch, in the months of August, September, or October, is quite another thing ; he is a good deal like a roach, and is not to be had by a mere tyro. About the latter end of June or so, perch are found in the streams, and are often caught when dace fishing with worm ; a month or two after they get into deeper and stronger waters, or seek the quiet eddies and deep holes near old piers and piles of bridges, weir depths ; and it is then that they are very shy, being well fed. It requires fine tackle and a very delicate bait to entrap them then. After a sharp winter, when the frost has just broken up, and the river is tearing down in high flood, the perch are driven into the still corners and eddies, and at that time and in those places they are sometimes congregated together in large numbers. They have been on short commons most of the winter, and are very hungry, and will then take almost any- thing, after the water has cleared down a little. In good THE PEKCH. 141 perch waters, I have heard of as many as two hundred fine fish being taken out of one hole, by two rods in a few hours, when they have been in that condition. That instance is the exception, however, and not the rule. In January and February they are taken in the largest quantities, but in the autumn and early part of the winter they are not to be had so easily. Perch spawn in April, and deposit their eggs on the weeds and rushes, the submerged branches or fibrous roots of trees or bushes in the still backwaters, or up ditches, and these hang about the weeds, &c, like long festoons of lace; it is then that swans, &c, should be kept away, for they will gobble up this spawn by the yard. One singular point in the perch is that out of every dozen that is captured, eleven of them are female fish. Some naturalists infer that the perch are bisexual, and that they are self-concipient, but one thing is certain, they are very prolific, even a small perch contains a vast quantity of eggs. Perch in some localities will reach a considerable size. I have heard of them reaching a very heavy weight in the Danube, but in England they very seldom exceed the weight of four pounds, and this is by no means common. A three-pound fish is a very heavy one, a two-pounder is a good one, while a pounder or a three-quarter- pounder is not to be despised, while even a dish of half- pound perch does not fall to the lot of the angler every day. The Thames, the Kennet, and the Hampshire Avon are perhaps the best rivers in England for perch, for we hear of them being taken out of those rivers very often of the weight of from two to two and a half pounds, while in the broads of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the meres of Huntingdonshire, we hear of them of the weight of four pounds and even a few a little over. The Trent does not seem to be much of a perch river, either as regards weight or numbers. I don't see why it should not, but such is the fact. I have never yet seen or heard of a two-pound perch being taken out of the Trent. 1 Some localities are better stocked with them than others, 1 Since writing the above, I have seen a brace that were taken out of this river with the salmon nets, weighing a trifle over two pounds apiece. 142 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTLNGHAM STYLE. perhaps, but I must confess that in all my rambles up and down the Trent, I have never found a place that abounds with perch either little or big. Once I got a pound fish from out of the rough water of Averham weir, and two or three three-quarter-pounders from the mouth of the Devon, and another place or two, and a few half-pounders from various places, but they are by no means common, and I don't think I ever caught above half a dozen perch in one day from the Trent in my life ; the Devon and the Witham seem to be better stocked with perch than the Trent, for I have seen several good catches from those rivers. An angler went up to Barnby to fish the Witham a few months ago. It was, in fact, just after the break up of last winter's frost, and when he got there the river was tearing down nearly bank full and very much discoloured. He thought when he saw it that it would be of no use fishing, but there was a big drain or dyke a little distance away, and as there was a deep hole at the mouth of this drain where it ran into the river he thought he would go and have a look. He found that a short dis- tance up this drain, a very few yards in fact, the water was nothing like so much discoloured as it was in the river, so he determined to have a try. It was a beautiful quiet eddy, whereas a few yards outside the river rushed down in a tor- rent : he clipped up a few worms and threw them in, and then baited his hook j his float had hardly reached the per- pendicular, before down it went, and in another minute a half-pound perch was landed ; this was rather encouraging, and so he set to work in earnest, and for two hours the biting was very fair, and when he left off, he had something like thirty perch, and some half-dozen roach, and many of the perch were very good fish. The perch had run up the mouth of this drain, to get out of the way of the heavy water out- side, and being hungry, had taken the bait freely. Nothing like that has been done on the Trent, and I have tried all such likely-looking spots up and down the river, on purpose to see if I could not break the spell that seems to be cast over it, but without any very great results, and I have long ago come to the conclusion that the Trent is not much of a perch river. The largest perch by far that I have seen THE PERCH. 143 captured in the neighbourhood of Newark was taken out of the Devon, it was only an ounce or two short of two pounds. 2 I have, however, an idea that if they were properly angled for there are some good perch in Besthorp Fleet (a large sheet of water a short distance from the Trent, about eight miles below Newark), in fact, I think of experimenting there before long. A perch is a splendid fish for the table, a small one out of a stagnant pond is not very good, but a good river perch is excellent; his flesh is white, firm, and flaky, without so many of the objectionable small bones of the roach. I have them opened and well cleaned, and a little salt rubbed down the backbone, and then simply broiled in their jackets. When they are cooked the skin and scales all slip off, they are then seasoned to taste. The rod, reel, and line described in Chapter II. will be most suitable for perch fishing, and the tackle may be stoutish roach tackle, about three or four feet long, with a No. 5 or 6 hook on the end. A perch has a large mouth and so it is better to have a large hook ; the float can either be a quill or a very small cork one, according to the strength of the stream. I prefer a quill and tackle (except in the case of the hook), as recommended for dace fishing when the bait is worms. A few worms cut up as you are fishing and thrown in, is quite sufficient for ground bait ; the hook bait is a worm, the tail end of a well-scoured lob-worm is the best of all, while brandlings or small red worms can be tried for a change. When a perch takes the bait, give him a second, and then strike lightly, and play him carefully, for if you prick, hook, and lose a perch or two, it is fatal to your chance of success, unless they happen to be well " on," which is not often the case ; and if you get a shoal of perch in a biting humour, nothing would be more annoying than to prick a fish or two. The rest of them are frightened, and fly out of the swim, and nothing 2 Two fish larger than this have come under my observation since then ; one was caught in the ballast hole with a pike bait, and another in the Witham with a worm, weighing something like two and a half pounds apiece. I got the best dish of perch I ever got in my life about two years ago out of the Witham, capturing fifteen fish that weighed 12| lbs., using live minnows on a single hook for bait. 144 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. will entice them back again (this holds good with either worm or minnow fishing), or if you do entice them back again it will be a couple of hours wasted, and the tish will be shy and bite very gingerly. The most common plan of taking perch is with the minnow, and this can be used in several fashions. The most common method is with a single minnow and float. The float is a light cork one, and the tackle is about four feet of medium gut, sufficiently weighted with split shots. Don't have a great clumsy float, bat one of the lightest cork floats you can find. One that will carry six or eight middle-sized split shots will serve, and the lowest shot should be about a foot from the hook, which should be about a No. 