From Blackwood's Magazine. WAYS AND WHIMS OF FRESH-WATER FISHES. SOME authorities on matters pertaining to angling would have us believe that the fish are more wide awake than they used to be, and that tackle on finer and more scientific principles, with far more elaborate baiting, is now required. This is certainly made to perfection; and yet there is something far more necessary to success than all this, and that is a knowledge of the haunts and the habits of the fish angled for. As a rule, fish are very much like "humans" in having varying ways of living and of behaving themselves in different localities. What will serve the angler in one county or even in one part of the same county, will be quite useless in another. This is why the rustic angler, an agricultural laborer perhaps, will, with his primitive fishing-gear, get a good basket of fish, to the great astonishment of those less fortunate fishers who may be using the latest of modern appliances. The rustic knows the run and the lie of the water, accurately to a yard. From his childhood he has been familiar with it; he knows, too, the favorite foods of the fish as the seasons vary. He is well aware, also, how necessary it is to hide himself by all possible means from the sight of the fish; as he says: "They eyes is mortal quick; they sees you lots o' times afore you gets a glint on 'em." His knowledge of woodcraft gives him the knack of moving quietly; and what a valuable habit or gift that of quiet action is, either in gentle or simple folks! The latter may not practise it at all times, but they can when it is necessary. To see a great fellow come through the tangle and lay himself down by the brook for a side-cast up stream, without so much as startling the moor-hen that is feeding near at hand, is an interesting and common enough sight with us. If pike have come out of good waters they are a fine enough fish for the table, but as a game sporting fish the pike is all that can be desired. When he has smashed up everything, and left me considering the vexatious incidents that are apt to attend his capture, I have found him more than I could desire. Now and again great brutes, about which the rustics have legends, rush from their haunts in the roots of flag, reed, and tangle, and seize a jack of three or four pounds by the middle-one that the angler was in the act of landing-close to the bank. Then, for a brief space, may be seen a tearing struggle; smash go the first and second joints of your rod and a part of your line, with the hooked jackand all is over. I have known some younger members of the rustic angling community to be so unnerved by mishaps of the kind that nothing could induce them to fish again in or near the water where this had occurred. They sum the creatures up as "dangerous to get near with either hand or foot." For my part, I prefer the middle-sized fish for sport and for the table. One of the pike's favorite haunts I know well. Changes have taken place since I first remember it, but it is not greatly altered. The old mill, as grey and as dusty as of old, stands yet surrounded by woods. There is the road winding between heath and bracken towards the upland moors; and there, too, is the other road, lined on either side with forest timber, which leads to a secluded hamlet. The large rush. and-alder-fringed mill-pool is as it was, but the causeway-"cawsey" the rustics call it with its sloping weir-boards "splash-boords' - exists no longer. On each side of this stone-covered cart-road, which was protected by posts and rails, the pool extended, and a plank foot-bridge running directly over the sloping splashboards was used by the customers who came from the hamlet to the mill. As a general rule the water on the causeway was about six inches deep, but sometimes it was more. The miller's horses and cattle were constantly passing to and fro over it during the day. On this waterway in the daytime the small fish delighted to congregate, for food and warmth were there; but in the gudgeon season these little beauties would come in shoals just at the dusk of the evening from a small stream that ran in near by, and they fed on the stones of the causeway, which had been warmed by the sun. Aquatic insect-life was there in great abundance. As the small stream ran round a little bend direct on to the cart. track, the gudgeon had no occasion to swim in the mill-pool; it would have been fatal for them to venture there. The pike knew, however, when the toothsome, luscious little fishes were feeding on the stones, and they would gather on both sides of the causeway for the purpose of better acquaintance, if possible. When the head of water in that particular season was high enough in the pond to cause a run over the splash-boards into the pool, certain friends of mine, who, as they put it, "knowed what they was arter," would gather on the foot-plank bridge, with the full consent