WITH FISH AND FISHING. 217 



Still, with steady eye and band, he humours every 

 struggle until the exhausted captive yields. W. S. 

 Sporting Magazine, N. S. vol. xxiii. p. 192. 



During the month of February all fresh-water 

 fish move from their winter quarters ; and, in 

 rivers, jack, pike, carp, perch, chub, roach, dace, 

 gudgeons, pope, and minnows, will take a bait 

 freely. Angle for carp and chub in still deep 

 holes ; for roach, on the shallows and scourers, and 

 in gentle shallow eddies ; for dace, cast your baited 

 hook in the sharp currents, and also in the strong 

 eddies at the tail of water mills. Flounders, eels, 

 and bleak, begin to feed this month. Jack and 

 pike generally east their spawn in March ; but 

 after a very mild winter, they are (in the middle 

 of February) very full and unfit for the table, 

 the fair angler will, of course, discontinue trol- 

 ling for them ; indeed, such forbearance this 

 season is absolutely necessary, or little sport can 

 be expected during the next ; for though the win- 

 ter has been unusually open, and but few floods 

 have disturbed the rivers and brooks, yet the wa- 

 ter has been high and very foul for a considerable 

 time, which has enabled the poachers to practise 

 the destructive art of flueing and sedging more 

 frequently and extensively this winter, than we 

 remember for many years past. Jack and pike 

 are their principal objects, in pursuit of which, we 

 are sorry to say, they have been but too success- 



