148 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



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 

 woolly, 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. I have seen a well- 

 known bream swim baited with a thousand worms a day for 

 nearly a fortnight before the bream took it into their heads to 

 come " on f but when they once did come " on," the sport 

 was good ; and once I remember an angler baiting a swim day 

 after day, in the hope that he would soon get them, when at 

 last he had a bite, and soon landed a three-pounder. He now 

 fished away in earnest, and landed ten good fish in an hour, 

 when they left off feeding as suddenly as they began, and he 

 did not get a single nibble neither that day nor the next ; 

 while on the other hand, as just noticed, I have known 

 several members of a private fishery to put their resources 

 together, and join in at baiting a swim, and after they have 

 expended a good deal of time and a lot of worms over the 

 job, the bream have come on and well rewarded them for 

 their trouble, the lucky anglers getting good bags every day 

 for a fortnight ; but, as I have said before, bream fishing is 

 only a very uncertain job. 



