Perch

Perch appear in two distinct childhood fishing scenes, linking a shared outing with the narrator’s father to the freedom of fishing on his own. The text identifies them as a catch and a quarry, but gives no further description of the fish themselves.

Catch with His Father

When his mother returned, she recalled hearing that the narrator had been a good boy and caught big fish with his father in the boat. He named pike, perch, and eels among their catch. Perch thus belong to a remembered moment of father-and-son companionship, recounted during a reunion shadowed by the children’s earlier fear that their mother might never come back.

Fishing on His Own

At about eight, the narrator had unusual freedom to roam. Carrying a hazel rod cut from a hedge, he went to Garradice to fish for perch; when there was no take along the lakeshore, he might venture up the canal bank instead. The account does not confirm that he caught perch on these solitary trips, but makes the fish a recurring object of his self-directed excursions into the local landscape.