1 1 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 



stifle their dislike to the fish and the " messy " nature of the 

 mode of capture. Being very shy fellows, although you 

 may kill a hundredweight of them, there is some skill 

 required. 



There is not much to add to what has been said of the 

 bream in the foregoing chapter. Always, however, fish for 

 bream on the ground, and keep out of sight. Be slow to 

 strike, for the bream, like the tench, loves to suck the bait, to 

 rise with it until the float is flat on the water, and yet to 

 keep clear of the hook. A large bait being preferred, and 

 the mouth being narrow and small, ample time, in reason, 

 should be given. The largest bream I have seen were 

 three specimens caught by a gentleman up the Lea, and 

 exhibited in the office window of the Field. They were 

 handsome and beautifully stuffed fish, and each had weighed 

 an ounce or so more or less than seven pounds. Walton 

 understood bream-fishing well, and is right in his observation : 

 " After three or four days' fishing together your game will be 

 very shy and wary, and you shall hardly get above a bite or 

 two at a baiting : then your only way is to desist from your 

 sport." Ephemera mentions that he has frequently caught 

 bream with the artificial fly brown palmers, the governor, 

 and yellow and white moths. 



Barbel-fishing is carried to a pitch of excellence both in the 

 Thames and Trent, and in both it is no uncommon thing 

 to slay over fifty pounds weight at a sitting. Ground baiting 

 with chopped lobworms is the necessary preliminary, and 

 Nottingham is the great lobworm emporium, from which the 

 Thames men in their most sanguinary campaigns order 

 them by telegraph. The barbel has an unconquerable 

 spirit and a strong body of his own, and though he, like his 



