BAIT OR BOTTOM-FISHING. 219 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ON BOTTOM-FISHING. RODS, HOOKS, LINES, AND BAITS. 







THE English are without doubt the best bottom- 

 fishers in the world, and the London anglers the 

 most accomplished of all. We can account for 

 this easily. English rivers are better stored than 

 those of any other division of the empire, with 

 the various sorts of fish which seek their food rather 

 at the bottom than at the surface of the water. In 

 the neighbourhood of London such rivers abound 

 with their numerous angling clubs, subscription 

 and preserved waters, and the easily-pleased (only 

 perhaps with respect to his sports) character of 

 the Saxon, be he of the country or city, leads him 

 to indulge with infinite patience and pleasure in 

 all the slow minutiae of bottom- angling, when the 

 inconvenience of distance renders fly-fishing out 

 of the question. Even the fly-fisher from Ireland, 

 Scotland, or Wales, settled in London, stoops from 

 his high art, and, being a lover of nature in her 

 water-side charms, betakes himself to bottom- 

 fishing, and partakes of its amusement in company 

 with the joyous, good-hearted, and really philo- 

 sophic cockney. In bottom-fishing, the persevering 