4 or 5. Some fasten the hook near to the back fin, but I like to hook them through the lip. This bait should be very near the bottom, and the float should travel down the swim, something like traveller fishing for barbel. The minnow is a capital fellow to work about ; and if you know a perch haunt by the side of a row of bushes or a line of flags, reeds, &c., the little fish will soon attract the atten- tion of Mr. Perch. When the float bobs down with a perch bite, don't strike at once, give him a few seconds, and let him have a trifle of line ; and when you feel the quick tug, tug, tug, which ensues, strike firmly, but don't hit him too hard. The reason why you give him a few seconds is be- cause the hook is at the lip of the minnow, and a perch takes them by the tail, and he has the whole of the minnow to get into his mouth before the hook can take effect ; at least that is my impression. With this tackle you can use worms, for some odd times he will not look at the minnow, but will take a well-scoured worm. In swift boiling Maters, or in a rapid stream, in which very often the largest perch are to be found, and where you cannot very well use a float, then an arrangement that is called a paternoster is used. This paternoster consists of about four feet of gut without any split shots on it ; and at the bottom there is a plumb, or heavy ledger, to keep the bait well down. Above this lead there are two or three hooks on which the minnows are impaled ; two will be sufficient. On the gut bottom, about a foot from each other, two loops are tied — the bottom one a VIII. FRESHWATER FISHES. THE PERCH. 145 few inches from the lead, and in these loops a piece of fine gut about six inches long is also tied with a No. 4 or 5 hook on the end. The minnow is baited in the same way as for the float tackle. Do not use a dead minnow, but see that he is perfectly lively. To use this, cast the plumb down and across stream ; when the plumb touches the bottom hold it tight there, and let it stay a minute, then slowly wind up the line and draw the baits towards you, but let them come very slowly ; when you get them as near you as you can, lift the plumb out of the water and make your cast again. Throw it in all directions so as to search the whole of the water well; when you get a bite, remember what I said before, don't strike at once, but give the fish a few seconds, so that he may have time to get the bait in his mouth well. I have heard of anglers fastening bones at regular distances on a cord, by way of an attraction for the perch. I should suppose the bones have a supply of meat on them, and have not been picked clean. A first-class angler says they are a capital attraction for perch ; I, personally, cannot say, for I never tried the scheme, and so cannot speak from experience on that matter. The artificial minnow is sometimes spun, but I think it is like spinning the natural one — a very sorry business. If you must have an artificial bait for perch, per- haps Mr. Gregory's " Clipper " would be as good as any, for I have caught one or two on it. Spinning for perch, how- ever, is not very profitable. Where perch abound the worm and the minnow worked as I have described will be found all that is required. I have heard that perch are taken in some districts with an artificial fly, but I have never seen one caught with a fly, nor have I caught one myself. I am told that a big showy fly is the best, and that it does not matter about the pattern, as the perch are not very particular. I have used big showy flies for chub, and in places where I have taken perch with worm, but not a single perch has yet taken my fly. 146 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER IX THE BREAM. The bream is another distinguished member of the carp tribe, distinguished because he is of rather a peculiar shape, being nearly as broad as he is long. His back stands up a good height, and his belly bows round to a good depth. In- deed, I have a short cutting before me from a journal in which 'a writer describes a bream as being like a pair of bellows, " the handles forming the head and the spout the tail f my author, however, spoils his remark by adding, " they are like a pair of bellows in flavour." Well, I know they are not very good as an edible, but like a pair of bellows ! The scien- tific name of the bream is Cyprinus Brama. There are three sorts of bream in English waters, but the most common are the carp bream or golden bream, and the white bream or silver bream called by some bream flats. The carp bream is the larger of the two sorts, and is not a very handsome fish ; it can easily be recognized by any tyro, being very thin and also wonder- fully broad. The fins are of a very dark colour, his head is not out of the way large, and he has rather a small mouth, when we consider the size of him ; his skin is very slimy in a general way, but I remember taking two or three two-pound fish, and they were as clean as a dace. This was in Septem- ber, and I hooked them in a slight shallow stream. They were very beautiful on the back, looking as though they were shot with mother-o'-pearl and gold, while their bellies were silvery white, the scales on their sides were smooth, round, and hard ; in fact it seemed to me that they were a different species of bream altogether, and I can only suppose them to have been the third species, Ahamis Bugganhagii, or the Pomeranian bream, which is a very scarce fish in Britain. These bream had the distinguishing features of the carp bream, THE BREAM. 147 namely, very dark fins, head and mouth small, but the back (shot, as I said, with gold and mother-o'-pearl) glittered when taken out of the water as though phosphorescent ; the scales were small, round, hard, and as smooth as glass, without any superabundant slime on them; the sides and belly were silvery white. They were all about one size, the smallest was a trifle over two pounds. I cannot remember taking any bream either before or since that were so beautifully marked. Carp bream are generally found in sluggish waters, they are very fond of a deep quiet hole that has a sandy bottom. Old anglers on the Trent, when they are on the look-out for a bream swim, watch what they suppose to be one very narrowly, early in the morning or late at night, because bream in warm weather will rise up to the surface, and when they do rise they leave a large bubble on the surface. In suitable holes bream are sometimes congregated together in very large numbers. There was a few years ago a famous bream hole a short distance below Newark ; when the fish were " on," a good bag of bream was almost a certainty from there, but one day the hole was netted, and upwards of two tons of fine bream were taken out of it, and since then scarcely any fish have been taken from it. I have noticed that bream are sometimes very roving in their habits, swims that contain quantities of bream one week becoming tenantless the next, as far as we could make out, and we have found them again in places where we never supposed any bream to be. Bream spawn in June, and during this operation each female is accompanied by three or four males. These fish are found in rivers, lakes, and ponds, but I believe the Bedfordshire Ouse is the very best bream river in England, its deep sluggish streams being exactly suited to them. The Broads of Norfolk and Suffolk contain vast quantities of fine bream, and the Trent has some good ones in many of its deep quiet holes. This fish will sometimes attain to a very great size. I have seen them taken from the Trent when they have scaled seven and eight pounds, but such are by no means common, four or five pounds being a good weight. Although I believe it is put on record as a fact that a seventeen-pound fish was once taken from the Trent, I have a cutting from the Fishing l 2 148 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. Gazette now before me in which the following passage occurs : "At Hoveringham (on the Trent) three years ago, two splendid carp bream were caught by Mr. Beck in his eel nets. I was present at the weighing of these fish, and they scaled twelve and a quarter, and twelve and three-quarter pounds respectively." Grand fish they would be, but I must confess that I have never seen any approaching that weight. The bream is not a very good fish for the table, its flesh is woolly, watery, and disagreeable, and it has a great quantity of small bones in its flesh. It will take a bit of paste, a lump of gentles, or a cad bait, but the very best bait for bream is a well-scoured worm. The rod, reel, and line re- commended for barbel and chub will do for bream, and your tackle should be the same as recommended for the same fish. Don't have a float any