108 ANGLING FOE COAESE FISH. 



large eddies, where the water is deep and the bottom muddy. 

 In ponds tench bite freely at times, but are very uncertain in 

 their feeding. The best fishing is had in the spring and 

 summer, early in the morning and late in the evening. In 

 rivers, tench are taken in winter if the water is highly coloured 

 and the weather mild. I believe that in stagnant water they 

 invariably bury themselves in the mud when the weather gets 

 cold, but they certainly do occasionally come out to feed. 



Tench have extraordinary powers of living in mud, and large 

 fish are frequently taken out of what are little better than mud- 

 holes. In my youthful days I used to fish a small farm 

 horse-pond, which, though shallow and muddy, contained many 

 tench over lib. in weight. One summer the pond all but dried 

 up, and some gipsies nearly cleared it of tench by means of hay 

 rakes, literally raking the fish out of the mud. 



All the tench I have tasted, whether taken in the Thames or 

 in muddy ponds, have been excellent eating, and well flavoured. 

 The slime should be scraped off before the fish are cooked. If 

 the fish from any pond are bad flavoured — and I have heard of 

 such — they might be improved by being placed in a hamper 

 moored in a stream, or, failing the stream, in a vessel of water 

 placed under a tap left running. 



The best baits for tench are worms — redworms and brandlings 

 in summer when the water is bright, lobworms in winter, or at 

 any time when the river is coloured. Paste made of stale brown 

 bread and honey (mentioned by Izaak Walton) is also very good, 

 and sometimes wasp-grubs and gentles are used with success. 

 The best ground-baits are worms, when worms are on the hook ; 

 bran, brown bread, and potatoes when the brown-bread paste 

 is used ; and carrion gentles when wasp-grubs or gentles are the 

 hook-bait. The worm-oil mentioned on page 63 is said to be 

 very attractive for tench, but I have not tried it. 



Angling for Tench in Ponds and Lakes is very similar 

 to carp-fishing. The same precautions should be taken, though 

 tench are not quite so shy as carp ; nevertheless, it always pays 

 to attend to matters of detail. As a rule, it is best to let 

 the bait lie on the bottom, as in carp-fishing ; but occasionally 

 tench seem to take the bait more freely when it only just 



