372 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



dozing at the bottom of their deep holes in the afternoons. 

 Therefore choose a windy morning for perch-fishing, espe- 

 cially when the wind shifts from a quarter it has long been 

 in, and bait with small fry, fresh-water shrimps, or, /auie de 

 inieux, worms ; but remember that perch, like all fish and 

 fowl, hate an east wind. But they prefer small fry {e.g., 

 gudgeons), and you may, if you watch them attentively, 

 see the small fry's scales gleam as he goes down the wide 

 mouth of the hungry perch. A good bait to try is the tail 

 of roach or rudd cut after the manner of a mackerel bait, 

 and I have even known a perch caught with a sounding 

 plummet. For night-lines, worms ; or for thick water, young 

 eels are good. You may often in warm weather see a 

 shoal of perch together; and cast your bait just over them, 

 when they will look at it languidly, until suddenly one will 

 dart at it and take it. Others may follow, but perch- 

 fishing is very uncertain sport. In the summer they work 

 about in shoals from one place to another ; and you may at 

 times see a perch with bristling spines fly at a spoon-bait 

 or fish, and take it greedily down. But the deeper the 

 water the better they like it, for they are not a mud fish. 

 In winter they are more rarely seen, for they lie in the 

 deepest water for warmth, or in holes under the banks ; but 

 they feed in winter as well as summer. I have known them 

 caught at Christmas-time. In winter-time, too, you may 

 see them swimming under the ice, away from Jack, who 

 will take them as soon as anything. 



The largest perch I have caught was a three-pound 

 fish — a full fish — but it gave no sport, coming up slug- 

 gishly. I was casting for pike with a spoon-bait. There 

 is a good specimen at Geldeston Lock that weighed 5 lbs. 2 

 oz., and was caught below the weir with a spoon. Barber, 

 the celebrated fish-taker, told me eight pounds and a quarter 

 was the largest perch he ever saw taken in the district. 



Small perch make excellent frittura, and a good large 

 perch makes a capital dish, as does its roe, nicely salted and 

 fried in oil. 



