THE ROACH. J$ 



the roach, the chances do not often occur. The roach bite 

 more generally met with, especially where they are very shy 

 and constantly fished for, is nothing more than the very 

 smallest quiver of the float, or again a slight tilt or stoppage 

 of the said float, or yet again, and this is the bite that can 

 be most easily perceived, a very small and instantaneous dip 

 of the float of not more than one-eighth of an inch, and the 

 time occupied in this dip is not more than one-fifth of a 

 second. Now and again small roach, bolder and 

 more hungry than their larger brethren, will pull 

 down the float in a much more decided manner, 

 but, generally speaking, the half-pounders and up- 

 wards proceed in a much more cautious way. When the 

 roach are fairly on the feed, and their natural caution has 

 for an hour or two forsaken them, the bite is a more pro- 

 longed affair : the float suddenly dips, and instead of com- 

 ing up again, as it will when they are coming shy, the float 

 is held down for a much more considerable space of time. 

 This sort of bite is what an old friend and Ouse roacher calls 

 " a dweller," and is the very easiest to respond to. Again, 

 there is a roach bite that is neither seen nor felt. Strange 

 as this statement may seem, it is, nevertheless, perfectly true. 

 A very old friend of mine, a whitesmith he was by trade, 

 once told me that a good roach fisherman was born one, no 

 amount of practice could make him a perfect roacher. He 

 might fancy he was up to all the moves on the board as far 

 as roach fishing was concerned, and even be a very success- 

 ful one, but there will come odd times when even he, clever 

 as he is, will be at fault. He knows the roach are there, and 

 that they are on the feed, but do as he will his basket gets 

 no heavier — he cannot perceive the bite. It is at these odd 

 times that our born roacher proves his superiority. I have 

 stood, or rather laid down, behind my old friend the white- 

 smith, and have seen him hook and land big roach one after 

 the other, when I have been prepared to swear before any 

 court of justice that his tell-tale float never moved in the 

 slightest degree. Other good anglers who were fishing some 

 few yards away without any luck would also come behind 

 to view this strange phenomenon, and like me marvel greatly 

 at it. He declared that he had a sort of inward feeling, the 



