yg THE BREAM. 



swim in exactly the same manner as described for barbeL 

 Some Trent fishermen use a ground bait for bream, consist- 

 ing of boiled scratchings, brewer's grains, barley meal, and 

 bullock's blood, mixed up and kneaded together in hard 

 lumps. With this ground bait worms are generally used on 

 the hook, although cadbaits, wasp grubs, and scented pastes 

 can also be tried as a change. Trent bream are cunning 

 customers, and just about as uncertain in their feeding as 

 barbel, very often refusing to come on even after the most 

 careful baiting. Every item' of the tackle should be as neat 

 as possible, the float itself being not one shot heavier than 

 the swim actually requires. The bait should also be 

 threaded on the hook as neatly as can be, and no long ends- 

 of worms dangling from the point. A good breams bait in 

 a stream is about an inch of the tail end of a well-scoured 

 lob-worm, threaded well on the shank of the hook, and a 

 little brilliant brandling or red-worm, twisting and twirling, 

 crossways on the point. I used to find that the Trent bream 

 were very roving in their habits, sometimes forsaking a swim 

 without any apparent reason, and then after an absence of 

 a week or more returning to it as suddenly as they left. This 

 stream fishing for bream in the Trent style is a good deal 

 like barbel fishing, with the exceotion of the t\vo or three 

 little differences noted above ; sO' I will say no more on that 

 subject, but turn to a far different method, viz., breami fish- 

 ing in quiet waters. 



Many of the riverside anglers who live on the banks of the 

 Bedfordshire Ouse, have an idea that it is very httle, if any, 

 good fishing for breami in those waters during the day time, 

 and that it is not one time in a score that breami are to be 

 caught, say, between the hours of nine in the morning and 

 four in the afternoon. Personally I don't wonder at it when 

 the extraordinary tackle used by some of these men is taken 

 into account ; but I must say that the very best bag of bream 

 I ever got with rod and line in my life was taken between the 

 hours named. They came on the feed at nine in the morn- 

 ing, and did not cease biting until four in the afternoon, by 

 which time fifty, weighing exactly nine stones, had been 

 safely landed ; the water was clear, and the sun very hot all 

 through the day. I can also call to mind scores of other 



