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THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



communicating with them by narrow reed-fringed 

 channels, are the sheets of water known as 

 " broads." 



It may be imagined that such an extent of water 

 must harbour many fish, and the surmise would 

 be correct. The chief products are bream and 

 pike. The pike are getting scarcer, owing to the 

 great prevalence of the practice of "liggering," 

 as setting trimmers is called in Norfolk, and the 

 indiscriminate netting of under-sized fish. This 

 unwise mode of fishing has had another necessary, 

 though unfortunate, step ; that is, the closing or 

 preserving of many of the " broads," so that the 

 vast expanses of water which were formerly alive 

 with fishermen, are now silent and lonely, save for 

 the clamour of the wild-fowl ; and the middle- 

 class angler is bereft of his pleasure.* 



The bream, on the contrary, are as numerous 

 as ever, and the Norfolk angler counts his catch, 

 not by the pound weight, but by the stone. 

 Fishing for bream may be said to be an institution 

 of Norfolk, and to judge by the numbers of London 

 men who annually visit the Yare, at Reedham and 

 Coldham, its fame has spread wide. 



It was our lot to go straight from a trout-fishing 

 county in the west to a residence for some time in 

 Norfolk ; and while we fully appreciated the ad- 



* An Act has just been passed to protect and regulate 

 the fishing on the Norfolk broads and rivers, so that they 

 will soon regain their pristine fame. ED. 



l/B* 



