LOCALITIES WHERE BREAM ARE FOUND. 75 



worms are especially favoured by the bream ; and if the 

 angler can get the reversion of an old hotbed and secure a 

 gallon or two of them, he may be pretty sure, if the water 

 suits and the bream are ' there,' to get his share of them. 



The finer the angler can fish for bream the better. 

 Indeed, whether for bream or barbel, his tackle never 

 should be a shot heavier than the stream requires to ride 

 the float well and steadily. In ponds, or in still quiet 

 eddies, the angler will often find that the bream will lift 

 and throw the float flat upon the water. The reason of 

 this, I imagine, is that the bream is a round-shaped, 

 round-bellied fish, and when it picks up the bait and then 

 assumes its natural position to eat it, although the belly 

 of the fish may touch the ground, the head and tail are 

 some distance off it, and hence the shots and sinkers are 

 lifted, and the float, instead of being pulled down, is 

 thrown up. When hooked in still deep water, the bream 

 has a disagreeable knack of boring head down, and rubbing 

 and chafing the line with its side and tail, so that the line 

 often comes up for a foot above the hook covered with 

 slime. When hooked in a stream, after the first rush it 

 soon turns on its side and comes in comparatively easily. 

 Bream run to a good weight, six or seven pounds being 

 not very uncommon, while occasionally they have been 

 caught of fourteen or fifteen pounds weight. 



In some of our Lakes, particularly in Ireland, as Loughs 

 Neagh, Conn, Corrib, and Erne (especially the latter), the 

 abundance of bream exceeds all belief, many cartloads 

 being often taken in one sweep of the nets. Bream bite 

 pretty well during the summer, more particularly in the 

 morning and evening, but as a rule they take more freely 

 towards autumn. Bream off a clean gravelly or sandy bot- 

 tom in the winter, when the weed is out of them, are by 

 no means bad eating. I was doubtful of this once, having 

 tried them too early in the summer. Since then I have 



