28 THE ROACH. 



Sometimes in fishing these very quiet rivers the bait is 

 taken before it has had anything like time to reach the bot- 

 tom of the river. This will show the angler that for once 

 in a way the roach are feeding in mid-water. He might now 

 for a change alter his depth to half what it was before and 

 throw out well in every direction, until he covers all the water 

 within immediate reach ; a few good roach may be the result 

 of this experiment, but to take things on the whole I find 

 the roach generally go down to where the ground bait is.- 

 Fishing in mid-water when the ground bait is on the bottom 

 is a good deal like spreading a good dinner out in the cellar 

 and then going into the top attic to enjoy it. But whatever 

 the angler does, he must bear in mind what I said in the 

 chapter on bites, and must, when fishing with wheat in still 

 water, strike gently on the very first indication of a bite. 



I have been asked the question several times as to whether 

 I prefer to use this bait fresh or wait till it gets rather stale ; 

 and here I find a difficulty staring me in the face. Personally 

 I prefer to use it when fresh cooked, or at least when no 

 longer than three days' old. Some other anglers say it is 

 the best when a week old, and certainly I have known on 

 odd occasions good bags of roach to have been made, when 

 the boiled wheat has been in the last stages of consumption ; 

 but a careful consideration of the subject has led me to come 

 to the conclusion that the fresher it is the better. At any 

 rate it is the best to use it within three days of cooking it, 

 and what is left after that time can be safely thrown away and 

 a fresh lot prepared. One little incident that bears upon 

 this subject I must now give. In this locality we had a rural 

 postman who was a rare good roach fisherman, and one 

 morning he found the river steadily rising, and just a tint of 

 colour coming down with it. It was a roach water and 

 roach weather, but, alas ! he had no boiled wheat and no time 

 to prepare any. However, a search on the bank round some 

 well-known swims resulted in the discovery of a dozen or two 

 stale corns of boiled wheat that bad been discarded by some 

 other fisherman at least a week previous. These were joy- 

 fully seized upon, and within the next two hours fifteen 

 pounds of good roach were reposing in the postman's basket 

 and he himself driven from the banks by the rapidly rising: 



