28 COARSE FISH. 



know what they are about. Any light winch with 

 a check will do for this style, of fishing. I advise 

 using a winch because it is often necessary to 

 make a long throw. Hook on three gentles, each 

 by his blunt or tail end, running the point and 

 barb of the hook right through the skin, to 

 ensure hooking the fish. Bring the bleak to the 

 surface of the water by throwing in a few pieces of 

 bread ; and directly they are seen around the 

 bread, cast the gentles where the bleak are thickest ; 

 many a time have I caught one on each hook, and 

 it is common to take two at once. The leading 

 hook should have the hair length as long as possible ; 

 the droppers should be about three inches in length, 

 the three hooks being about ten inches apart. If the 

 droppers are longer they tangle considerably, and 

 knot in each other, while the three baits should fall 

 pretty close together amongst the little knot of 

 bleak fighting over the floating bread. Here is a 

 wrinkle for catching bleak in a stream when fishing 

 from a punt ; if you throw the bread in a stream 

 In a in sunny weather they will come up to it, 

 stream, but the bread is swept away and they 

 follow it ; you are thus taking your bleak away 

 from the swim, instead of attracting them to the 

 surface and keeping them there. The remedy is 

 simple : tie your bread to thread or a bit of line 

 and let it drift but a little way from the punt, not 

 too far away, for you should cast just beyond it, 

 or the hooks will entangle in the thread almost 

 every time you cast. A tough piece of crust, with 

 crumb on the edges, will last on the thread a long 

 while, but the action of the water and the struggling 

 bleak will sooner or later cause the thread to cut 

 the bread : by this time, however, you should have 



