30 THE ROACH. 



rod admitting of sufficient line wherewith to play 

 a fish so averse to locomotion as is the roach. 



The bank-fisher is generally a character in his 

 way, and enthusiastic in the art ; he carries with 

 him a large flag-basket, containing, besides his pipe 

 and his luncheon, all the implements of his craft ; 

 he has, too, a camp-stool and a forked stick on 

 which his long rod rests. Patient and contempla- 

 tive, like his prototype the heron, he sits through 

 the long day watching his well-balanced float, and 

 not unfrequently carries home to his sympathetic 

 and admiring family a considerable weight of fish. 



' ' Pleasant is the fisher's life 

 By the waters streaming." 



But our business is not with him. 



The roach is the king of fishes to the genuine 

 punt-fisher. And here we may describe the 

 operation of " fixing the punt," which is by no 

 means so simple or easy as it may appear to 

 the uninitiated. It should be stated that roach- 

 fishing differs from gudgeon-fishing in this, that 

 while in the latter a constant change of place 

 is desirable the fish going off their feed after 

 some twenty minutes or half an hour, and always 

 taking best in new and unaccustomed places 

 the former seem to affect the same localities 

 continuously. The longer you fish and the more 



