372 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



dozing at the bottom of their deep holes in the afternoons. 

 Therefore choose a windy morning for perch-fishing, espe- 

 cially when the wind shifts from a quarter it has long been 

 in, and bait with small fry, fresh-water shrimps, or, faute de 

 mieux, worms; but remember that perch, like all fish and 

 fowl, hate an east wind. But they prefer small fry (e.g., 

 gudgeons), and you may, if you watch them attentively, 

 see the small fry's scales gleam as he goes down the wide 

 mouth of the hungry perch. A good bait to try is the tail 

 of roach or rudd cut after the manner of a mackerel bait, 

 and I have even known a perch caught with a sounding 

 plummet. For night-lines, worms ; or for thick water, young 

 eels are good. You may often in warm weather see a 

 shoal of perch together ; and cast your bait just over them, 

 when they will look at it languidly, until suddenly one will 

 dart at it and take it. Others may follow, but perch- 

 fishing is very uncertain sport. In the summer they work 

 about in shoals from one place to another ; and you may at 

 times see a perch with bristling spines fly at a spoon-bait 

 or fish, and take it greedily down. But the deeper the 

 water the better they like it, for they are not a mud fish. 

 In winter they are more rarely seen, for they lie in the 

 deepest water for warmth, or in holes under the banks ; but 

 they feed in winter as well as summer. I have known them 

 caught at Christmas-time. In winter-time, too, you may 

 see them swimming under the ice, away from Jack, who 

 will take them as soon as anything. 



The largest perch I have caught was a three-pound 

 fish a full fish but it gave no sport, coming up slug- 

 gishly. I was casting for pike with a spoon-bait. There 

 is a good specimen at Geldeston Lock that weighed 5 Ibs. 2 

 oz., and was caught below the weir with a spoon. Barber, 

 the celebrated fish-taker, told me eight pounds and a quarter 

 was the largest perch he ever saw taken in the district. 



Small perch make excellent frittura } and a good large 

 perch makes a capital dish, as does its roe, nicely salted and 

 fried in oil. 



