316 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



enough to play something bigger than a gudgeon; for 

 you may frequently hook a fair perch, a goodly roach, or 

 even an errant barbel, when gudgeon-fishing. 



There is some little art in striking a gudgeon, as in 

 striking any other fish when he bites. You must not 

 have a lot of waste line between your float and the top of 

 your rod, and you must strike directly you see a bite, not 

 too sharply, but yet decisively, a twist of the wrist with- 

 out any movement of the forearm being all that is re- 

 quired. In fact, let the strike be a delicate but pronounced 

 jerk or twitch, which shall not raise the bait above three 

 inches or so from the bottom. It is astonishing what a 

 difference there is between the number of gudgeon two 

 anglers will take in a given number of bites — one will 

 hook five out of six, another but one or two. The bait 

 for gudgeon is a small worm or piece of worm, the 

 pungent, odoriferous brandling being the best ; but any 

 small red worm will answer the purpose ; and at Marlow 

 the fishermen prefer a species which they get in the 

 weed moss and earth on the top of Marlow Weir, and 

 which they say is not found on any other Thames weir. 

 Old Salter says that in his time " a bit of raw sheep's 

 liver " was the bait generally used for gudgeon ; but I 

 never hear of any one trying it now. There is no need 

 for ground-bait, though it was an old fancy to sink in 

 the water previous to angling a basket containing the 

 leaves of marsh-mallows with a paste made of hemp-seed 

 as an attraction. Eaking the bottom, however, from time 

 to time with the huge rake always carried by Thames 

 puntsmen as part of their impedimenta, and called by 

 the rhetorical figure of meiosis, the " small-tooth comb," 

 certainly draws the gudgeon together in the hope of 