larger than a swan quill if you can help it, and it ought to be a slider, for bream are, as I said before, found in deep holes ; and as the stream is sluggish, do not use any heavier tackle than what will ride comfort- ably in the swim. Everything should be as neat as possible, for the bream is rather a cunning customer. They are very uncertain in their feeding, often refusing to look at a bait after the swim has been well baited. I have seen a well- known bream swim baited with a thousand worms a day for nearly a fortnight before the bream took it into their heads to come " on f but when they once did come " on," the sport was good ; and once I remember an angler baiting a swim day after day, in the hope that he would soon get them, when at last he had a bite, and soon landed a three-pounder. He now fished away in earnest, and landed ten good fish in an hour, when they left off feeding as suddenly as they began, and he did not get a single nibble neither that day nor the next ; while on the other hand, as just noticed, I have known several members of a private fishery to put their resources together, and join in at baiting a swim, and after they have expended a good deal of time and a lot of worms over the job, the bream have come on and well rewarded them for their trouble, the lucky anglers getting good bags every day for a fortnight ; but, as I have said before, bream fishing is only a very uncertain job. THE BEEAM. 149 Charlie Hudson, who lives somewhere against Dunham Bridge, within easy distance of one of the deepest, if not the deepest, bream swims on the Trent, viz., the celebrated Dun- ham Dubs, is about as good a bream fisher as any I know. He often pilots gentlemen to that hole, and assists them in landing some u pluggers," as he calls them. He makes it his especial business to keep that hole well baited during the autumn j and for this purpose I know he often uses whole bucketsful of worms. H any strange angler was to see Charlie's landing-net for the first time, he would probably think that there were some rare-sized fish when that thing was wanted, for the hoop of it was at one time round a fair- sized barrel, only he had cut it and bent the two ends down a bit, and then nailed it fast on a twelve-foot clothes-prop, and the net itself looked as though it had some time or other been part of an old strong eel net. I shall have to go down and see Charlie before long, as it is now a long time since I saw him, or heard anything about him and his exploits among the bream. A friend of mine was telling me an anecdote the other day about a man who lived on the borders of a very big pond or lake that had a large quantity of big carp bream in its waters. As soon as August got well in he used to begin to bait up a swim or two, and for this purpose he used to mix together a ground bait, most queer in its construction — bul- lock's blood, brewers' grains, boiled potatoes, scratchings, bran, and barley flour being mixed up into a stiff pudding, and thrown in, and this process he used to repeat for a few days, until he had thrown in something like a big wheelbarrow load altogether. He used the tail end of well-scoured lob- worms for his hook bait, and my friend assured me that that man has taken as many as two hundredweight of fine bream in a single day's fishing, and that the sport has continued some seasons every day for a fortnight, or more. His swims were generally a nice distance from the bank, and a night or two before he fished he used to anchor his old boat in the proper position for fishing his favourite pitch, and go back- wards and forwards to it by means of another small boat. While fishing he used to wear a huge apron reaching from 150 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. his chin to his feet, for the bream in that place were very slimy and dirty. Another bream fisherman who fished in a similar place to ' ue one just noticed, used to ground bait with a still queer? I mess. He used to go to the butcher's and beg the contents of a slaughtered bullock's stomach, and mix this up with boiled potatoes, bran, and barley flour. He, too, used the tail end of lob-worm for the hook, and very often made some tremendous bags. The most successful ground bait for bream on the Trent seems to be lob-worms, either cut up small or thrown in whole, the same as directed for barbel fishing in Chapter IV., and the best bait is the tail end of a well scoured maiden lob-worm ; a small cockspur or brandling twisting about on the point of the hook sometimes is an improvement, and can be tried if the bream does not come very freely to the tail end of lob. The large brandlings as described elsewhere are a beautiful bait for bream. The hook should be a No. 7 or 8, as bream have rather a small mouth, and you should fish as near the bottom as you can ; in fact, the directions for worm fishing for barbel will answer to the letter for bream, so it would only be a waste of time to repeat it. But I should just like to mention that the new sliced hook (Mr. K. B. Marston's patent) looks to me to be beautifully adapted for worm fishing for bream, that is, if that patent could be applied to an ordinary No. 7 or 8 round bend, bright Carlisle hook, and I don't see why it should not. In fishing with the tail end of lob it often slips down to the bend of the hook, and part of the shank is ex- posed ; now this slice on the upper part of the shank would hold the worm nicely in its place, without any chance of its slipping down. This is an important matter, and deserves careful attention, as a tail end bait only just covers the hook — or, I should say, there is only a quarter of an inch above the shank top, and a quarter of an inch below the point to hang loose. When a bream takes the bait give him a second or two to get it well into his mouth, he is rather a nibbling biter and likes to suck at the worm (and that is the reason I like most of the worm on the hook, and not much of a long end THE BEEAM. 151 hanging down), and then strike firmly, but not too hard, for you are fishing with fine tackle, and might break it with too hard a stroke. When you feel that you have hooked your fish play him carefully and look out for squalls, for he has such a tendency to bore downward ; if, however, you play him firmly and keep a tight line, you will soon tire him out, heavy as he is (and he does feel very heavy on a line, his very deep sides holding against the water). In a very few minutes he turns on his side, and the landing-net is slipped under him. I was once playing a big bream, and I had got him exhausted, and a companion slipped the net under him. The net was very tender, and the fish went right through it, making another bolt. Playing a heavy fish in that predicament was a little bit of change in the sport, but I succeeded at last in landing him. The bream may be taken with the ledger the same as recom- mended for the barbel; in fact the instruction in worm fishing for one will answer in every respect for the other, except that the bream likes a smaller bait, and you use a smaller hook. The white bream are often taken with the same tackle, the same baits, and in the same swims as the roach ; they very seldom exceed a pound in weight and are greatly inferior to the carp bream. 152 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER X. THE CARP AND TENCH. Carp and tench are mostly linked together on the angler's tongue, why, is not apparent, unless it is because that they are generally found in company. They are both of them lake or pond fish generally, although sometimes found in rivers. In some respects they are totally unlike one another, for in- stance, the carp has the largest scales of any freshwater fish, while the tench has the smallest, excepting the eel ; a small carp is a very good bait for pike, while a tench is the very worst. However, as bottom fishing for carp in ponds or lakes may be equally well practised for tench, I have connected the two fish, and so the instructions for one must answer for the other. A short description of these fish I will, however, here give. The carp is a cunning member of the Cyprinidse or carp family, and his scientific name is Cyprinus Carpio. He has very large scales, as I have said, and a Roman nose, like a barbel. Carp spawn in May, though I have read some- where that they spawn three or four times in the year. This I cannot verify; observation shows to me that they only spawn once, and that in May. However, I will not argue the point as to whether they spawn once or more, but one thing is certain, they are very prolific. The female fish con- tains a vast quantity of eggs ; indeed, I have read that when the roe is extracted from some specimens, it will turn the scale against the rest of the fish. These fish will sometimes reach a very heavy weight, and are found in England of the weight of from twelve to twenty pounds, but the latter, how- ever, being by no means common, from six to ten pounds makes a very good fish. In Germany carp reach to an extra- ordinary weight, thirty and forty pounds being a common size, while it has been put on record that " a carp was caught in 1711, near Frankfort on the Oder, which was more than THE CAEP AND TENCH. 