ii6 ANGLING 



KoTE TO Chapter VII 



Our author is on solid ground in writing of the bold, hand- 

 some perch, so dear to the young angler, with his hazel rod and 

 parti-coloured iloat. He was a fortunate man to have taken 

 his fish of three pounds and four pounds, for a perch of that size 

 is not a common specimen. Perch-fishing has always been a 

 great amusement to the writer of these Notes, but he was never 

 fortunate in forty years' wanderings to catch one of so much as 

 three pounds until the January of the present year of grace 

 1898, and so highly did he prize his specimen of that weight, 

 that while these words are in the press it is being set up in a 

 case to be treasured evermore as an heirloom. I saw h perch 

 once that was a little over five pounds weight, but never had 

 evidence that was worthy of consideration of an English perch of 

 greater dimensions. Perch are not so plentiful now as they used 

 to be. In some of the rivers where within our memory the fish 

 swarmed in herds, they have been decimated by strange epidemics. 

 The river Kennet, thirty years ago, abounded in handsome perch 

 of one pound and two pounds, but they have almost entirely 

 disappeared from their old haunts. For a wfiile perch vanished 

 apparently from the Thames, but they seem to be increasing 

 again in that and other rivers. It is notorious that English 

 people neglect their own fresh-water fish for table purposes, 

 largely, no doubt, because they get such an abundant, regular, 

 and cheap supply of the best sea fish. The perch, however, 

 when it is of the dimensions of a pound or so, is a most delectable 

 dish. In a previous Note, a remark of the author as to the use 

 of gimp for paternostering for perch was emphasised, and as a, 

 matter of fact Blakey now supplies the correction himself in the 

 fonn of a suggestion. The modern angler answers his question 

 in the affirmative, and no one now thinks of using gimp for 

 perch. — W. S. 



