THE COMPLETE ANGLER 207 



in ponds, with a very forked tail, and of a very small 

 size ; which some say is bred by the bream and right 

 roach ; and some ponds are stored with these beyond 

 belief ; and knowing-men, that know their difference, 

 call them ruds : they differ from the true roach as much 

 as a herring from a pilchard. And these bastard breed 

 of roach are now scattered in many rivers : but I think 

 not in the Thames, which I believe afford the largest and 

 fattest in this nation, especially below London Bridge.* 



* I know not what roaches are caught below bridge, but above 

 I am sure they are very large, for on the 15th of September, 1754, 

 at Hampton, I caught one that was fourteen inches and an eighth 

 from eye to fork, and in weight wanted but an ounce of two pounds. 

 The season for fishing for roach in the Thames begins about the latter 

 end of August, and continues much longer than it is either pleasant 

 or safe to fish. It requires some skill to hit the time of taking them 

 exactly ; for all the summer long they live on the weed, which they 

 do not forsake for the deeps till it becomes putrid, and that is 

 sooner or later, according as the season is wet or dry ; for you are 

 to know, that much rain hastens the rotting of the weed : I say it 

 requires some skill to hit the time ; for the fishermen who live in all 

 the towns along the river, from Chiswick to Staines, are about this 

 time nightly on the watch, as soon as the fish come out, to sweep them 

 away with a drag-net ; and our poor patient angler is left baiting 

 the ground, and adjusting his tackle, to catch those very fish, which, 

 perhaps, the night before had been carried to Billingsgate. The 

 Thames, as well above as below London Bridge, was formerly much 

 resorted to by the London anglers, and which is strange to think on, 

 considering the unpleasantness of the station, they were used to 

 fish near the starlings of the bridge. This will account for the many 

 fishing-tackle shops that were formerly in Crooked Lane, which 

 leads to the bridge. In the memory of a person, not long since 

 living, a waterman that plied at Essex Stairs, his name John Reeves, 

 got a comfortable living by attending anglers with his boat ; his 

 method was, to watch when the shoals of roach came down from the 

 country, and when he had found them, to go round to his customers 

 and give them notice. Sometimes they settled opposite the Temple, 

 at others, at Blackfriars or Qucenhithe, but most frequently about 

 the Chalk Hills, near London Bridge. His hire was two shillings a 

 tide. A certain number of persons who were accustomed thus to 

 employ him, raised a sum sufficient to buy him a waterman's coat 

 and silver badge, the impress whereof was, himself with an angler 

 in his boat, and he had annually a new coat to the time of his death. 

 H. Sir J. Hawkins adds as follows : " Before I dismiss the sub- 

 ject of Thames fishing, I will let the reader know, that formerly 

 the fishermen inhabiting the banks of the Thames, were used to 

 inclose certain parts of the river with what they called stops, but 

 which were in cfl'cct, weirs, or kidels, by stakes driven into the bed 



