182 COARSE FISH. 



and quickly after a while, and I struck the fish. I 

 knew at once it was a small one, but, to my sur- 

 prise, it was a two-pound tench ! I wrapped it 

 up carefully in a cloth ; and on reaching home 

 about nine hours after its capture, the fish was 

 quite lively, so I put it in a bucket to amuse my 

 children. They did amuse themselves with it for a 

 day or two, the tench bein j nearly as much out of 

 the water as in it ; then the dog found it great fun 

 to take the tench from its bucket and lay it on the 

 kitchen floor (and he did it quietly and gently) to 

 dry a little ! After a time, we carried the fish down 

 to the Thames, and put it in for re-stocking pur- 

 poses. This may be regarded as a yarn, but it is a 

 perfectly true one. Of the supposed medicinal pro- 

 perties of the tench I know nothing. 



There are few pleasanter ways of spending an 

 utterly idle summer's day than in tench-fishing. 

 The fish are not particularly shy ; I have fished in the 

 company of two or three anglers, and we have all 

 been catching tench fast. One need never be in a 

 hurry in tench-fishing, for the fish is a slow feeder, 

 the only difficulty being to get him to feed at all ; 

 but when he does, he fully makes up for lost time 

 You may fish for days and not get a single tench ; 

 then they will suddenly feed, and you may fill your 

 basket in no time. In my schooldays I once found 

 out some tench when catching sticklebacks for an 

 aquarium, having frequently enjoyed pulling the 

 latter out with a worm tied to a bit of cotton, a 

 wooden match for a float, and a willow wand for 

 rod. On tying on an extra big worm, the match 

 was pulled right under. I thought I had a most 

 extraordinary stickleback to tackle, but to my 

 great surprise I drew a small tench to the top of 



