THE BEEAM. 47 



head-quarters of bream, they abound in great profusion, 

 and the takes there are counted by the stone instead of 

 the pound. Though the bream in Norfolk rarely exceed 

 41b. in weight while in the Thames they sometimes run 

 up to 61b., and in my little stream, the Crane, a tributary 

 of the Thames, I have often taken them of 61b. and larger 

 in the Irish lakes, where they sometimes abound greatly, 

 bream have been taken up to 91b. The bream is a very 

 slimy fish, and often when hooked will bore head down- 

 wards, and rub the line with his side, so that it comes up 

 sometimes quite coated with slime for a foot above the 

 hook. 



The same methods of fishing for bream as I have given 

 for barbel should be adopted, viz., by the ledger, the roach 

 float fishing, and the traveller float. The hook used should 

 be a size or so smaller than that used for barbel. On 

 the Thames they ground bait with worms and gentles, and 

 if you can get a large supply of brandlings they are far 

 the best even for ground bait, and for the hook nothing 

 beats brandlings. In Norfolk boiled barley or grains is 

 the favourite ground bait, but I do not think they would 

 be found insensible to the worm. Grains and barley, how- 

 ever, have the merit of being cheaper and much easier to 

 get. On the Thames, at any rate, the finer the tackle the 

 better it pays, as the bream there are often shy in biting. 

 They are also capricious, like the barbel, and may be 

 caught later than the barbel, an open week in mid-winter 

 often giving good sport with them, which .it rarely does 

 with the barbel. I have caught them up to the second 

 week in April, when they began to get rough for the 

 spawning, as, indeed, do the roach nearly about the same 

 time, and both of these fish might well be taken till the 

 end of March March being one of the best months in the 



