THE BREAM. 125 



sluggish streams being exactly suited to them. The Broads 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk contain vast quantities of fine bream, 

 and the Trent has some good ones in many of its deep quiet 

 holes. 



This fish will sometimes attain to a very great size. I have 

 seen them taken from the Trent when they have scaled seven 

 and eight pounds, but such are by no means common, four or 

 five pounds being a good weight. Although I believe it is 

 put on record as a fact that a seventeen-pound fish was once 

 taken from the Trent, I have a cutting from the Fishing 

 Gazette now before me in which the following passage 

 occurs : "At Hoveringham (on the Trent) three years ago, 

 two splendid carp bream were caught by Mr. Beck in his eel 

 nets. I was present at the weighing of these fish, and they 

 scaled twelve and a quarter and twelve and three quarter 

 pounds respectively." Grand fish they would be, but I must 

 confess that I have never seen any approaching that weight. 

 The bream is not a very good fish for the table, its flesh is 

 wooly, watery, and disagreeable, and it has a great quantity 

 of small bones in its flesh. It will take a bit of paste, a 

 lump of gentles, or a cad bait, but the very best bait for 

 bream is a well-scoured worm. The rod, reel, and line re- 

 commended for barbel and chub will do for bream, and your 

 tackle should be the same as recommended for the same fish. 

 Don't have a float any larger than a swan quill if you can 

 help it, and it ought to be a slider, for bream are, as I said 

 before, found in deep holes ; and as the stream is sluggish, 

 do not use any heavier tackle than what will ride comfort- 

 ably in the swim. Everything should be as neat as possible, 

 for the bream is rather a cunning customer. They are very 

 uncertain in their feeding, often refusing to look at a bait 

 after the swim has been well baited. The hook should be a 

 No. 7 or 8, as bream have rather a small mouth, and a lip 

 hook, a No. 9 can be used if you like, the same as is recom- 

 mended for barbel. The swim is baited with worms exactly 



