30 



THE ROACH. 



particularly if the water is fairly clear and the weather cold. 

 Happy is that angler who has a good supply of those baits 

 at the latter end of October. Opinions are divided as to- 

 what makes the best maggots ; some will swear by gentles 

 bred from bullock's liver, as being more yellow in colour 

 and more attractive than any other; while others favour 

 maggots bred from, fish, because they are whiter and larger. 

 The maggots generally sold to the angler are for the most 

 part bred from refuse fat, but the thoughtful fisherman, if 

 he has any facilities at all in the shape of outbuildings, will 

 breed and feed his own for winter use. I find the best plan 

 to adopt to keep a constant supply of gentles all through the 

 winter is to procure a few small roach or bream' — or failing 

 those, any refuse fish fromi the dealer's will do^ — about the 

 middle of October, and put them, in an old tin or any other 

 convenient vessel. Set them out of the way of cats or rats, 

 but in a place where the blow-flies are likely to find them. 

 If there is a burst or two of sunshine during the days imme- 

 diately following, the fish will be well struck or blown within 

 a week, and the little maggots start to feed. The angler 

 should now keep his eye on them,, and if he finds that the 

 fish alreadv there is not sufficient to fully feed them up, he 

 must from time to time procure a little more. This is one 

 of the secrets of successful maggot breeding and feeding: 

 they must be fed up to their full size. I have had a tin of 

 feeding gentles and dropped in among them two or three half- 

 pound roach or bream; by the next morning the bones of 

 those fish have been picked clean, and the maggots nearly 

 twice the size that they were twenty hours previously. Dur- 

 ing the season of the year that I am now referring to, gentles 

 do not feed quite so ravenously, nor grow quite so rapidly 

 as they do during very hot weather, but if you can get your 

 fish successfully fly-blown during the latter part or the middle 

 of October the rest is easy. As soon as the angler perceives 

 that his maggots are fully fed he must at once attend to them, 

 for nature now teaches the gentles to crawl away from their 

 food and seek retirement in any old nook, crack, or crevice, 

 and if our fisherman neglects them, at this time he will pro- 

 bably find on again looking into his tin that the whole of 

 them have vanished by some mysterious means or other. 



