THE ROACH. 21 



mence with him. A proper ground bait and a proper method 

 of using it is more important than some anglers imagine. As 

 a matter of fact, success or non-success depends in a great 

 measure on a judicious use of it. We will suppose our 

 angler has made arrangements for a day's roach fishing, and 

 the place he has in his mind's eye is somewhat similar to a 

 swim or two that I described in a previous chapter. He has 

 some little distance to travel in order to get there; every 

 extra pound he has in the bag or basket at his back is a con- 

 sideration. He wants to take with him just enough bait 

 and no more than the day needs. This bait must also be 

 just good enough in quality, and no better, than the swim 

 requires. It is the main business of the fisherman to attract 

 the fish, and not to feed them over much. I have seen 

 anglers throw into a roach swim at one time at least a quar- 

 tern measure full of boiled wheat, and nearly every com of 

 it as good in quality as the one used on the hook, and then 

 wonder why they don't get the fish. Do they suppose the 

 roach are going to be so very accommodating as to select 

 that individual kernel of boiled wheat that has the hook in- 

 side it, when there are some hundreds exactly similar lying 

 all round them? What would have been many good days* 

 roach fishing have been utterly spoiled by an injudicious 

 use of ground bait; and then the angler has blamed the 

 weather or the water, or in fact blamed anything rather than 

 the right cause. When I lived in Nottinghamshire there 

 were a couple of roach swims in the river Witham that I was 

 particularly fond of; they lay in nearly opposite directions 

 from my house, one at Doddington, and the other at Nor- 

 ton Disney, and as either of them entailed a six miles' walk, 

 it was not above two or three times during the season that 

 I cared to visit themw August and September I found to be 

 the best tim.e, and a dozen or more years ago I used to get 

 some very good catches from them ; in fact, I think some of 

 the very best samples of roach I ever took came from those 

 swims. With such a long walk before me it must be mani- 

 fest to the novice that my basket should contain no more 

 weight than was absolutely necessar)', and I found, after 

 various trials and experiments, that a ground bait made as 

 follows was the very best that could be used in a roach swim 