153 nine feet long, and three round, and which weighed seventy- pounds f and in the lake of Zug, in Switzerland, one was taken which weighed ninety pounds. Carp are found in lakes and ponds, and sometimes in rivers, the big ones being the most shy and suspicious fish that swim in our waters. Small ones of a pound or so will sometimes bite very freely, but the big ones are not to be had except with great difficulty ; indeed, it often happens that when the angler has exhausted all his patience and ingenuity, the carp has not come to hand and rewarded him for his trouble ; for as the poet justly remarks, — " Of all the fish that swim the watery mead, Not one in cunning can the carp exceed." All sorts of baits are recommended in carp fishing — pastes of all sorts and colours, sweetened with honey and sugar, or flavoured with gin or brandy ; green peas, small green beans, while others swear by a bit of half- boiled potato, a bunch of gentles, or a few grubs. Perhaps, however, as good a bait as can be used is a well-scoured worm, a brandling, or a cockspur. If you know of a lake or pond that contains carp, it will be as well to bait a pitch. If you keep your eyes open, you will soon see which is a favourite feeding-ground, and a day or two before you fish, get the right depth. Having done this, throw in a handful or two of chopped worms the first thing in the morning, or whatever ground bait you pro- pose trying, and, if possible, repeat this for two or three days. When you come to fish, if you can keep quite out of sight, and you have a beautiful well-scoured brandling on your hook, you may perhaps delude one of the big fellows, though hook- ing one would be the signal for the rest to bolt. You should then go to another part of the pond, and operate there in the same manner, and so give the carp in the first swim time to recover from their astonishment. Whatever you do, don't insult the carp by fishing for him with a heavy cork float, a long necklace of chain shot, and a coarse tackle ; the self- cocking float, the one split shot, and the fine tackle recom- mended for roach fishing must be the order of the day. Remember that — 154 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. The carp whose wary eye Admits no vulgar tackle nigh, Essay your art's supreme address, And beat the fox in sheer finesse." The tench is a good deal nicer-looking fish that the carp. The following is a good description of him : " All fins are rounded at the extremities, tail fin not at all forked, nearly square with corners rounded off; mouth small and toothless, with one barbel at each corner ; scales very small ; colours, head, sides, and cheeks, golden green, darker on the back and fins, orange yellow under the belly, irides bright orange red." Tench spawn in May, and seem to go raving mad while they are performing the operation. I have seen them dancing and twisting about in the most absurd manner, rushing and chas- ing one another through the weeds, and then stopping side by side for a few minutes, refusing to be scared by anybody. They are like the carp, very prolific, no less than 300,000 eggs have been estimated in a fish of three and a half pounds. They are very tenacious of life, and will live a long time out of water. The tench do not grow so large as the carp, six or seven pounds being perhaps their limit ; and this depends on the quality of the lake or pond they are in ; in small ponds they do not often exceed two or three pounds. There is an account, however, of one that was found in a hole among some old roots, in a piece of water, in which old rubbish had been thrown for years; it was ordered to be cleared out, which when done a lot of fine tench were found, and this one in the hole had literally assumed the shape of the place in which he was found ; it weighed eleven pounds nine and a half ounces, and is the largest on record. As a fish for the table the tench is a good deal better than the carp ; his flesh is white and firm, and not at all bad eating. The fish has a very thick skin, and is very slimy. It has been called the " physician of fishes," and the reason, it is said, why the pike will not eat him, is because when the pike is wounded, the pike rubs the injured place against the side of the tench. Pike have been known to take tench occasionally, though it is thought that this is the result of accident, rather than design. THE CARP AND TENCH. 155 The rod, reel, and line described and recommended in mub and barbel fishing are right for carp and tench fishing. As I have said before, your float should be as small as you like, the self-cocking one will be the best if you can use it, if not the lightest quill you have got, one that will carry four or five small split shots will be quite big enough. In fact, the remarks on the subject of floats in the chapter on roach will fit in exactly for carp and tench fishing; the tackle should be the same as recommended for chub, and as fine as you dare fish with. The split shot should be very small and a long way from the hook, which latter can be a No. 7. or 8. A bit of bread can be steeped, well crushed up, and mixed up with a handful of bran, if you intend to fish with paste, but use your ground bait sparingly, don't toss a thousand or two of worms in, the same as you would for a big barbel swim ; a handful or two of worms, or bread and bran, at once will be quite enough, if you are fishing with worms. I believe a smart brandling is as good as any of these ; thread it carefully on the hook, so that every part of it is hidden in the worm, or Mr. Carp will soon find the latter out. Allow the bait to be plenty deep enough — better let it lie a few inches on the bottom than hang clear. If the carp bites, don't be in a hurry, for he is a very slow biter; the float will sometimes bob and tremble for a few seconds, don't meddle with it till it bobs under water and begins to glide away, then strike firmly, and if he is a big one, look out for squalls, should there be a weed bed handy so that he can pop in it. If you wish to use paste, the bread paste re- commended in roach fishing will do, only instead of it being plain, it is best mixed with a little honey ; a few pellets of this can be thrown in before you begin to fish. The cunning old customers, however, will rob your hook of this paste continually, therefore I should prefer the worm myself. The chief requirements of an angler for big carp in a pond are, first, very fine tackle ; second, a nice bait ; third, keep out of sight, and make no noise ; fourth, plenty of skill; and fifth, a very large stock of patience, and then you may perhaps catch one or two, and perhaps not, for fishing for carp and catching carp are two different things, and should not be con- 156 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. founded in the J =ast. Should the angler be so fortunate as to drop across i, big pond that has not been fished since the " Middle Ages," and it contains an abundance of fine carp and tench, then the probability is that he will get a little sport ; but in well-fished waters these fish are not to be had without a lot of trouble. The angler must be up to all sorts of dodges. If the pond has a lot of weeds or water-flowers on it, and the carp are on the surface, as they very often are, grubbing about and eyeing the weeds; to see if there is anything good to eat among them, a nice worm is just hung over the edge of a leaf or flower j the fish will very often take it with- out any preliminary hesitation, as he would if it were on the ground. ; but it is a very risky proceeding, carp being more often lost in the weeds than captured, after they have been hooked. Small carp will sometimes bite pretty freely, as they have not had the education of their elders. When I was in the fens of Lincolnshire, I used to watch a few cunning old carp that had their home in a very large pond. A friend of mine used to try all manner of dodges for them, but he never got a big one, a few pounders and some nice tench was about the extent of his captures. A river carp will bite a little more freely than a pond carp, for they are taken in some places when fishing for barbel ; or they sometimes get in a roach swim, and take a few gentles or a bit of paste. It is not a