THE PEECH. 61 



Trailing is often the best plan here, but if you can find a 

 clear bottom the float or paternoster may do. 



Perch take the spoon well, but they take the artificial 

 bait known as the otter better. This is a triangular bit 

 of metal, silvered on one side, copper on the other, and 

 revolving on a spindle. There are numbers of artificial 

 baits and minnows, but none better than this I think it 

 even beats the minnow, as it both shows and spins better. 

 I have taken hundreds of perch hi the Irish lakes with 

 them, and it beats the spoon two to one at least, that is 

 my experience. Some people paint it red on one side 

 instead of copper, and attach a small bunch of gay feathers, 

 but I do not know that it much improves it. I have no 

 doubt, also, that Mr. Hearder's plano-convex spinner, 

 which is contrived on a somewhat similar principle, would 

 be an excellent perch lure, as it is for all kinds of other 

 fish that take spinning baits, both in fresh and salt 

 water. 



Perch sometimes take a gentle, but worms and small 

 fish are their favourite food, and they will often take 

 an artificial fly, but, save, in one place, where it was often 

 used, I never knew it to be a recognised way of fishing for 

 them. Perch often abound so in ponds that they never 

 grow above half a pound weight, and few, perhaps, reach 

 that overcrowding and want of food, no doubt, is the 

 reason. Perch occasionally reach three and four pounds 

 weight, and even bigger, but are not so very common of 

 that size ; a two-pound fish is a very handsome fish, and 

 not to be despised. There are plenty of that size in the 

 Thames. They have been known to reach eleven pounds 

 in this country ; but a five or six pound fish is decidedly 

 rare. The rod for paternostering should be about ten or 

 eleven feet long, with upright rings, pretty stiff and strong, 



