COARSE-FISHING MEMORIES 



it out. Also it is calculated to loosen the hook-hold, which is 

 why so many big perch escape after they have been on for 

 some time. 



Many big perch escape without having been on at all. 

 Several times in my fishing experience I have had the luck 

 to find shoals of beauties at some particular place in a river, 

 and have feasted my eyes on them as they cruised about in the 

 clear water, promising myself the morrow of my life. And 

 when the morrow has come, and I with it, tackle in hand, the 

 shoal has always disappeared, and angling has been useless. 

 Where the fish go to I have no idea. On the very day when I 

 caught the Kennet perch mentioned before, a man, who had no 

 object in drawing a long bow, told me that he had seen such a 

 shoal in a pool below a lock but an hour earlier. To that pool 

 I hurried, and there was not a perch there, except the | oz. 

 specimens, which are everywhere. I have come to the con- 

 clusion that big perch take up a permanent abode where the 

 rainbow ends. Very occasionally I have " spoken them in 

 passing," and even for that small mercy I have been and am 

 grateful. 



What has been said of the scarcity of good perch might 

 be repeated with regard to pike, at any rate in such waters as 

 are within most men's reach. A good pike is, I suppose, by 

 general consent anything of lo lb. or more. Such pike are 

 now rare, save in well-preserved private fisheries ; and the man 

 who has to depend on open waters for his sport will not catch 

 many such fish in a season, or even in several seasons. As for 

 20-pounders, he had better make up his mind to regard 



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