ABOUT THE PERCH 117 



weir. They lurk under the boughs like chub, get right 

 underneath the holes and hollows of old camp-shedding, 

 and delight in the branches of a submerged tree. Then 

 is the time that the big ones take some catching. 



The very worst time for perch is after a long and sharp 

 winter, when the frost is gone and the ice has broken up, 

 the snow-drifts melted, and all this is tearing down the 

 river in a high flood . Just now they pack themselves to- 

 gether, sometimes in large numbers, in any quiet corner 

 away from the main stream, and if there is a handy dyke 

 end that empties into the river, they congregate there 

 sometimes as thickly as can be. Perhaps during all this 

 time of flood water and stress they have been on short 

 commons, maybe for weeks at a stretch, and as a natural 

 consequence with a fish like a perch they are hungry. 

 When the water clears down somewhat, and a surprised 

 angler drops on one of these packed shoals, the fun grows 

 fast and furious ; a red worm on a No. 8 hook is taken 

 as fast as it can be baited and put in, until very likely 

 every perch is cleared out of the swim. And this is called 

 sport ; but it is not, it is simply pot-hunting slaughter. 



I once got three dozen and three one afternoon many 

 years ago, when I am afraid I did not know better, from 

 a deep hole in a dyke end not far. from Claypole in the 

 county of Lincoln. It was in the river Witham, during 

 the early days of February ; that winter had been long 

 and severe, but at last it broke up, and the yellow flood 

 water was tearing down the main river in a high spate. 

 Those perch went over twenty pounds, and I believe I 

 cleared every one out of the hole inside an hour and a half, 

 for during the remaining hour and a half I failed to add a 

 single one to the bag. I cannot bear to think of that 

 afternoon's exploit even now. I heard a man boast once 

 that he had taken fourteen dozen in one day, under similar 

 circumstances ; but, thank goodness, my conscience is 

 clear from a sin of that grave magnitude. 



The perch is a member of the Percidae family, and is a 



