

THE ROACH. 2^ 



We will now turn our attention to the hook baits and how 

 to prepare them. A favourite bait with the roach fishermen 

 of these quiet waters is creed or boiled wheat, and I know 

 of no other bait that is cleaner and more pleasant to use. 

 It is very cheap, easy to prepare, and during the summer 

 and early autumn months is first and foremost as a killer. 

 On the Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, the Witham^ and the 

 huge network of smaller rivers and drains that intersect that 

 country-side it is used with considerable success ; and I 

 make no doubt it would be equally successful if tried in the 

 canals and reservoirs of the north country. It is a standing 

 dish on the rivers and broads of Norfolk and Suffolk, scores 

 of stones of roach being killed every season in those waters- 

 by its agency ; in fact, I have an idea that no matter where- 

 in England roach are to be found the fisherman might do 

 worse than give this bait a fair trial. I once saw it gravely 

 asserted in print that the reason roach took creed wheat in 

 certain waters was because of the flour mills on the banks ; 

 the fish got a taste of it by the grain escaping from the mill' 

 into the \v?LteT ; but the probability is that had there been any 

 record of the fact the ancestors of those same roach in the 

 dim and distant past would have been as equally fond of 

 the bait, even long before any flour mills were built beside 

 the stream. I know of certain stream^s and pools where the 

 roach in them, are very partial to that bait, and yet there was 

 no possibility of the fish having acquired the taste by grain 

 escaping from mills into the water, for the simple reason that 

 none exist within miles of the spot. When I fished the Trent 

 and the Witham I had an idea that was founded upon actual 

 experience that white wheat was the best for the hook. In- 

 the waters of the Ouse district I seem to fancy that honours 

 are about equally divided between the white and the red, 

 sometimes white being the most attractive, and then again^ 

 red being the greatest favourite ; as a matter of fact, I found 

 that a judicious changing about was conducive to sport. I 

 have been using a kernel of white wheat on the hook and had 

 no response for several minutes, and then changed it for a 

 kernel of red, and got a good fish directly; and the same^ 

 thing has frequently happened when changing a red one for 

 a white. But speaking in a general way, I find that one- 



