THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 245 



with a little lead to the bottom near to the piles or 

 posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir, 

 I mean any deep place where roaches lie quietly, 

 and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and 

 usually a roach will follow your bait to the very top 

 of the water and gaze on it there, and run at it 

 and take it lest the fly should fly away from him. 



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 ; l 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 labor, 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 matter of feeding, 

 cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And there- 

 fore 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 

 1 The finest white rolls. NARES. 



