CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE PERCH. 



PERCH AND PERCH FISHING. 



The veteran and his first perch — Habits and haunts of perch — Perch 

 packing in the wititer — A cruel slaughter — Description of the perch — 

 Weight of perch — '' His eyes bigger than his belly " — Perch in the frying 

 pan — Rod, reel, line, and tackle for perch fishing— Stream fishing for 

 jterch — Paternostering — Float fishing with a minnow — Fly fishing — Arti- 

 ficial baits for perch. 



I find that I have gone into the subject of pike fishing at 

 such a length that the space left at my disposal to treat of 

 perch and perch fishing is only very limited, so I must be as 

 brief as I possibly can in this chapter, only laying down the 

 principal rules that must guide the novice who wishes to 

 practice this branch of angling. 



I wonder how many grey-haired veterans among the vast 

 army of Britain's anglers who, looking back over a career 

 spent by the side of river, lake, pond, and stream, cannot say 

 that it was the capture of a small perch or two in some pond 

 or canal that was the starting point of their angling experi- 

 ences, and so fired them with enthusiasm for the sport that 

 they have stuck to it till unable to get down to the water- 

 side, and can now only sit by the fire and think of all the 

 glorious days they have had since those boyhood's times, 

 when the first perch snatched down their float so startlingly 

 sudden that it nearly upset their nerves. There is no fish 

 iDetter adapted than small perch, that live in a pond or 

 canal, to start a boy on his angling experiences. This class 

 of perch is not particular what sort of tackle it is, neither 

 does he care much about the bait — a worm freshly dug out 

 of the garden, a slug picked at random from the cabbage 

 bed, or a bunch of green and stinking gentles will all be 

 greedily swallowed. And then again it does not matter 