regular thing to fish on purpose for them in rivers ; when the angler does get one, it is a lucky accident ; an odd tench or two are also sometimes taken when bream fishing. Cyprinus Tinea is the scientific name for tench. THE DACE. 157 CHAPTER XT. THE DACE. This is a bright, handsome, well-made member of the carp tribe, and his scientific name is Cyprinus Leuclscus. He is only small in regard to size, but the old saying runs, " Little fish are sweet," and that old saying is very applicable to the dace, both in respect to its culinary qualities and its ren- dering of sport to the angler. The dace is the very fish to train up the young angler in the way he should go, for not being so shy as the roach, it will bite bolder ; and the young fly fisher can then try his 'prentice hand on him. This fish will spring freely at the artificial fly, and quick striking has to be the order of the day with dace. I do not know that I can say much about bottom fishing for dace, for the tackle and baits that are recommended for roach will be exactly right for their capture. The dace, sometimes called the dart, the dare, and the darden, is very rapid in his movements, darting through the water with extraordinary speed. Dray- ton, the poet, writing about him, says, — " Oft swiftly as he swims, his silver belly shows ; But with such nimble flight, that ere ye can disclose His shape, out of your sight like lightning he is shot." One may readily confound a small chub with the dace, and remain under the impression that when he has caught a nine or ten-ounce chub it is a very fine dace. If he looks at them carefully, however, the following differences may be noted ; the anal fin of the chub is red, while that of the dace is not; the scales are larger on the chub than the dace, the mouth of the chub is bigger, and the dace has fifty- two scales on his lateral line, while the chub has only about forty-four. I have mentioned it because I have seen anglers with a small chub (which if it had been a dace would be a 158 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. very large one carefully put on one side as a " weigher in for the specin^n dace prize. Dace are found in swifter, shal- lower water as a rule than roach, although they are very often taken with the roach ; indeed, I question if an angler fishing in a roach swim on the Trent can make a bag of roach without there being a dace or two with them. In the months of May, June, and July, dace are found on the shallow streams, the eddies by the side of a swift stream, in the water at a mill-tail, over a bank of weeds, or in the streams from a weir ; and they are there sometimes in very great numbers, and may be caught with a cad bait or a gentle. As the summer advances and the days begin to shorten the dace retire into deeper swims, and are then caught almost exclusively by bottom fishing. Sometimes they get into a barbel swim, and will insist on swallowing a big bait intended for the barbel, and it has often struck me as being strange that a little fish like the dace can get such a big bait and large hook in his mouth. When a swim is baited for barbel and no barbel are attracted therein, the dace get possession, and the angler has a fine time of it, for dace can take the barbel hook and bait. This question was, however, discussed in the chapter on barbel. Dace fishing is a branch of sport that is a good deal followed by many Nottingham anglers, indeed some of them make a speciality of it and are very successful ; using cad baits and gentles during the early summer, tail end of lob during the autumn, and cockspurs and red worms during the winter, fishing for them during the hot weather in the shal- lowish streams that run moderately fast, and ground-baiting with gentles or lob-worms clipped up very small. A good place for dace down the lower Trent is in a nice little shallow eddy by the side of a rattling current ; although I have found them in all sorts of swims and places. It will only be a repetition and a waste of time to give any instructions in dace fishing, as the general directions in the chapter on roach are about the same in stream fishing for dace. During the winter the dace pass into the deep quiet holes, and are then caught with the roach, fishing with cockspnr worms. They spawn early in April, and for a week or two IX. The Tjbitch. The Perch and GtUdgeoh. The Pike or Jack. THE PACE. 159 after performing that operation are as rough as nutmeg- graters, again getting into condition about the middle of May, and will then take the fly or bait on the shallows. The new " Act," however, says no J the dace must not be touched until the 16th June. Dace very seldom exceed a pound in weight ; indeed, I should suppose that to be the very top weight for them in England ; it is only in certain rivers and under very favourable conditions, however, that they reach that weight. In the Trent a dace of half a pound is a very good one, while occasional ones of nine and ten ounces are taken, though they are very rare. The biggest I ever took weighed a trifle over ten ounces, and I caught it out of a deep hole when bream fishing. They are a good sporting fish, and will fight bravely to the last ; while as a fish for the table, they are a deal better than the roach. They are generally boiled or fried dry. In bottom fishing for dace the tackle recommended for roach will do. In the early part of the season when they are on the shallows they are very fond of a cad bait, or a couple of gentles, and may sometimes be caught in considerable numbers ; they may also be caught fly fishing. A light single-handed trout rod is used for this work, and the flies are the palmers, red, black, or grey, the black gnat, or a coch-y-boudhu. He can also be caught by " dibbling " the real insect on the surface, as is described elsewhere. An improvement on the artificial fly will be a gentle or a cad bait placed on the point of the hook. During the autumn and winter months, when the dace retire into the deep quiet holes, they are caught also in exactly the same way as was fully described in reference to roach fishing. The ground bait can be the same, the only exception being that the dace do not care for paste and grain so much as roach, though they are sometimes caught with those baits. Cockspur worms and gentles are the best lures therefore. 160 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE, ) CHAPTEE XII. EELS AND FLOUNDERS. These fish are generally connected together by Trent anglers similarly to roach and dace, or carp and tench. Why is not clearly apparent, because there is a vast difference in their shape, nature, and habits. The eel, as every one is aware, is long and thin, somewhat after the shape of a snake, while the flounder is a flat fish, like a plaice. Perhaps the reason is that where the flounder is found there also are eels, and both of them are taken on the same tackle and with the same bait. Angling for eels as a sport is not of much consequence ; and as it is a sport that any boy can successfully follow, few instructions are needed. As the fish, however, run to a good size in the Trent, and are excellent eating, I think them eminently worth mention. Eels are by no means " coarse " fish as far as their gastronomic value is concerned. Perhaps the only time when the term coarse can be applied to them is when the angler is barbel fishing; or, intent on nobler sport, at that time a miserable little quarter-of-a-pound eel takes the carefully prepared worm bait, and twists and tangles up the tackle in a horrible way ; for of all the Gor- dian knots ever fabricated, those tied by a small struggling eel are the most complicated. The problem about the eel could not be satisfactorily explained until very lately, as to how they produced their young, and where the breeding- grounds were. Years ago, ay, and even up to the present time, old and deep-rooted notions about the breeding of this fish are entertained in various districts : some supposing they were born of the mud ; others from particles scraped off the bodies of large eels when they rubbed themselves against stones ; others from the putrid flesh of dead animals thrown in the water ; others that they are bred from the dews EELS AND FLOUNDERS. 