of the miller, who was wroth about a lot of his young ducks that had lost the number of their mess through those voracious pike. The lads had noticed that when the gudgeon shoaled on the stones the pike were on the watch. Now and again a small pike would sail on the causeway, poise himself for a moment, and then make a rush for them, causing a dire commotion. Some threw themselves clean out of the water, others made for the pond never to return again. You could see fierce rushes and swirls where the pike were quite ready for them. Some, in their fright, would venture too near the current that ran over the splash-boards, and, after vain efforts to recover themselves, would wriggle down, tail first, into the other side of the mill-pool, to be instantly snapped up by the pike there. Roach and small trout the monsters could have in abundance; that was their common food, easy enough to get whenever they required it; it would have been useless to try to capture them with either of these; but gudgeon were a luxury which they tried their hardest to procure when it was possible. Now gudgeon are, at certain times. troubled by some law known to themselves - compelled, like eels, to make downstream. Let any one curious in such matters, who knows their haunts, watch them gather for days-if there is any fall in the water-before they will finally allow themselves to be carried over, tail first, into the current below. They do not all go over at the same time-a few, the finest fish, slip over first, in small companies, as if to show the main body the best method of doing it. At such a time those observant rustic anglers would gather on that bridge. Their rods were of the most primitive description, simply a hazel stick about six feet long, split into a fork at the top, and bound below the split with a wax end. A small twig lashed on to each end of the fork formed a run for the line, which consisted of thin water-cord, terminated by a gimp-hook. The other portion of the line that ran from the fork was coiled round the angler's hand- the one which held the rod. After the gudgeon had been hooked on just below the back fin- the bait-kettle of the whole party was a large flower-pot-it would be dropped on the top of the splash-boards. Down it wriggled in the run of the water into the pool below, where large mouths were ready for it. They did not use a float of any kind, considering it best for the bait to run free. Before many mo ments elapsed you would hear one or another of the company bidding his neighbor move a bit, to let him pass and land his fish. There was a good-tempered comradeship amongst those rustic anglers that is somewhat unusual, I fancy, among the so-called more polite classes. After a little the pike would leave off feeding in the sudden, abrupt fashion which is their way. This was the only method of capture pursued at the causeway of the old mill. Those pike had always been accustomed to watch for the gudgeon coming down to them from the boards above, and they would only take the bait in that fashion. One evening I remember a visitor arrived with a trolling-rod of the latest manufacture, and he tried his luck there without success. The four friends alluded to were at their accustomed place; and with more directness than nicety of expression, one of them asked when he intended "to leave off heavin' an' pitchin' about?-they'd come to catch fish, and if he wanted to act the fule, he'd better git lower down the pond." Although the pike has been credited with indiscriminating voracity, he is, at certain times of the year, very "picksome as our folks say, if not dainty. That is when the water-fowl -the swimmers and the waders leave their homes to paddle and run amongst and over the weeds that cover and line the waters which the pike frequents. You can see his alligator-like head just clear of the masses of weed that surround the fish; and you may try him with anything you like-roach, dace, gudgeon, or minnow-he will have none of them. He is intent on other game. You can hear the bird-life that is all about more than you can see it-coots clank and click, moor-hens call, little grebes chatter, and the water-rail grunts and squeaks; but you will see little of it, for in the breeding season they keep very close. One might be easily forgiven for taking the nest of coot or moor-hen for a mere heap of sedge-drift, or that of the little grebe for a lump of green stuff a trifle higher than the surrounding weeds, -so artless, apparently, and yet hidden with what seems such consummate art, are the nests, if the slight platform of damp weed-tangle can be called by that name. In the case of that of the little grebe or dab-chick, it is absolutely wet from the time the eggs are first laid, up to the moment when the little creatures burst from their shells. All these birds know well that the pike is on the watch for their broods at this | joint of the second