THE PERCH. 



117 



very finest, four or five x drawn gut for stream fishing, al- 

 though it should not be any stouter than the finest refina, 

 undrawn quality. Hooks should be nearly as large as re- 

 commended for chub, say, Nos. 6, 7, and 8, and they can 

 either be round bends, crystals, or sneck bends, according 

 to fancy or the bait in use. Floats can be swan quill, some 

 six or seven inches long, capable of carrying half-a-dozen 

 B.B. split shot for use down lighter streams, and a pelican 

 quill or small Nottingham curved cork float, capable of 

 carrying ten to a dozen shots for work down the deeper, 

 heavier waters. A small pilot, say about three quarters of 

 an inch in diameter, a good deal like the one recommended 

 in live-baiting for pike, will also be extremely useful in 

 fishing the holes under the boughs or roots with a single 

 minnow. Tackle for worm fishing need not be much longer 

 than a yard, anyhow, I should say a gut line a yard long with 

 a loop at each end, and stained either a dark blue or a yel- 

 lowish brown will be capable of fishing nearly any place 

 that contains perch. Hooks to suit all purposes can be 

 carried securely whipped to fine single lengths of gut 

 stained the same colour as the main gut line. By having 

 your hook lengths separate, you can easily change the hook 

 should a different size or pattern be required for special 

 baits or purposes. The food of perch consists principally 

 of the small fry of most sorts of fresh-water fish. Although 

 he will take worms of various sorts, from a huge lobworm 

 down to a tiny cockspur ; I look upon him as being a fish 

 eater generally. Nor is he by any means confined to worms 

 and small fish, for he will sometimes go for a lump of cheese 

 paste intended for a chub, a bit of bread crust when roach 

 fishine^, or a bunch of gentles or cad-baits when fishing the 

 streams for dace, and even when raking the bottom for 

 gudgeon perch will take the tiny scrap of worm intended 

 for the smaller fish. But still, as I said before, I don't 

 look upon those baits as being his staple food. I have 

 dozens of times seen large perch on the feed, he gets on 

 the track of a bleak, chasing it right across the river and 

 all over the place, all the time close to the surface, chop- 

 ping at it with a splash a dozen or m.ore times until the 

 .poor bleak gets too exhausted to jump for freedom any 