161 which cover the earth in May ; others from the water alone ; others, and this is the most curious of all, that they gene- rated from stray pieces of horsehair that were thrown, or found their way into the water. I believe it has, however, been proved lately that they produce their young from ova or eggs the same as other fish, and that they deposit their spawn in the sea, that is, as far as migratory eels are concerned. Non-migratory eels, of course, cannot get down to the sea, and so they deposit their spawn under stones, or among the sand and mud at the bottom of ponds or rivers, but I will not commit myself on this question, leaving it for abler pens than mine. Very old anglers here say that the silver- bellied or migratory eels come into the Trent from the sea with the swallows (I don't mean that the swallows come from the bottom of the sea and travel alongside with the eels, but that they both arrive about the same time) and disappear from the river when the swallows go away. I think they are not far wrong. Other old anglers say that the silver eels come into the river with the first new moon in May. There are, I believe, four different sorts of eels in the Trent— two that migrate and two that do not. The silver eels that migrate are, if you examine them carefully, two distinct species ; the one sort has a sharp round nose, and is of a bright silvery colour on the belly, and a very pretty dark green on the back; the other has a broader, flatter nose, and the belly is tinged with gold, as also are his sides ; the back is darker than the other sort also. These two sorts are commonly called " browett eels " on the Trent. Last year I and a friend caught two eels down at Carlton about two pounds each. They were the silver eels, and they were very marked and distinct species, as I have described above. The non-migratory or yellow-bellied eels are also divided into two sorts, the nose of the one being very much sharper than the other. I have caught some of these yellow- bellied eels with a mouth like a frog ; they are, however, not so big, nor anything like so good eating as the silver- bellied ones. Trent eels will sometimes reach a very great weight — four, five, or six pounds being frequently taken in the net. The two largest eels I ever saw taken from the 162 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. Trent we 1 i caught on a night-line at Collingham, with a nest of young blackbirds for bait. The two weighed a trifle over fifteen pounds ; one was eight pounds and the other seven. I have seen several six pounds each ; but these big ones, when you come to cook them, are very oily. The best for the table are those from a pound to two pounds; they, are very rich and luscious. The poet truly says, — " The Trent hath such eels, and the Witham pike, That in England there is not the like." In Italy I have heard that the eel will reach the extraor- dinary weight of twenty pounds, but I believe the biggest that was taken in English waters weighed a trifle over eleven pounds. The yellow-bellied or non-migratory eels in the Trent very seldom exceed a pound and a half ; though in some lakes and ponds they range considerably over this. In Balderton ballast-hole, for instance, eels of this species are taken of the weight of three or four pounds. There is hardly a piece of water of any description in England, even a muddy horsepond, or ditch, that does not contain eels of some sort. They are found in almost any place, in the foul, muddy, and stagnant water of a cutting, or in the boiling waters of a weir. The eel gets under stones, in holes in the bank, or in the brickwork of an old wall, or among the piles and old rotten wood of a landing-stage ; and sniggling an old eel out of these places, when the weather is hot, and other fish refuse to feed, is not bad fun. Eels are caught in various ways : in baskets, bucks, hives, &c, &c, and when they are running they are caught in very great quantities in the nets. Mr. Thorpe, at the Water Mill, Newark, once took three tons in his nets in a single night, a most extraordinary catch. It was a few years ago, and the catch has not been equalled there, either before or since. Eels are for the most part nocturnal fish, and it is at night that they do their " running," and that the big ones are caught. Some aver that the eel will travel over land, from one pond or lake to another, and a correspondent, recently writing to the Fishing Gazette, said that an old fisherman told him that the eels came out of the river during the night, and picked up the worms on the EELS AND FLOUNDERS. 163 grass. He was further assured that the fisherman had seen them scuttling back again into the river, on his approach. Now I should suppose that the " old fisherman " was poking fun at that writer, for I must confess that I have been by the river-side all hours, night and day, under all sorts of circum- stances, i.e. when it rained, when a very heavy dew was falling, and when very fine — in moonlight, starlight, or darkness — and I have never yet met an eel on his cross-country journey, nor have I disturbed any, when they have been worming. Furthermore, I never yet met anybody who could positively say they had done so. Large eels are not often caught with rod and line, though odd ones sometimes are picked up by angling, when the water has been very much discoloured. As I said before, they " run " at night, and they choose the darkest nights for this. Night-liners very seldom set their lines during the bright moonlight. These night-lines consist of several yards of very strong string with ten or a dozen hooks on each, fastened about a yard from each other. The hooks are big ones, and are tied on strong twisted horsehair ; the bait is a very large lob- worm, or a young bird, or a bleak, for it must be noticed that large eels are fish and flesh eaters ; a piece of lampern is also a very good bait on a night-line. Grand fish of four, five, or six pounds are taken on these lines, while a big barbel or chub are occasionally pulled out on them. A piece of brick is fastened to each end of these lines to sink the baits well. The lines are then thrown in the river and left, and in the morning a drag hook and cord is used to pull them out. Sniggling is another method of taking eels ; for this a stick about six or eight feet long is used, with another short piece lashed at the top so that it forms a right angle ; a few yards of coarse twine and a stout needle will complete the outfit of a sniggler. The string is lashed to the needle with a bit of waxed silk, beginning at the eye end of the needle, and finishing about the middle, the point of the needle will then be upwards. The end of the needle-point is stuck into a very thin bit of stick or a crow- quill, and the needle is thrust into half a lob-worm at the broken end, until the whole of the needle is in the worm. The point is then just brought out of the worm, and the m 2 164 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. point of the needle is stuck very lightly in the end of the cross piece of stick at the top. The cord is not tied to the stick at all, but held in the left hand, while the right holds the rod ; and then the angler looks about him for a suitable place, such as a hole under the water in an overhanging bank, or under a stone, or in old walls, or old rotten boards under a landing stage, &c, and when he finds one, he puts the worm on the end of the stick into it. If there happens to be an eel there, he will seize hold of the worm and pull it and the needle from the stick ; the angler will feel the tug, and then he gently moves the stick away and throws it on the bank. After a few seconds, when the eel has swallowed the worm, the angler pulls the string, and as it is fastened to the middle of the needle, it turns crossways in the throat of the eel, and, of course, holds him faster than any hook can do. Now if the eel is a pounder or more, and he has got his tail twisted over a stone, or a board, or what not, he will refuse to come, and it is then a clear case of " pull devil, pull baker," but the string is strong, and the angler has only to keep steadily pulling, and the eel will tire out in a few minutes, and come out of his hole, and is soon drawn ashore. I have mentioned this method because it is easily practised, and a few pounds of eels are a welcome addition to the angler's basket, to say nothing of the fun of the thing, when no other fish will stir. In angling for these fish, the bottom fisher's rod, reel, and line is used, but the angler need not be par- ticular as to his tackle, the eel is not afraid of a bit of gut ; if you want to angle close to the bank, or over a bed of weeds, an ordinary quill float and a stoutish tackle weighted accord- ingly will do. The hook is a No. 7 or 8, and the bait is a worm, which of course must lie on the bottom. If there are many eels about, they will soon take the bait, and when the angler gets a bite, he must get Mr. Eel out as quick as he can, set his foot on him, and stick a penknife in the back of his head, and then get the hook from him as quick as possible, for if he lets the eel twist about the tackle a few times, it will probably take him half an hour to untie the knots and get all ready for another attempt. Eels are also caught by ledgering, or plumbing, as it is locally known. A big flat EELS AND FLOUNDERS. 