68 TIME LOST WITH SINGLE HAIR. 



by poor old Bill Wisdom, at Hampton Court weir on the 

 Thames. Still they cannot be called a predacious fish. 

 Another bait which answers well for them is a piece of a 

 lampern ; this is a killing bait in November, when the 

 lamperns are running the ground-bait being the head, 

 blood, and intestines of lamperns. I have with the ledger 

 made some very fine takes with this bait, once taking 

 many heavy fish, my first four being five, six, eight, and 

 twelve pounds respectively. It is not often used, however, 

 as the barbel retires to winter quarters at the first smart 

 frost, and the lamperns seldom run in any numbers until 

 a frost or two has occurred. I have known many fine 

 barbel taken with a bit of fat bacon, and raw beef or 

 mutton is also often taken greedily. In the absence of 

 worms there would be no difficulty in baiting with bacon 

 or chopped beef. The coarsest would do. I have an idea 

 that if one couldn't get worms a gallon of shrimps would 

 prove very acceptable, but I never tried it. 



Fishing for barbel with fine roach tackle is, however, 

 certainly productive of the most sport, though it is not the 

 way to make a large bag ; for if the angler be using tine 

 roach tackle, and hooks a good fish, he may waste an hour 

 or an hour and a half over him, and then loose him after 

 all, as I have done scores of times. I always fished with 

 tangle hair formerly, when float-fishing from a punt, and 

 have killed very many barbel of four and five pounds 

 weight with it ; but so much time and so many fish were 

 lost at it, that I have long discontinued it. I once re- 

 member, many years since, hooking an apparently large 

 fish on single hair, about five o'clock one November after- 

 noon. I played him for a long time until my arm grew 

 tired, when I handed the rod to a friend who was with 

 me. He tired, and handed the rod to Wisdom, who in 

 turn gave it back to me. They both despaired of our 

 ever killing the fish, and set his weight at a dozen pounds 



