142 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



perhaps, but I must confess that in all my rambles up and 

 down the Trent, I have never found a place that abounds 

 with perch either little or big. Once I got a pound fish from 

 out of the rough water of Averham weir, and two or three 

 three-quarter-pounders from the mouth of the Devon, and 

 another place or two, and a few half-pounders from various 

 places, but they are by no means common, and I don't think 

 I ever caught above half a dozen perch in one day from the 

 Trent in my life ; the Devon and the Witham seem to be 

 better stocked with perch than the Trent, for I have seen 

 several good catches from those rivers. An angler went up 

 to Barnby to fish the Witham a few months ago. It was, in 

 fact, just after the break up of last winter's frost, and when 

 he got there the river was tearing down nearly bank full and 

 very much discoloured. He thought when he saw it that it 

 would be of no use fishing, but there was a big drain or dyke 

 a little distance away, and as there waa a deep hole at the 

 mouth of this drain where it ran into the river he thought 

 he would go and have a look. He found that a short dis- 

 tance up this drain, a very few yards in fact, the water was 

 nothing like so much discoloured as it was in the river, so he 

 determined to have a try. It was a beautiful quiet eddy, 

 whereas a few yards outside the river rushed down in a tor- 

 rent : he clipped up a few worms and threw them in, and 

 then baited his hook ; his float had hardly reached the per- 

 pendicular, before down it went, and in another minute a 

 half-pound perch was landed ; this was rather encouraging, 

 and so he set to work in earnest, and for two hours the biting 

 was very fair, and when he left off, he had something like 

 thirty perch, and some half-dozen roach, and many of the 

 perch were very good fish. The perch had run up the mouth 

 of this drain, to get out of the way of the heavy water out- 

 side, and being hungry, had taken the bait freely. Nothing 

 like that has been done on the Trent, and I have tried all 

 such likely-looking spots up and down the river, on purpose 

 to see if I could not break the spell that seems to be cast 

 over it, but without any very great results, and I have long 

 ago come to the conclusion that the Trent is not much of a 

 perch river. The largest perch by far that I have seen 



