CREED WHEAT AND GENTLES. 33 



in the Nottingliam fashion, or with the leger, the light rod, 

 without the extra butt, will be found to answer the purpose 

 admirably ; but Nottingham anglers use light wood rods, made 

 expressly for their peculiar kind of fishing. Personally, I am 

 not wedded to either the Nottingham style or any other, but 

 always use Nottingham reels and lines (see pp. 16 and 17), so 

 that I can fish any way I like ; and when I fail with one plan, 

 I try another. 



Let us now go for a summer day's roach-fishing, during 

 which I will do my best to explain how to find the fish, and 

 the various ways of catching them. By following this plan 

 I believe I shall be able to give all the necessary information 

 in a readable and easily-understood form. 



It is the end of July, and the roach are now in condition. 

 We are going to a stream which is new to us, so devote a por- 

 tion of the previous day to getting ready various baits which we 

 may possibly require. In the first place, we prepare about half 

 a pint of wheat for bait, by placing it in a large covered jar, full 

 of cold water, in the oven, and letting it stew gently from three 

 to five hours, adding cold water about once an hour, as the wheat 

 quickly takes up the water, and it is important not to let it dry. 

 The wheat can hardly cook too slowly. If prepared with care, 

 it swells up to about the size of a pea and bursts, showing a 

 little streak of white. If done too much, the inside boils out. 

 The empty husks are not much use as bait. Of course, there 

 are many methods of stewing wheat, but the jar-in-oven plan 

 is the safest.* Instead of wheat, we can use lightly-dried 

 malt — ^which is sometimes preferred by the roach — or pearl 

 barley. A bait more used for roach than any other (paste 

 excepted) is the gentle — larva of the bluebottle fly. We pur- 

 chase a store of these from an obliging butcher's assistant, 

 who, by keeping them in bran or damp sand for a few days, 

 in a dark, cool place — a cellar for preference — has caused them 

 to become clean and pleasant to use. Some few anglers 



* Another good method is to soak the wheat for twelve hours, rub it in a coarse 

 canvas bag until the husks are removed, and then stew the remainder of the grain 

 very gently in milk. Another plan is to place a bag of wheat in a mash-tub for a 

 few hours. 



