THE ROACH. 43 



the summer and autumn, and even during the winter, gentles 

 can be tried as a bait, especially when the water is fairly clear. 

 The bread, rice, and bran ground bait can be used in con- 

 junction with maggots. It will, however, be a good plan to 

 have some small unsecured gentles as well, put a dozen of 

 these gentles in a bit of that ground bait, the size of a wal- 

 nut, say, and keep casting one of these little balls in every 

 few minutes, and if the angler can drop his baited hook im- 

 mediately behind this bit of groundbait and let his tackle go 

 in hot pursuit of it, why, his chance of getting either a bite 

 or a fish that swim is a very good one indeed. 



Boiled or creed wheat and malt can also be used in a 

 similar manner down a stream, and with the same ground 

 bait. And here, again, one, two, or three kernels can be used 

 on the hook. Some very good roachers that I know put as 

 many on as ever they can, even to a good mouthful; and 

 certainly they manage to land some very good roach indeed. 

 These baits are used mth the most success in clear water and 

 during the summer and autumn months, the best of all being 

 August and September, and sometimes nearly through 

 October. 



Another ground bait that is much affected by some Not- 

 tingham stream fishers for roach is half a bucketful of what 

 they call " muck hole maggots." These are procured from 

 old ash places and dust bins; all sorts of fish, flesh, and 

 fowl offal are thrown in among the dust and ashes, and dur- 

 ing hot weather maggots breed and feed among the corrup- 

 tion. These maggots generally are small, and are not scoured 

 and cleaned in any way, but simply collected just as they are 

 with a good percentage of dust and fine ashes among, them, 

 and sprinkled down the swim, a handful at a time. The 

 angler that has too fine and genteel a nose must not adopt 

 this plan, as the scent is anything except otto of roses. There 

 was one man that I knew who used to regularly bring 

 down that bait in an old square biscuit tin strapped to his 

 back ; and I used to tell him that his scent was worse than 

 a glue factory; but he us'ed well-scoured and clean gentles 

 on the hook, and certainly he secured some splendid bags of 

 roach, and w^on several good prizes by the help of that strange 

 ground bait. This is one of the curiosities of roach fishing 



