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Ruff, or Pope

This fish spawns in April, and is in season all the year. Its excellence as a fish for the table excited the enthusiasm of Dr. Kitchener. The ruff is thus alluded to in Izaak Walton's famous "Compleat Angler." "There is also another fish called a pope, and by some a ruff, a fish that is not known to be in some rivers. He is much like the perch for his shape, and taken to be better than the perch, but will not grow to be bigger than a gudgeon; he is an excellent fish; no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste, and he is also excellent to enter a young angler, for he is a greedy biter, and they will usually lie abundance of them together, in one reserved place where the water is deep and runs quietly; and an easy angler, if he has found where they lie, may catch forty or fifty, or sometimes twice as many, at a standing."