370 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



For this reason it is a good plan to wear indiarubber-soled shoes 

 or slippers in the boat. 



Meeting three well-known anglers I asked them to give me 

 particulars of their best catches of bream and roach. No. i 

 said : ' I have done very little roach-fishing, but my best catch 

 was 5 stone 10 pounds. My greatest catch of bream was 

 132 bream, weighing 212 pounds; but I have had several 

 catches since of 112 to 140 pounds.' 



No. 2 said : ' As to roach, my own experience runs up to five 

 stone by two rods between 10 and 4. Of bream I have caught 

 with a friend six stone between 4 and 7 A.M.; but I know of 

 three friends who once caught twenty-three stone on one of the 

 Broads.' 



No. 3 said of roach: 'I have had some very fine catches, 

 principally in the Yare. On one occasion at Buckenham with 

 a friend, we caught six stone between 2.30 and 7 P.M. ; another 

 time upwards of five stone in the same space of time, and 

 numerous catches of from two to four stone in an after- 

 noon's fishing. Also more than a bushel by measure one 

 afternoon with a friend in Oulton Dyke. As to bream, I have 

 caught, in company with a friend, seventeen stone in one day on 

 Wroxham Broad, and with only one rod each. I have heard 

 of many catches from time to time of from four to twelve stone.' 

 (Stone=i4 pounds.) 



The above experiences may be taken as typical among the 

 native anglers; but the great majority of visitors are not by any 

 means so successful. On my asking No. 3 angler why this was 

 so, he replied, ' Through ignorance of the general requirements 

 of tackle suitable for fishing in our waters ; also of the modus 

 operandi, one of the chief points being a want of knowledge of 

 the right depth at which to fish. For instance, I have on 

 several occasions found strangers fishing on the Yare in twelve 

 or fourteen feet of water with their baits only four or five feet 

 below the surface.' 



Of other coarse fish inhabiting the rivers and Broads the 

 rudd is the gamest, and is found in some of the Broads in great 



