Badminton Magazine Of Sports And Pastimes

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...are hke those of an eminent Frenchman--inclined to controversy, indecisive in conclusions. Sometimes they will bite, sometimes they will not; one never knows the reason why. To catch him the fisherman must have a subtle eye and a steady hand. One should take all sorts of precautions, for if he is curious he is at the same time excessively suspicious, and to catch him one must use the finest possible tackle. The spot from which I watch my shoal of roach is half buried in lush summer grass, so that while I can see the fish they cannot see me. All their movements are the very poetry of motion, and the shoal seem to act by some subtle, hidden impulse. They occupy a deep pool in a trout-stream, and as the anglers complain that they destroy the ground-food of the trout for eight months of the year, we have set about catching them. The small fry of their kind are easily taken in quantity, and to these the title of ' water-sheep' may be apt enough. An angler has to put forth all his wiles to get round the bigger fish, but by exercising a little patience he may overcome all their idiosyncrasies. After our experiences we must admit that the roach is a delicate fish to circumvent, always supposing that he has attained to any size. But once on the bank there is no gainsaying his beauty as he flops out his life among the docks and nettles. The fish are just clean and bright from spawning, and this is how they show: back and upper parts of a delicate weed green, flashing and glowing with metallic lustre; these colours pale as they approach the medial line and then turn silver, which passes into white on the under parts; the back and tail fins stand out sharply in dull red, the anal and ventral fins glowing with crimson. These, with a symmetrical body and a...