CHAPTEE III 



THE ROACH. 



Boach'fishing a Fine Art — A Summer Day's Roach-fishing — 

 Baits and Ground-bait — Finding a Swim — Float-fishing in 

 Thames Style — Playing and Landing Fish — A Jack in the 

 Swim — Nottingham Fishing — Tight Corking, and Legering 

 with a Float — Fishing with Silk-weed — Punt-fishing — Leger- 

 ing for Roach — Fishing in Sigh and Coloured Water — 

 Catching, Scouring, and Keeping Loh -worms — Winter 

 Fishing — Roach-fishing in Lakes, Ponds, Meres, and Canals. 



HE roach — called in Ohesliire the roach-dace 

 — is the most popular of the coarse fish. 

 It abounds in almost every lake, pond, 

 canal, and quiet-running stream in England, 

 but is not found in Ireland. It affords 

 capital sport on the fine tackle essential to 

 its capture, and in autumn and winter, if 

 skiKully cooked, is not altogether uneatable. 

 It is a remarkably handsome fish, being for the most part 

 silvery, eyes, fins, and tail tinged with red, but, as with all other 

 fish, the back is the darkest portion — a steely blue or green, 

 quickly turning to silver on the sides and belly. The scales 

 are rather large, and are easily displaced. In weight roach 

 vary from a few ounces to about S^lb., but one of 21b. is very 

 rarely captured, and probably not two anglers out of 500 have 

 ever seen a roach that size. Small roach are sometimes mis- 

 taken for rudd, and vice versa. They are, however, easily dis- 

 tingui^bed by a glance at their mouths. Rudd have projecting 



