THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



281 



along the side of the river in a queer-looking pro- 

 cession. 



Those centres of interest to the angler, the Nor- 

 folk broads, are, alas ! the strongholds of poaching. 

 Norfolk anglers plead their great expanse of water 

 as an excuse for "liggering," or setting trimmers, 

 to an enormous extent. Taking Norfolk anglers 

 as a class, if they can "ligger" they will. The 

 amount of destruction thus occasioned is some- 

 thing wonderful. The only time we ever yielded 

 to the temptation of going with a friend " ligger- 

 ing" we are thankful to say we caught nothing, 

 and we are not in a hurry to repeat the experiment. 

 Yarrell gives an account of four days' " sport " (?) 

 at Heigham Sounds and Horsea, where, in 1834, in 

 the month of March, when the pike breed, his 

 informants caught in that space of time 256 pike, 

 weighing altogether 1135 pounds. What wonder 

 that it is now difficult to get really good sport at 

 these places with rod and line ! 



One of our favourite fish, the tench, has a bad 

 habit of basking on the surface of some of these 

 broads on hot summer days, in weedy bays, where 

 he deems himself perfectly secure. But the am- 

 phibious broadsman paddles quietly up to him, 

 and actually scoops him out with his hand. You 

 may touch the fish's body with your hand, and he 

 will not move ; but if you touch his tail, he darts 

 away. 



We have seen a somewhat similar thing in shallow 



