2 ANGLING 



he and his schoolmates knocked it off and tried to beguile away 

 the time with a game at marbles, making a mutual promise to 

 each other not to go and look at the rods until three games at 

 ring-taw had been finished. This compact having been faith- 

 fully observed, the rods were returned to, and a fine perch, 

 weighing 3ilbs., was brought to bank on one of the rods. This 

 is the largest perch Mr. Hopper ever heard of being caught in 

 this district. About 50 or 60 brace of fish were generally in the 

 creels when it was time to start the six mile walk home, and 

 that quantity generally represented the catch of Mr. Hopper's 

 and two other rods. 



In those days ground baiting was never practised by 

 schoolboys, who, if the fish ceased to bite in one place, used 

 to try another. What days those were to be sure ! Home 

 was generally left from six to eight in the morning, and 

 reached again at night from nine to ten o'clock. What a 

 tramp home it used to be with those heavy baskets of fish ! 

 Indian file was the order of walking, and not a word spoken 

 until home was reached. No doubt all felt too fagged out with 

 the day's outing in the hot sun to talk, but it was an understood 

 thing that " no talking" was the order of the evening's march 

 home. If thunder storms came on during the day's outing, 

 the haycocks were requisitioned and crept under, only to be 

 emerged from in a parboiled condition when the storm had 

 expended its violence. In 1864 the trout Mr. Hopper caught in 

 the river Lud, at Louth, averaged within an ounce and a half of 

 lib. each. A curious incident in angling happened one fine even- 

 ing in June about the year just referred to. It would be about a 

 quarter to nine, and Mr. Hopper was crossing the bridge which 

 spanned the Lud from his father's garden to the house, when the 

 servants, who were sewing on the bridge, remarked that a fine 

 trout was rising below the bridge. A fly rod was soon taken 

 down from the wall under the greenhouse, and found to have 

 only one fly on the cast, and that a black gnat with a broken 

 barb. The second throw over the speckled beauty was 

 successful, and down the trout rushed into full ten feet of water 

 up he came with a leap of three feet out of the water, which 