165 plumb is fastened on the line and a short tackle, or even two, being used ; the bait is, of course, a worm. The plumb is wound up to the point of the rod, and the angler throws directly from the reel to any place he desires. (This throw is described elsewhere.) When this plan is adopted, a "lazy back," as it is called, is used. This is a forked stick a good deal like the letter Y ; the bottom end is thrust into the ground, and when the angler has made his throw, he hanks his line round one of the handles of the reel, and lays the rod on the forks of the "lazy back" aforesaid. The butt is on the ground ; when an eel bites, the angler will have plenty of time to pick his rod up, for they are but slow biters at best. He can tell by the bobbing of the rod point when he has a bite. If the eel be a big one, and the angler is getting the hook from its mouth, he must mind not to put his finger in, for the eel possesses a lot of small sharp teeth, and his bite is a very serious affair ; the disgorger is a good thing here. The flounder is a peculiar, yet withal a very delicious and bold-biting fish, and is found in considerable numbers in the lower reaches of the Trent. The colouring of these fish varies considerably, some of them being of a beautiful bright brown on the back, spotted with crimson spots, while others are of a much darker brown, and the spots darker, while others again are nearly black, without any spots to be seen. I have taken all these different coloured flounders out of one swim, and in one day. Odd ones have cream-coloured patches on their backs, but they are only met with occasionally. They are of a beautiful creamy white on their bellies. The line that runs down the middle of the back feels very sharply rough to the fingers. The eyes and mouth are, as it were, all on one side, and a peculiar thing sometimes happens. You may be looking over your bag of flounders, and you may, per- haps, notice one out of the number to be what we call left- handed, that is, his eyes and mouth are on a different side to the majority. It is only very rarely that we catch a left- handed one ; in a general way their mouths are on the right side. They spawn, I believe, during the beginning of Febru- ary, or perhaps during the latter part of January. I have 166 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. occasional^ taken them during Christmas time with the ova in a very forward state. I believe they bury themselves in the sand on the shady and quiet parts of the river to perform this operation, and as breeders they are very prolific. They get in good condition by the beginning of May ; indeed, we generally used to start flounder fishing in this district on "May Fair day," that is, May 14th, if water and weather were anything like favourable ; in fact, some of us used to reckon on it, but now we dare not go until June 1 6th. Taking them altogether, the flounders of the Trent do not run very big, the average being about four or so to the pound. Sometimes we get real good ones ; I have taken them and seen them taken over a pound each. For the table, flounders are very good, being sweet and luscious, if fried in butter or lard, and sprinkled over with egg and bread crumbs. This fish is not to be beaten as a breakfast delicacy. I have known them to fetch as much as 6d. or Sd. per lb. ; in fact, as Walton says about some other fish, they are a deal " too good for any but anglers or very honest men." Flounder fishing is capital sport when you get in a suitable place, and find them well on. The best places for them are slow streams, near the sides, where the bottom is sandy and clean. He does not like mud at all ; a corner away from the main stream where the water is, comparatively speaking, quiet, is almost a sure find ; a row of willows close to the water's edge, with about from three to five feet of water, a couple of yards out, is a good spot, provided the bottom is clean and sandy and the stream steady ; in fact, all the sandy slacks and shallows of the lower Trent contain flounders, more or less. Yet he is not confined to these places, for I have caught him in the rushing waters of a weir when ledgering for barbel, or out of a strong stream fourteen feet deep when float fishing for the same fish ; but when we go for flounders, we generally pick the shallow, quiet, sandy streams, or, I should say, slacks. You need not be very particular about your tackle for flounder fishing, no need for drawn gut of exquisite fineness, and floats so nicely weighted that if a fish looks at the bait you can detect it. The rod, reel, and line recommended for chub EELS AND FLOUNDERS. 167 fishing will be the very things ; your float can be a small cork one, or a fair-sized pelican quill ; the tackle should be about a yard long, medium gut, stained, and armed with a No. 7 or 8 hook ; the bait is the tail end half of a maiden lob-worm, and it should be well on the bottom; ground-bait with coarse worms cut up very small, and if you get them well on the feed, and a suitable place, you will have capital sport. A friend and I one day caught in one swim, fishing from a boat, and allowing our floats to work down .the steady stream for thirty yards, so as to cover as much ground as possible, no fewer than eighty- six, and many of them real good ones. The flounder is also caught in exactly the same way as described in ledgering for eels with the " lazy back." The plumb, the two tackles, and the worm for bait, on a No. 7 or 8 hook. " Pin lining " is one plan of catching flounders, only this is the way of the pot-hunter. Pins are fastened on lengths of gut in exactly the same way as described for sniggling for eels, and ten or a dozen of these are fastened to a long line at regular intervals. The worm is baited as described in sniggling, and a stone is fastened to each end of the line to keep the baits down at the bottom ; if you get a favourable place and a sunshiny day, you catch a lot of these fish. From four to eight dozen have been taken by this plan in a single day. 168 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE, CHAPTEK XIII. THE BLEAK — THE GUDGEON THE RUFFE — THE MINNOW. This is a batch of small fry, and as it is not much trouble to take them, very few instructions for their capture will suf- fice. The reason why I mention them is because three of them out of the four are very good baits for much more valuable fish. This chapter will be a short one, as a sort of tail end to my instructions for " Bottom Fishing in the Nottingham Style." The words of Michael Drayton will just fit in here for a text, as regards these fish : — " The dainty gudgeon, ruffe, the minnow, and the bleak, Since they but little are, I little need to speak/' I have substituted the word " ruffe " for " loche," which appears in the original. The bleak, sometimes called a "blay," or "willow blade," or as it is known on the Trent, " the whitling " is a member of the carp tribe, and its scientific name is Cyprinus Alhur- nus. It is a small fish, six inches in length, and two ounces in weight, this being about its extreme size, and is a very pretty fish, narrow and flat, sides glittering like silver. Bleak spawn about May, and are soon as active as ever; they delight in warm summer weather, and will then disport them- selves near the surface of the water ; they are very active and glitter in the water, turning from side to side. They are found in great quantities in different parts of the Trent, and generally in large shoals in an eddy by the side of a swift stream, or about the piles or buttresses of old bridges ; in fact, the angler can soon find them, for they are mostly near the surface. I read that the scales of these fish were once used in the manufacture of " artificial pearls," a pound of which THE BLEAK AND GUDGEON. 