EXPERIENCES & REMINISCENCES. 143 



on Monday, by way of novelty he tried a nice little swim four 

 feet deep, with a beautiful white grain of creed wheat impaled 

 on his hook. The first swim down yielded a roach which two 

 hours later plumped down the scale at lib. Needless to say, 

 Mr. Hopper was in ecstacies, and pictured a lot more and 

 bigger fellows the following swims. But alas ! only three more 

 small roach were brought to bank, and the swim belied its first 

 promise. Probably few, if any, Grimsby anglers are acquainted 

 with the following lines, and Mr. Hopper reproduces them here 

 for their benefit 



" Perch, trout, and salmon love clean waters all, 



Green weedy roots, and stoney gravell small, 

 So doth the bullhead, gudgeon, and the loach, 

 Who most in shallow brooks delight to bee, 

 The ruffe, the dace, the barbelle and the roch, 



Gravell and sand do love in lesse degree, 

 But to the deep and shade do more approach 

 And overhead some covert love to see, 

 Of spreading poplar, oake, or willow green, 

 Where underneath they lurke for being seen." 



Secrets of Angling, 1653. 



On Monday afternoon Mr. Hopper slept the sleep of the 

 righteous on the couch, and in the evening pulled the boat up to 

 the barbel swim, which he " floated " down with great care. As 

 the shades of evening began to draw in an unmistakable barbel 

 appearance hovered over the swim, and Mr. Hopper felt 

 certain he was in for a bit of sport, and sure enough before 

 he put up his rod for the evening he had two nice barbel in the 

 boat the larger 4lbs. and both had given nice play. On 

 Tuesday evening the same swim yielded a beautiful 5lb. fish 

 which gave any amount of strong play before he was safe in the 

 meshes of the huge landing net. The next day was windy and 

 although locally there was very little rain, there had evidently 

 been a heavy downpour in the Midlands as the river rapidly 

 rose, and a vast amount of surface weed came down making 

 fishing well nigh impossible. In the course of a day or two 

 when this fresh had just about run off, another and a bigger 

 rise came down with more weed than ever. Under these 

 circumstances the barbel swim was rendered unfishable, as not 

 only would the rise disperse all big fish from their swims, but 

 the surface weed and other rubbish coming down made the 