finger of his right hand season, and they use the greatest precau- down to the middle of the thumb, and, tions. I have watched them exercise holding it at the back of froggy's head, these repeatedly. In spite of all they can lets drive, or, as he says, "snicks him," do, numbers of their progeny come to killing him at once. So effectual is this grief. Even the kingfisher becomes un- operation that I have never known a frog easy when the pike is on the watch; and to move after it. From those horny fingers he will not rest, as is usually his wont, on it acts with the force of a catapult. This any twig so low down as nearly to touch is the first part of the proceeding. The the water, when the great fish is on the next step is to fix a double hook in the alert for feathered prey. There he lies; frog's back - in the skin. Tie his fore he has not moved one inch from the spot feet in front of him with a bit of thread, where we first noted him; but, as we look, and his hind legs above the hook in the there is a stir in the rushes, and now a same way, and he is, as they say, ready moor-hen appears, followed by her dark- for diving. The same rod or long stick looking, fluffy chicks. She is making her is used that our rustic had on the footway to the bit of open water that is free bridge over the splash-boards, only he goes from weeds. Out of one corner of that to work now in a different manner. With very spot the broad snout has been poked his frog suspended head downwards, he so long. She looks all round very cau- cautiously walks along until he finds a tiously, but neither sees nor hears anything hole clear of weeds in the middle, and to alarm her. Off the weeds she slips close to the side. Into this he very gently into the water, her chicks following closely, drops his frog, and he pulls him up in the making a pretty sight as they cluster about same manner. Presently away shoots the their mother, like so many dark corks line, he gives the fish time to get the full afloat. flavor of that diving "chawly," and then he lets him have it. Says our rustic: an' swim right away; but they jacks don't often see 'em cum up agin, feet fust, arter their dive. They wonders what's up, an' they goes fur it." The ugly snout has vanished; but with a rush that causes the water to boil up and│“ They sees lots on 'em go in head fust, stirs the rushes all round, its owner makes for his prey, taking in three of the fluffy little creatures at one snap-for, as a rule, the pike seizes from below. The old bird herself has a narrow escape; she barely misses being included in that vicious snap. The water-rail is very wary of swimming over any water at this time, for his slim, compressed body goes down the pike's gullet as easily as that of a dace or gudg eon. Frogs, too, dread and avoid the water now. If you catch one and throw him into it, his frantic efforts to gain the bank again are very curious. When his tribe visit the ponds and pools in spawning time, the pike will have nothing to do with them. The rustics will tell you "he hates 'em like pisen then." Only when the frog has left the water and gone to live on the land, making himself plump and handsome, the pike becomes enamored of him again; and at that season you will hear the rustic_angler say, "I shell try summat else; I shell go an' kick up a chawly off the moor." When he has kicked him up, as he terms it, he proceeds with his frog as follows: Holding the "chawly " by the hind legs, he takes him to the water. Any one that has held a frog in this fashion knows that in the creature's struggles to escape its body is held upright. Whilst the man has it so in his left hand, he brings the first I can vouch for the truth of this, for I have watched the proceeding. "They jacks is like my young uns in apple-time," continues the man; "they be free to blow their kites out in my orchard as much as iver they likes an' there's plenty there. But no, thet don't suit 'em; they must git in neighbor's orchard, just because they apples there be a leettle different. That 'ere chawly was a leettle different, an' the jack snapped him." Before dismissing our pike, I would just state that where they are kept in proper that is, moderate- -number, they are val uable enough, and, as a rule, large where the food is good. I have, however, known waters where, owing to some mistaken notion, it was not allowed to angle for them, and in such they dwindled down to little more than the size of a large herring; and so many of them were there, that not a sign of other fish was visible. Fish of prey they certainly are, and when they have to feed on one another the diet does not in any way suit them. When things get to that pass, the only thing to be done is to sweep the lot out, run the pool dry. and clean it, and then after a time introduce fresh stock. A great outcry has been made against pike getting into certain waters; yet I moment to get