OUR OPENING DAY. 17 



he is a much better subject for the table than is supposed. 

 A fat tench weighing about a pound, coming as it does 

 in a month when our fresh water fishes available for 

 the table are very limited in number, is excellent eating, 

 and it is amazing that it is not better known to the cook. 

 The fish spawns about, but seldom before, Midsummer, 

 and is, if river bred, most delicate eating in March and 

 April. It thrives nowhere so well as in the ornamental 

 lakes of private grounds ; on a hot July day fish of from 

 two to seven or eight pounds may often be seen floating 

 near] the surface, or moving uneasily amongst the weeds 

 under which they spawn. The angler for tench requires 

 a double stock of patience ; in the early morning, before 

 the hoar frost has vanished from the spring grass, rapid 

 sport may be sometimes had with fine tackle. Later in 

 the summer in warm rains and on cloudy days a good dish 

 may be reasonably expected, and it may as a rule be 

 held that large worms take large fish. I have taken tench 

 with plain paste while fishing for roach, but this was doubt- 

 less an accidental occurrence. A well-scoured marsh worm 

 is in every way the best bait for tench ; wasp-grub is also 

 a taking lure. The cookery books prescribe the stew-pan 

 for this fish ; to get out of it all that it is worth there is 

 nothing like filleting ; and the same cleanly method of 

 cooking holds good with almost every kind of fish. The 

 tench is often spoiled by fancy sauces of wine and other 

 ingredients. Tench and eel skinned and boned, in a 

 savoury pie, and eaten cold, make a most toothsome 

 combination for the breakfast table. Perhaps the quickest 

 and easiest way of cooking a tench is to split and fry it 

 thoroughly brown. 



