CHAPTER XVI 

 ABOUT THE PERCH 



The veteran and his first perch Habits and haunts of perch 

 Perch packing in the winter A cruel slaughter Description 

 of the perch Weight of perch " His eyes bigger than his 

 belly " Perch in the frying-pan. 



1 WONDER how many grey-haired veterans among the 

 vast army of Britain's anglers who, looking back and 

 carefully considering a career spent by -the side of river, 

 lake, stream, and pond, cannot truthfully say that it was 

 the capture of a few small perch in some wayside pond or 

 canal that was the starting-point of their life as an angler, 

 and this so fired them that, as each stage and grade was 

 gradually unfolded to them, they stuck to it, till their old 

 feet and tottering limbs refuse to carry them down to some 

 favourite haunt, so perforce they must sit by the fire and 

 think of all the days they have had, since those far-away 

 boyhood times, when the first perch snatched down their 

 float so sharply and suddenly as to upset their nerves. 

 No fish that swims is better adapted to start a boy on his 

 angling career than the hungry little perch that lives in a 

 pond, because he is not particular as to what sort of tackle 

 it is, nor yet what kind of a worm is offered him. It does 

 not matter about plumbing the depth, or ground- baiting 

 the swim, or shotting the float to the fraction of an inch, 

 nor any of those little things that go towards making some 

 fishing such a fine art. 



It is all very well to talk about these perch ; but how 



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