.v2 BA1T1SG A BARBEL-SWIM. 



likely swim, when he tries that in like manner never 

 stopping longer in one swim than the fish bite. 



In this method of fishing the angler must make as 

 little disturbance on the bank as possible, or he will alarm 

 t'Yrry fish. Should he, however, know where a good store 

 of barbel lie, having chose^ the swim, he will proceed to 

 bait it with about 1,000 fresh lob or dew-worms, coming to 

 it at least twenty hours before he intends to fish it. He 

 breaks each worm up into about three or four pieces, and 

 casts the whole into the place he intends to fish. On the 

 Thames, in order to keep the bait from straying too far, the 

 worms are enclosed in huge balls of clay, and the fishermen 

 bait the night before fishing ; so that when they come in 

 the morning, less than twelve hours after, they find the fish 

 collected together, doubtless, but gorged with the worms 

 so profusely provided for them, and so close to the place 

 where the punt-poles are to be driven in, and the punt or 

 boat fixed, that the fish, startled, even if they are hungry, 

 get shy of the boat and retire to a distance. This is the 

 usual method of baiting; but the one which I have found 

 to pay best is to bait for three nights in succession, using 

 about 500 or 600 worms the first two nights, and half that 

 number on the third, so as not to overdo them. By this 

 means if there is any chance of sport the angler will be 

 sure to get it, and if he chooses a good swim in the month 

 of July or August when the water is just clearing from a 

 flood he should get the best sport. On the Trent they do 

 not put the bait into clay, but let it scatter down the 

 stream ; and as they fish a long way from the stand or 

 boat, as the case may be, the barbel are not alarmed by 

 the proximity of the angler. Whether the angler fishes 

 from a stand on the shore, or from a boat, the method is 

 the same. The object is to let the hook-bait travel over 

 the whole distance along which the ground-bait has been 

 cattered, dragging, like the ground-bait, slowly along the 



