324 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



GUDGEON'^ AND BLEAK.^ 



Apart from the interest which bleak and gudgeon possess as 

 ba,its to the pike and trout fisher, they are by no means without 

 attractions of their own, from an angling point of view, and 

 certainly any treatise on British sporting fish and fishing in 

 which they did not figure would be incomplete. 



At this point, however, all common bond of union between 

 the two species ends. Indeed, it would be difficult to hit upon 

 two fish whose appearance, habits, and habitats are more totally 

 dissimilar. The gudgeon, like the barbel, is essentially a 

 ground feeder ; the bleak, on the contrary, is most frequently 

 to be seen glancing about either actually on or quite close to 

 the surface of the water. In shape the body of the former is 

 cylindrical, and that of the latter almost flat, whilst the olive- 

 brown head, back, and sides of the gudgeon, with their black 

 spotting, contrast forcibly with the silver and white scalure of 

 the bleak, which at its darkest point (on the top of the back) 

 presents no more sombre tint than the palest of bluish greens. 

 Their food, of course, differs in the same way according to 

 their different habitats, and as the result of this ' similarity of 

 difference,' it is probable that if one were to fish for the bleak 

 from one year's end to another with the tackle appropriate to 

 the gudgeon, and vice versd, he would not take a soUtary fish. 



In its shape, it has been observed, the bleak contrasts 

 remarkably with the cylindrical body of the gudgeon. It may, 

 however, be added that the bleak is the only one of our fresh 

 water fish which is in shape narrow as well as flat. Rudd, 



* Gobio Jluviatilis, ^ Leuclscus Albumus, 



