SOME RENNET DAYS 61 



lead. This he did, and I started out again after break- 

 fast possessed of three roach-hooks and some lead 

 wire. 



It is a longish tramp to the Stop, especially if one 

 goes by way of the ditch, and when I got there I was 

 both heated and caddis-less. Not one caddis had I 

 been able to find, so all was up with the roach-fishing. 

 Though I had duly acquired bread, I knew from 

 experience that the roach in that water will not take 

 it at all in August, probably from unfamiliarity with 

 it. A course of ground-baiting might educate them. 

 There remained, therefore, but the worms and perch. 

 Presently, after manoeuvring the punt, providentially 

 left there by the weed-cutters, to the position I wanted, 

 I rigged up the tackle, a cast tapering to 3X, with a 

 bit of lead wire wrapped round it, and one of the 

 roach-hooks at the end. And then I opened the worm- 

 tin. 



There is room for a treatise on angle-worms, as the 

 Americans call them, and one of its chapters should 

 be entited " Worms and the Lay Mind." The angler 

 asks for worms. The word " worms " has to him a 

 special significance. It implies good measure, brimming 

 over, a supply large enough to serve the hook all day, 

 and to meet besides the necessities of occasional 

 moderate ground-baiting, just to keep the fish alert. 

 The lay mind, on the other hand, interprets it to mean 

 three worms and a large white grub, thrown in with 

 the idea that " any old thing " is, piscatorially con- 

 sidered, a worm. I found my tin slightly better 

 furnished three small lobs, five assorted worms of 

 the smallest size, and one fragment but the supply 



