HAUNTS OF, AND BAITS FOR, PERCH. 293 



handling. Some say that, as regards the time, 

 the perch bites best in the latter part of the spring 

 from seven to eleven in the forenoon, and from 

 two to six in the afternoon, except in hot and 

 bright weather, and then from sunrise to six in 

 the morning, and in the evening from six to sun- 

 set. In tidal rivers, however, and the waters 

 immediately connected with them, as docks, 

 sluices, &c., these general rules as to biting times 

 do not apply ; for it is there during the flow and 

 ebb, when the natural food is principally on the 

 stir, that perch are most greedily on the look-out 

 for it, let the time be what it may. Perch lie about 

 bridges and mill-pools ; in and near locks ; about 

 shipping, barges, and floats of timber, in navigable 

 rivers, canals, and in wet docks ; in the still part 

 of rivers, in back waters, in deep gentle eddies ; 

 in ponds about sluices, and the mouths of outlets 

 and flood-gates, liking best sandy and gravelly 

 bottoms. In deep waters and in docks, I recom- 

 mend the paternoster-line. If you angle in docks, 

 deep and subject to the tide, use four hooks on 

 your paternoster, baiting the lowest one with a 

 minnow, loach, or gudgeon ; the next with a 

 worm, the third with a shrimp, and the fourth or 

 upper hook with a gentle. In fresh water a 

 shrimp should not be used. Perch have been 

 lately caught with large gaudy lake trout flies, 

 sunk beneath the surface of the water. Fish for 



