64 ELEMENTS OF ANGLING. 



than three feet in depth and clear to boot one has 

 to proceed cautiously. I have found the best plan 

 for bream in such a spot to be ground-bait and 

 patience. One throws the former in liberally twenty 

 yards or so from the boat, and then exercises the 

 latter till the fish have been attracted. They them- 

 selves give information on the point by nosing about 

 at the bottom as they feed and sending up strings 

 of bubbles to the surface small bubbles. An 

 isolated occurrence of large bubbles is, I think, no 

 clue to fish, though force of tradition makes five 

 anglers out of six say, " there is an eel," when they 

 see the phenomenon. Sometimes an eel may be 

 responsible for it, but usually, I believe, it betokens 

 nothing more than an escape of gas from the mud. 

 A shoal of feeding bream, however, is not easily to 

 be mistaken ; the bubbles are too numerous and too 

 frequent, and are to be seen all over the area which 

 has been baited. In still water it is better to throw 

 the ground-bait in loose, or at any rate in very small 

 lumps ; so it makes more of itself. A bucketful 

 is not too much for baiting a bream pitch. 



A different method of baiting is employed for 

 that very handsome fish the rudd, whose acquaint- 

 ance the i^ovice has not yet made. Something like 

 a roach in general appearance, it has points of dif- 

 ference. In the first place its general colouring is 



