THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



117 



Walton says that the roach " is a fish of no great 

 reputation for his dainty taste, and his spawn is 

 accounted much better than any other part of him ; 

 and you may take notice that, as the carp is 

 accounted the water-fox for his cunning, so the 

 roach is accounted the water-sheep for his simplicity 

 or foolishness." This charge of "simplicity or 

 foolishness," however, is only partially true of the 

 roach. In waters where small ones abound, they 

 are greedy and silly enough, and the veriest tyro 

 may catch them. Also in semi-tidal waters where 

 the stream runs somewhat brackish and the mud 

 at the bottom is foul, such as the lower reaches of 

 the Yare, the big roach may be taken in great 

 numbers by any one who can hold a rod over the 

 side of the boat. Such fishing requires but little 

 skill (and what is anything without the exercise of 

 skill ?) and such roach-fishers rank a very long way 

 below the trout-fisher. But where the roach is at 

 his best such places as this river on whose banks 

 we stand, whose deep, clear water slips gently over 

 trailing weed, and rounds from the foot of a golden 

 and green-striped shallow into a slowly eddying 

 and blackly deep pool it is fine work fishing for 

 him. With a pole one could leap over the river in 

 any place, yet that hole a little lower down is fully 

 fourteen feet deep. It holds many an ancient roach 

 of portentous size, whose size protects it from the 

 jack which also inhabit it. 



In fresh, clear water like this, the roach are shy- 



