THE ROACH. 27 



boiling ; he can drop his bag of wheat into that and let it 

 istop in a few hours without any further thought, as the small 

 quantity of wheat would not turn such a large quantity of 

 water as that dark and disagreeable. Some anglers recom- 

 mend wheat to be slowly stewed in a jar in a hot oven, and 

 not tied up in a rag at all. In my opinion this is only a 

 very fair plan ; I pronounce most decidedly in favour of the 

 tied-up rag and the boiling saucepan. The kitchen boiler 

 would not be available to six out of every ten roachers, so I 

 -only casually mention it. In using this bait on the hook a 

 single kernel will be found quite sufficient, and for hooks I 

 find a No. ii crjstal bend, or a Xo. lo sneck bend, to be 

 the very best; perhaps the former has a slight call for 

 favouritism, and I must again impress upon the angler the 

 necessity of the gut tackle being of the very finest. For this 

 still water fishing the best colour for the drawn gut will be 

 a smoky blue, the shots should be put on the gut line about 

 four or five inches from each other, the bottomi one no 

 nearer the hook than fifteen inches (see my remarks on the 

 subject in the previous chapter). I have tried this bait in 

 all depths, and occasionally I have taken good roach when 

 using it in mid-water, but generally speaking I find it the 

 most effective when used as near the bottom as possible. 

 My advice is, the angler should plumb his swim- just as far 

 as he can reach with his rod out at arms' length ; and when 

 his plummet rests on the bottom of the river, about three 

 inches of his porcupine float should stand above the surface 

 of the water. This I find to be the best plan to adopt. In 

 plumbing the depth of his swim., he should stand as near 

 the edge of the water as possible and reach \\-ith his fourteen- 

 foot roach rod as far as he possibly can. This will be 

 about the distance from the bank his float will travel, when 

 sitting on his basket or stool, because he will naturally throw 

 the bait and float so that it settles in the water three feet or 

 so in front of his rod point. He must also take care to throw 

 his ground bait in, directly in the track of his float, and if 

 there is a little stream or current, so that the float creeps 

 down the swim, say about a yard in a minute, the chances of 

 ■catching roach are more favourable than if it stood still and 

 did not move at all. 



