A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



The water is seven or eight feet deep ; it is Hned with stumps 

 of bygone willows, and on a sunny day when the river is clear 

 you can see every detail of the bottom. Along this channel, 

 I am told, there is a patrol of perch, such perch as have only 

 swum before me in dreams. Five-pounders, " with a big one or 

 two among them," that is the impression given to me by a 

 thoroughly trustworthy informant. I see no reason why the 

 thing should not be true (I will not quibble over ounces), for 

 the spot is not many miles from the reach which yielded up a 

 39 lb. pike a few years ago. The Stour is a wonderful river, 

 and it holds many notable secrets in its placid depths. 



Not that it ever gave me any perch of great account — but 

 then I have not fished it for perch very much. I am grateful 

 to it chiefly for some remarkable baskets of roach, fine stalwart 

 fish running into the near neighbourhood of 2 lb. Varied fish- 

 ing it was too. There was one swim about twelve feet deep 

 which had to be fished with a 17-feet rod, and which was in its 

 way the most desirable roach swim I ever found. There was 

 a comfortable mound close to the edge on which one could sit, 

 a line of rushes just in front on which the rod could rest at odd 

 moments of pipe-lighting and the like, a steady easy current, 

 and no weeds to catch the hook and disarrange the float. At 

 so great a depth the fish bit with an unrestraint which was good 

 to see, especially if there was a little ripple on the surface. 

 There was none of the nibbling and wriggling that distinguish 

 most roach fishing. The float stopped, went well under, and 

 only appeared again after the rod had gone smartly up. Some- 

 where far out of sight there was a stout resistance, and for quite 



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