169 went to make four ounces of the guanine, as it was termed. Four thousand bleak were required for a pound of scales. Fortunately for the bleak a new substitute has been found, or bleak at that rate would soon be a " rara avis " in some waters. Any sort of a light rod and tackle will do for their capture. I have seen them pulled out very rapidly with a long thin stick for a rod, a few yards of thread for a line, and about six inches of fine gut, and the smallest of floats and hooks, with a gentle for a bait. The light roach and dace rod, reel, and line will do for the fish mentioned in this chapter. As the bleak swims very near the surface, the tackle will only require to be very short. A single length of fine gut will do with a loop at one end and a No. 14 hook on the other. A very small float is used, one that will carry about a couple of very small split shots, and a gentle for a bait. The hook is put into the thick end of the gentle and the thin end hangs down and twirls about in a very lively manner. It is then dropped among the bleak, and as the bait is only a few inches under water, you will see a dozen fish perhaps make a rush at it. As soon as the float bobs down strike at once, and out comes the little rascal dancing and glittering like a bar of silver ; they are pulled out sometimes by that plan as fast as you can take them off the hook and bait again. Bleak can be caught with a very small artificial fly, and there is worse sport than whipping for bleak on a summer's evening, with three or four small brown flies on a fine gut cast. In the winter bleak go to the bottom of deep holes, and are not so active. They make a capital spinning bait, for they spin so truly and glitter beautifully, though they are rather tender on the hooks. The gudgeon (Cyprinus Gobio) is another member of the carp tribe, and a nice-looking little fellow he is ; in shape something like a barbel. The top jaw hangs over the bottom one, and looks very much adapted for rooting among the sand. Like the barbel he has a beard at each corner of the mouth. Six or seven inches is its extreme length, but that size is by no means common. He spawns about May, and it is some time before he gets into condition : about August and September are the best months to take this fish. He is a very toothsome 170 BOTTOM FISHINCx IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. morsel, if fried crisp with egg and bread crumbs. A light rod, reel, line, and tackle are used for his capture. His haunts are in rather rapid shallow waters that flow over a gravelly or sandy bottom. The bait is a small worm, the tail end of a brandling or cockspur on a small hook is best ; and the bait must trip along the bottom. The float and tackle recommended for dace fishing in a stream will be right for the gudgeon, but the hook must be a size or two smaller. The worm should be threaded on the hook so that no loose ends hang about, or he will pull and bother you like a tiny eel. If the water is very clear, a rake is used in some places to stir up the sand and make a rather thick water ; the gudgeon then flock together there, and are then sometimes pulled out very rapidly. I have seen anglers doing what they call "muddling for gudgeon." They take off their shoes and stockings, and roll up their trousers to the thigh, and shuffle about the sandy shallows with their feet, and then with rod and tackle fish among the discoloured water. This plan is adopted if the water be not above two feet deep, but a heavy iron rake is the best. Owing to the fact that these fish take so little skill to catch them, it is a favourite sport with the ladies in various districts where the fish abound. A poem of Hood's, entitled the " Angler's Lament," con- tains the following lines : — "At a brandling once gudgeons would gape, But they seem to have alter'd their forms, now. Have they taken advice of the Council of Nice, And rejected the Diet of Worms, now ? " But that must be a bit of poetic fancy, for gudgeon are very fond of a nice brandling, and a " diet of worms " suits them precisely. Perhaps, however, the poet had Martin Luther in his eye when he wrote that. I now must pull up my line, however, and, as the cheap-jack at the fair says, " show you something else." The ruffe, sometimes called the pope, is a member of the perch family, and his scientific name is Perca Ceruna. He is very like a small perch in shape, having the same prickly fin on the back, but is a deal darker than the perch and marked THE KUJFFE AND MINNOW. 171 more like a gudgeon. The fish is small, four or five inches being his extreme length ; it spawns in April, and he is to be found in deep quiet corners, and like the eel is not afraid of a bit of mud. He will bite freely at a worm, and where the young angler takes one he will very often find many more. The ruffe is not much good, except as a bit of practice for the young angler. The minnow is well known to any lad who has seen a stream of water. These tiny fish also belong to the carp family, and what a little beauty he is, with his splendid colouring, silvery white, brown, pink, &c, &c. When I see one it always brings back to my memory the happy time of my school days, when I used to catch them with a bent pin and a scrap of worm. They are an excellent bait for perch, &c, and for this purpose are caught in a hand net or a minnow trap specially made. They will take a scrap of worm on the smallest of hooks, and any lad can catch them with a stick, a bit of thread, a small piece of horsehair, a bent pin, and a scrap of worm or gentle, or a tiny bit of paste. And now, dear reader, I have got to the end of my in- structions for " Bottom Fishing in the Nottingham Style," and if I have imparted any real knowledge to those for whom it is intended, I shall be well satisfied. I will, therefore, wind up my line, put away my tackle, and bid you farewell ; and may you have as many happy days on the Trent, or else- where, as I have had, in the pursuit of this my favourite sport. 172 BOTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. CHAPTER XIV. FRESHWATER FISHERIES ACT, 1878. (41 and 42 Vic. Cap. 39.) Notice is hereby given that, in accordance with the pro- visions of the above Act, it is illegal — 1. To fish for, or catch, or attempt to catch or kill, trout or char during the close season between 2nd October and 1st of February following, or during any close season, which by Bye-law may be substituted for the same. Note. — It is already illegal to buy, sell, or expose for sale, or have in possession for sale, trout or char between 2nd October and 1st February following (36 and 37 Vict. c. 71, s. 20). 2. To use or have in possession with the intention of using, any light, otter, lath, jack, snare, wire, spear, gaff, strokehafi, snatch, or other like instrument for the purpose of catching or killing trout or char. 3. To use any fish roe in fishing for trout or char ; or to buy, seU, or expose for sale, or have in possession for sale, any trout roe or char roe. 4. To fish for, catch, or attempt to catch or kill any " freshwater fish" between 15th March and 15th June, both inclusive. (" Freshwater fish " include all freshwater non- migratory fish other than pollan, trout, and char.) Note. — This prohibition does not apply to — a. Any owner of a several fishery where trout, char, or grayling are especially preserved, destroying within such fishery any "freshwater fish" other than grayling. ~b. Any person angling in private waters with the leave of the owner of such waters. FRESHWATER FISHERIES ACT, 1878. 173 c. Any person angling in public waters with the leave of the Local Board of Conservators. d. Any person taking " freshwater fish " for scientific purposes, or for bait. e. Any district or part of a district specially exempted by a Local Board of Conservators with the approval of the Secretary of State. 5. To buy, sell, expose for sale, or have in possession for sale, any "freshwater fish," as above defined, between 15th March and 15th June, both inclusive. 6. To use any dynamite or other explosive substance for catching or destroying fish. N.R — The first four of these provisions do not apply to the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, which are placed under a separate Act (40 and 41 Vict. c. 98). January 1st, 1879. 174 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. The Weight of Fish. Some years ago I had given to me a stray leaf that had been torn from some angling book, and which I have carefully preserved among my piscatorial nicknacks. It contained a scale for ascertaining with tolerable precision the weight of a fish when it was in good condition, measuring its entire length, but it adds this caution, " It must be borne in mind, however, that the weights given are only approximate." Now I have several times carefully weighed and measured a fish when in good condition, especially in the case of the barbel, the chub, and the roach, and I have found it pretty accurate. I give the scale here, in the hope that it may be useful to some of my brother anglers. 3 * ►h .9 W m ft O fe o H H Pn 3 O CD w Q 2 <» Eh NJ>O^HCONNO(N(NQNU5CONCOO O rt r-< rH r-l rH rH rH rH rH mOOOHHHNlMMM^iOKJCO^OOO 3 rH i P (h ^ *"^ r ^ ^ ^H i"H rH ••••«••••■ «OOOHHHHNNC0W^lfl(0 * * " * i O iH iH rH • « O© rH rH rH rH Q005OHMT?ia© 5 HHHHHH 9 SCOQOH^NCOHHOOOIXIH NN t? r7 O rHrH rH rH mOOOOHHHNNCOCC^TjiiottH* f pq co ^ff!-^^^. » H« -i|« 05iMOC0i>rHOCDQ0OC0rH^) • • • iH rH rHrHrH rHrH rHrH .... 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