i8 BROADLAND SPORT 



that day, at least, which fact a hasty inspection confirms. 

 There, under a spray of green weed, are dozens of the small 

 crustaceans; our hearts rejoice, and blessings are invoked 

 upon the head of him who but a few moments before 

 we were prepared to verbally consign to a period of 

 torture. 



These shrimps are a peculiar race in themselves. They 

 emanate apparently from Lake Lothian, coming through the 

 lock and thriving in the brackish waters of the easternmost 

 end of the Broad, where they breed in myriads, and appear 

 to do well. Perch are very fond of them, and prefer them 

 to almost any other kind of food. They are easily caught in 

 a small-meshed landing net, or in old baskets filled with 

 weeds and stones, and sunk, in which baskets they readily 

 take up their quarters. 



Having transferred the fish kettle to the boat, a course 

 is steered past the ice-house towards the abandoned fish- 

 ing vessels, of which there are all too many lying in the 

 Ham or bay ensconced by the Great Eastern Railway 

 Company's embankment near to Oulton Broad Station. In 

 rowing there we have to thread our way through a fleet of 

 craft of all dimensions, lying moored to promiscuous buoys 

 and anchorages, put down haphazard, without any regard to 

 law, order or navigation. 



Arriving opposite to the ice-house we make for the nearest 

 smack. The Saucy Jane belies her name; she is neither 

 gay, pretty, nor enchanting ; nevertheless we board her 

 and put the rods together upon her roomy and dismantled 

 decks. During the winter she is loaded with ice, which 

 indignity may have dispelled all her present claims to sauci- 

 ness. It matters little, we do not give the subject a second 

 thought, we are busy impaling a lively shrimp upon the 

 perch hook, and a moment later drop him quietly over the 

 starboard quarter into the dark and silent water passage 

 which ebbs and flows between her grass-grown planks and 

 those which similarly adorn the Blue Belle. A mental note 

 of the number and direction of the rusty chains lying 



