FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 9 



bag. Others followed suit. At St. Olaves a young Territorial, 

 fishing with a stick and short line, by way of experiment dropped 

 his bait — a boiled Shrimp — near the bow of a fishing-boat, and 

 immediately hooked a Perch, successive captures running larger 

 until he secured a pound-weight fish. On August 2nd I found 

 they eagerly seized Shrimps ; placing my bait a foot below the 

 float, I allowed the tide to take it along, and at the end of each 

 swim brought a Perch to book. I noticed these fish most eagerly 

 pursuing young l|-in. Smelts and Eoach of a similar length. 



I observed that the Perch were very faintly barred on their 

 sides, and, when dry, these bars had entirely vanished. Their 

 contact with the salt tides seemed to give them a very palatable 

 flavour, and none were wasted. Opened along the back, like a 

 kipper, rubbed with salt, and hung up to dry for an hour, they 

 came, still in their jackets, from the fry-pan as deliciously 

 flavoured as a Trout. Lubbock (• Fauna of Norfolk ') refers to 

 the Waveney Perch as delighting to come up as far as the " salts " 

 to prey on Shrimps. 



August 9th. — To-night the water pouring up river to Breydon 

 was unusually bright with phosphorescence. Every tiny wind-puff 

 edged the wavelets with silvery gleaming ; my punt's prow cut 

 a widening angle of fire as it divided the stream, and even my 

 mooring ropes clove the surface into wavy lines of brightness. I 

 thrust my eel-rod into the depths, which glowed luminously a 

 fathom below the surface. It was an ideal time for the Smelts, 

 which jumped out of the stream, making big splashy circles of 

 brilliancy as they captured, or missed, some playful little "White- 

 bait," that was itself out for prey still smaller. 



During August I bad a fairly good spell of eel-catching ; on 

 Breydon by eel-spear and " bab," and on the Waveney by the 

 latter only. The eel-spear is gone much out of use since Breydon 

 has so deteriorated. In the sixties quite a score Breydoners 

 looked upon Eels as their principal catch — by spearing in deep 

 waters in winter, and by babbing on the flood-tide in the finer 

 months, using the spear when working the flooded flats ; on a four- 

 to six-foot staff when the tide was up. On one occasion a " bed " 

 of Eels was discovered in the " Fleet," when quite a rush was 

 made, some men, while it lasted, earning as much as ten shillings 

 in a day. Only a few amateurs now go up for a " mess " of Eels, 



