POND-FISHING 3 



STILL-WATER or POND-FISHING may be practised under 

 various circumstances, and the tackle used must depend upon 

 the fish to be fished for. The fish which usually frequent pools 

 are roach, perch, carp, tench, bream, eels, and jack. The 

 tackle, as we have said, must depend much upon circumstances : 

 such as whether the pond be shallow or deep, clear or muddy, 

 much fished, or the reverse, and also upon the kind of fish the 

 angler is going after. If he be not particular, as few young 

 anglers are, we recommend to him a bait and tackle which will 

 take all pond fish, and even the jack himself at times. 



Let him employ a good long bamboo rod, not beyond his 

 strength. It is always advantageous to have a reel, as big fish 

 are capricious, and sometimes will prefer the clumsy bait of the 

 tyro to the neat and trimly impaled worm of Mr. Professor 

 himself ; a gut bottom of not less than two yards ; a light 

 cork float (Plate II, Fig. 2, p. 49) carrying four or five No. I 

 shot, the last of which should be a good foot from the hook ; 

 his hook should be upon rather finer gut than the line, and the 

 best general size he will find to be about No. 6, 7, or 8, it does 

 not matter a great deal which. If there be many roach in the 

 pond, and he desires to take them chiefly, perhaps the latter 

 size. If carp, tench, and perch, then the former is best. 



Let him plumb the depth accurately, and having fixed upon 

 a nice spot, near weeds, but quite clear of them at the bottom, 

 let him fix his float so that the bait may just touch the bottom, 

 not swim in mid-water. His hook should then be baited with 

 a well-scoured red worm, and having thrown in a dozen or so 

 of bits of broken worm round about the spot he is going to fish, 

 let him drop his bait in softly, and having stuck a forked stick 

 into the bank for his rod to rest on,* let him lay his rod down, 

 and keep out of sight, until he has a bite. Pond-fish always bite 

 slowly, and before they move away with the bait give ample 

 time to the angler to reach his rod and take it up. 



While his rod is, as it were, fishing for itself, he will do well to 

 look out for another spot near his own ground, to which, by 

 casting in a few odd broken worms or gentles from time to 

 time, he can allure the fish, so that when he is tired of his 

 present pitch, he can go to another already baited. Thus he 

 will lose no time in his fishing, and will be enabled, by working 



* If it be necessary for his rod to extend over the pond, by resting the 

 part in front of the reel on the fork, and by pressing the part behind the 

 reel down by means of a hooked stick forced into the ground, the rod can 

 be kept in position and out of the water easily. F. F. 



