134 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



stretches of the Great Ouse, and see the swirling jack, 

 disturbed from their fastnesses, leave a trail behind them ; 

 and the perch on the track of a bleak shows himself time 

 and again above the surface, until you are prepared to say 

 there are none like them in all Britain's broad domains. 

 Then the Trent would have a look in, and I should see again 

 in fancy that twenty-seven-pounder pike, and those perch 

 that were the very pride of an old fisherman's life. Then 

 the Ivel would whisper with a still small voice, and say, 

 " How about those bags of perch, and those splendid little 

 jack ? " Here and there a lake would thrust itself into 

 the foreground and clamour for recognition. And so the 

 merry game goes on ; looking round over the experiences 

 of a long life, we are in despair of ever singling out the best. 



I remember some few years ago a gentleman renting a 

 short stretch of the New River, between Forty Hill and 

 Cheshunt, a stream right under the very shadow, as it were, 

 of the big city ; and among the fish of one season's catch 

 were the following : a pike of seventeen pounds, a trout of 

 nine pounds, a chub of five pounds two ounces, and best of 

 all a perch of four pounds fourteen ounces one of the 

 grandest fish I ever saw. Some of the finest perch pre- 

 served to-day came from that small stream. 



After pausing to carefully consider this question, if there 

 is a choice, the casting vote goes in favour of the Wiltshire 

 Avon ; and before coming to this conclusion I consulted 

 my friend Sam Hayward of Trowbridge, as he had a much 

 closer and a more extended knowledge of that river than 

 I had. In a long and interesting letter that well-known 

 Wiltshire angler gives me his experiences, going back many 

 years, when the district seemed out of the beaten track, 

 and when, as he expressly puts it, "I practically had it all 

 to myself for several seasons, getting big bags of roach in 

 the summer and autumn, and any amount of pike from 

 eight to seventeen pounds each during the late autumn 

 and open winter, and as many as fifty pounds in a short 

 afternoon. Then the perch, not odd ones, but good bags ; 