permission for even one think they are beneficial in moderate num- half-day. And old mills and ancient floodbers in preserved waters. They keep gates are disappearing fast, and some millcoarse fish, such as roach and others, in streams are becoming choked up with proper proportions. When a pond is mud and aquatic vegetation. Then there Overstocked with roach, dace, and tench, is the bother caused by new owners the angler will often get a day's annoyance | through whose grounds the water runs. instead of a day's fishing. These and other difficulties have caused Where you find pike, you will generally the millers to make use of steam-power. come across perch. It is not invariably | This is the reason why those old timbers, the case, perhaps, but it is the exception and the rough walls surrounding them, are otherwise. From some cause or other the no longer frequented by perch with erected perch has become scarce where he was at back fins, examining the stones for loach one time to be found in plenty; and I can and minnows. He was once, as we know, only account for the fact in one way. The a bold biter; but in some waters he has bottoms of streams, ponds, and rivers, are become very fastidious-so much so, that not so clean as they once were. It is now recently what was formerly a famous only in very remote districts, as a rule, that perch-hole in my younger days, was deyou find any one of the above waters with-clared to be perchless; and the assertion out a deposit of mud, more or less odorous. The food-supply has altered; it is a long time now since I have seen a large gathering of that nimble little fellow, the fresh-water shrimp. At one time one might watch the sandy bottom boil up, all alive with countless myriads of them, where the water ran clear through the meadows; but this has not been so of late years. They were fine food for the perch. He could revel then in loaches, gudgeons, minnows, water-snails, and shrimps. Then he existed in numbers; and more than that, he reached a good size. Only once of late years have I seen what could be called a good perch, perfect in shape, condition, and color. That one weighed nearly two pounds. When found I made a note of him by placing a canvas on my easel and painting him full size. One hears anglers of limited experience, when looking at fish pictures even by such a prince of fish-painters as Rolf say they have never seen such pike, perch, trout, or grayling as those before them. I have not the least doubt of it, for it is only in the best waters, both as regards quality and quantity, with a first-rate food-supply, that fish arrive at perfection. From certain waters I have had pike and perch that looked nearly as thick as they were long, hog-backed, and with pouches like the throats of the jolly, well-fed monks of old. As to the trout, they were short, thick-set, crimson speckled beauties. It is not always, indeed one may say it is rarely, possible to visit such waters. It needs much persuasive power on our part, and many manœuvres, to obtain permission even for a very limited time. So say my rustic friends, and I can endorse their experience. It is a matter of no small 3868 LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXV. was believed, because no one had ever fished there with anything but live bait. A friend of my own, who is a firm believer in the efficacy of well-scoured dew-worms, having had good sport in various counties with them, tried them in this hole, and to the surprise of the owners of the property, he landed four fine perch, one after the other, in quick time. For a glorious combination of color, give me a fine perch in good condition from good water. Where a moderate rush of water runs from a sluice over the mill-apron among stones, winding hither and thither, and ultimately resting in a deep hole at the foot that is the place where perch love to gather. I have known them to congregate formerly in great numbers in such a spot, so that there was hardly comfortable moving room that is, where they kept to the hole itself. 66 Oh, they are only perch," said my friend, once, as I stood watching them flash about. Just to give me some idea of their num bers, he got his large cast-net and threw it into the hole. The result was a fine haul of perch, nearly all one size-half-pounders. "What will you do with them?" I asked. Why, turn them out in the water above the mill," was his reply, "and let them grow larger;" and he proceeded at once to the business. Things are changed now, indeed, and perch have become conspicuous through their entire absence. I should like to see them back again in their old haunts; for one's earliest reminiscences are associated with perch, and paddling as a boy in the mill-stream in the evening, after the water had been shut off, to get loaches for baits. What very strict injunctions our rural fishing instructors gave us not to get little ones, only big