1 82 The Complete Angler 



I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley 

 Bridge, and great store of Roach taken ; and some- 

 times, a Dace or Chub. And in August you may 

 fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs 

 of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet ; 

 and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your 

 hands till it be both soft and tough too: a very 

 little water, and time, and labour, and clean hands, 

 will make it a most excellent paste. But when you 

 fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick 

 eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and the 

 fish too ; if one may lose that which he never had) 

 With this paste you may, as I said, take both the 

 Roach and the Dace or Dare ; for they be much of 

 a kind, in manner of feeding, cunning, goodness, 

 and usually in size. And therefore take this 

 general direction, for some other baits which may 

 concern you to take notice of: they will bite almost 

 at any fly, but especially at ant-flies; concerning 

 which take this direction, for it is very good. 



Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or 

 ant-hill, in which place you shall find them in the 

 month of June ; or if that be too early in the year, 

 then, doubtless, you may find them in July, August, 

 and most of September. Gather them alive, with 

 both their wings : and then put them into a glass 

 that will hold a quart or a pottle ; but first put into 

 the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out 

 of which you gather them, and as much of the roots 

 of the grass of the said hillock ; and then put in 

 the flies gently, that they lose not their wings ; lay 

 a clod of earth over it ; and then so many as are 

 put into the glass, without bruising, will live there 

 a month or more, and be always in readiness for 

 you to fish with : but if you would have them keep 

 longer, then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of 

 three or four gallons, which is better, then wash 



