A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



also worth a sacrifice, as was the feeling of superiority over the 

 sluggards of the little township. As for the sport, it varied. 

 Sometimes there would be half a dozen big bream and a few 

 good roach to carry home ; sometimes there would be but an 

 empty bag. But it was seldom that I did not several times 

 get the thrill of seeing the carefully adjusted float sinking 

 steadily and surely out of sight at the slant which denotes a 

 big bream in earnest. Once I hooked something monstrous 

 which defied strong tackle and all my skill. It simply ran the 

 line all out into the middle of the great weirpool and broke it. 

 I used to think it a carp, but subsequent reflection has sug- 

 gested that it might have been a salmon. Such a fish might 

 just possibly have made an errant way thither from the Severn, 

 and it would naturally have made short work of bream tackle. 



Bream fishing on the Norfolk Broads is a brisk business in 

 comparison with the river work described. Once you have 

 found your shoal and got it into the humour, you can catch 

 fish till you weary of it. But you are liable to have your patience 

 sorely tried at first by the attention of small silver bream, little 

 roach and little rudd. The silver bream is, I believe, a separate 

 species which does not grow to much more than a pound in 

 weight. If it has a place in the scheme of usefulness, it is, I 

 take it, to encourage the novice. The novice who needs en- 

 couragement could not do better than cast his lines where these 

 animated sheets of tin abound. They are, at any rate, fish, 

 and they can be caught with ease and precision. When the 

 big bronze bream come along, however, one has surcease from 

 the troubles of the small fry. I fancy this holds good in most 



2IO 



