5o8 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN THE GENTLE CRAFT. 



Never throw much greaves in as ground bait, fish soon 

 sicken of it, so that it should be used sparingly. 



A baby frog is the grandest bait in the world for a big 

 chub, just at that doubtful period of his existence when 

 even his mother might feel some pardonable uncertainty as 

 to whether he belonged to her family or not ; but it would 

 occupy too much space to dilate impartially upon frogs 

 and black-beetles, cockchafers and slugs, and the beauties 

 of Nottingham fishing with pith and brains under the 

 boughs; so that I must even leave all I would say 

 unsaid. 



TENCH FISHING. 



With regard to angling for tench there is really little to 

 be said. They are so seldom met with in rivers, and are so 

 uncertain in their biting moods, that it would be simply 

 waste of time for an angler to devote much, if any, of his 

 leisure to angling specially for them. One hears every 

 now and then of a good fish that has fallen to a skilled 

 rodster, both in the Thames and Lea. But it usually turns 

 out upon investigation that the capture has been one purely 

 of a chance nature, and that the fish has been taken either 

 by a banksman who was roach-fishing, or, in the Thames 

 more particularly, by some angler who is bream or barbel- 

 fishing, and who gets a cautious preliminary nibble or two, 

 puzzling him for a moment from its being utterly unlike any 

 other bite he has had, and who upon striking when he finds 

 his float sailing off, finds that " the doctor " has taken a fancy 

 to his lobworm. Where, however, it is known that tench 

 have chosen some slow, heavy water, and their habitation 

 is a part of a river, I would always advise those who may 

 have a sufficient stock of patience to devote part of their 



