1 84 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



many of the hot months, Roaches may also be caught thus : take 

 a May-fly, or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to the bottom, 

 near to the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a 

 weir, I mean any deep place where Roaches lie quietly, and then 

 pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a Roach will follow 

 your bait up to the very top of the water, and gaze on it there, 

 and run at it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away from him. 



I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley Bridge, and great 

 store of Roach taken ; and sometimes a Dace or Chub. And in 

 August you may fish for them with a paste made only of the 

 crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet ; and that 

 paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands till it be both soft 

 and tough too : a very little water, and time, and labour, and 

 clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. But when you 

 fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a 

 nimble hand, or the bait is lost,* and the fish too ; if one may 

 lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I 

 said, take both the Roach and the Dace or Dare ; for they be 

 much of a kind, in manner of feeding, cunning, goodness, and 

 usually in size. And therefore take this general direction, for 

 some other baits which may concern you to take notice of : they 

 will bite almost at any fly, but especially at ant-flies ; concerning 

 which take this direction, for it is very good. 



Take the blackish ant-fly out of the molehill or anthill, in 

 which place you shall find them in the month of June ; or if that 

 be too early in the year, then, doubtless, you may find them in 

 July, August, and most of September. Gather them alive, with 

 .both their wings : and then put them into a glass that will hold 

 a quart or a pottle ; but first put into the glass a handful, or more, 

 of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of 

 the roots of the grass of the said hillock ; and then put in the 

 flies gently, that they lose not their wings : lay a clod of earth 

 over it ; and then so many as are put into the .glass, without 

 bruising will live there a month or more, and be always in readi- 

 ness for you to fish with : but if you would have them keep longer, 

 then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, 

 which is better, then wash your barrel with water and honey ; and 

 having put into it a quantity of earth and grass roots, then put 

 in your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year. 

 These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for Roach 



* To make the paste stick on the hook, many anglers mix with it a small quantity of 

 wool. B. 



