170 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



morsel, if fried crisp with egg and bread crumbs. A light 

 rod, reel, line, and tackle are used for his capture. His haunts 

 are in rather rapid shallow waters that now over a gravelly or 

 sandy bottom. The bait is a small worm, the tail end of a 

 brandling or cockspur on a small hook is best and the bait 

 must trip along the bottom. The float and tackle recommended 

 for dace fishing in a stream will be right for the gudgeon, but 

 the hook must be a size or two smaller. The worm should 

 be threaded on the hook so that no loose ends hang about, or 

 he will pull and bother you like a tiny eel. If the water is 

 very clear, a rake is used in some places to stir up the 

 sand and make a rather thick water ; the gudgeon then 

 flock together there, and are then sometimes pulled out 

 very rapidly. I have seen anglers doing what they call 

 "muddling for gudgeon." They take off their shoes and 

 stockings, and roll up their trousers to the thigh, and 

 shuffle about the sandy shallows with their feet, and then 

 with rod and tackle fish among the discoloured water. This 

 plan is adopted if the water be not above two feet deep, 

 but a heavy iron rake is the best. Owing to the fact that 

 these fish take so little skill to catch them, it is a favourite 

 sport with the ladies in various districts where the fish 

 abound. 



A poem of Hood's, entitled the " Angler's Lament," con- 

 tains the following lines : 



" At a brandling once gudgeons would gape, 

 But they seem to have alter'd their forms, now. 

 Have they taken advice of the Council of Nice, 

 And rejected the Diet of Worms, now ? " 



But that must be a bit of poetic fancy, for gudgeon are very 

 fond of a nice brandling, and a " diet of worms " suits them 

 precisely. Perhaps, however, the poet had Martin Luther in 

 his eye when he wrote that. I now must pull up my line, 

 however, and, as the cheap-jack at the fair says, " show you 

 something else." 



The ruffe, sometimes called the pope, is a member of the 

 perch family, and his scientific name is Perca Ceruna. He is 

 very like a small perch in shape, having the same prickly fin 

 on the back, but is a deal darker than the perch and marked 



