208 



THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



with paste or gentles ; in April with worms or cadis ; in the 

 very hot months with little white snails, or with flies under 

 water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the dace will. 

 In 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 bot- 

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

 a wear, 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 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 between your hands till it be 

 both soft and tough too ; a very little water, and time and labor, 

 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,* 



* Leuciscus Vulgaris of Cuvier, Cyprinus Leuciscus of Linnaeus. The 

 dace of this country is a beautiful fish, but small, and of no account to the 

 angler. — im. Ed. 