loaches, because "they'd ketch the biggest fish fur the little uns | and no mistake; he could show it to him, couldn't swaller 'em!" Well do I remem- and then all he had to do was to catch it. ber the first time they let me catch a big perch and get him out, "all by myself." My rod was an osier wand, costing one penny at the basket-maker's. I can feel now the funk I was in after my fish was firmly hooked. Then they told me I had lost him in the weeds, just to tease me; and when I had got him out, I put him in the skirt of my old-fashioned gaberdine and bolted off-too happy to sleep for hours that night because I had caught and landed a good perch. Concerning trout, I feel inclined to say but little, for the ablest pens have written so much about them that I am on ticklish ground. Of the different varieties of the common brook-trout I will not speak, because I have seen such differently shaped trout, and ones so variously colored, taken from the same stream within one short half-mile of one another. I once saw six trout, all half-pounders, and some of them larger, captured one evening at the very height of the season under an old bridge. Not one brace was alike; each fish differed more or less from the other. These were the common trouts of the brook; no cross had ever been introduced into that water to make hybrids of them. The man who caught them told me that, a mile and a half lower down, there was a greater difference still. I visited the latter spot, and found he was correct. Some were quite silvery, others were inclined to a golden-brown tinge; the rest were toned in olive green on the back. Sometimes a large trout will make his home on some bit of water that is connected with the main stream, or in the stream itself. One weighing four or five pounds is not so very rare in certain districts. If a rustic discovers such a one in a stream, he keeps the knowledge of it to himself; if two know of it, they generally agree "to save him for somebody as wants him," and they share the proceeds. When once a large trout has made his hover in a stream, it takes a great deal to move him. He may be seen and fished for, too; but that is a long way off getting him. One day a well-dressed man visited a certain hamlet, carrying the newest of fly. rods; he intended to fish for trout. Could any one give him information as to the best place for his day's sport? As he asked for it at the bar of the small inn of the hamlet, the information was soon forthcoming. One of the customers there told him he knew where there was a big one, The bait took. After a generous "liquor up " and the tip of a shilling, away they started. He saw the fish, and for nearly the whole of a day he threshed that water hard enough to frighten all the trout that ever swam in it. But not even a fish the size of a sprat did he capture. At the inn, before his train started, as he rested for an hour, his guide of the morning appeared and asked him what sport he had had. "Not a single fish," replied he; adding, "I would spend half-a-sov. in drinks if that trout lay in my basket, or give the same sum to any one who would put me up to getting it there." Five minutes later the native whispered to him, "Did ye mean what ye said?" The angler pulled out half a sovereign and showed it to him. "Bide here a bit," said the man; "your train don't start yet." In less than half an hour the stranger was beckoned out of the bar to see the big trout, still alive and kicking vigorously, on flags in a basket. He had a hook attached to a piece of broken gut in his upper lip; not a bruise or a mark was on him. some "Take him, basket an' all, fur what ye said," quoth the native; "he's a precious sight too big to go into that consarn o' yourn. And I be werry much obleedged to you for this 'ere half-sov'rin, and no mistake." I was informed afterwards that the fish had been so frightened by the threshing of that would-be angler, that he had retreated to the utmost limit of his hover under the bank, and there he had remained, as only a trout will remain. The cute rustic knew this would be so, and he had simply gone down to the spot, taken off his shoes, and tucked up his trousers, and "groped him out." That is how most of the great trout are captured, but I never saw one that had been groped for that was not shown with a hook in his mouth. A gut hook does not cost much, and it looks so very much better. "Vile poaching?" No, that was waste land where the big trout was got out. And, after all, when a fish of that size is in a stream he becomes entirely carnivorous, and feeds on the smaller members of his own species, to say nothing of the way he gobbles up spawn when it is the season for the trout running up for the spawning. So the sooner the great fellow is out of a brook or pond the better. I have seen many large trout captured, beautiful fish. Some of them had made their homes in places where you would be more |