6 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



throwing them up above the swim, so far that they may find 

 ground within it ; and here let the angler be very sure that he 

 does this accurately, as much depends upon it, for it is useless 

 to fish in one place when the ground-bait is in another. Cheese 

 may also be so used, and gentles likewise, if the stream will 

 admit of it, not otherwise. Bread, rice, pearl-barley, barley- 

 meal, etc., should be worked up into very small balls, about the 

 size of a plum, upon a small stone, or with such other matter 

 as shall cause them to hold together until they reach the 

 bottom. If it be desired to use bran, grains, malt, boiled wheat, 

 or such baits, they should, if the stream be at all swift, be 

 worked up together with some of the above baits in order to 

 give the mass sufficient coherence to carry it unbroken to the 

 bottom ; meal will serve well for this purpose if it be well 

 kneaded. On the Norfolk rivers a barley-meal bolus is the bait 

 for roach, and boiled barley for bream. 



The aim while fishing should be to distribute and disperse 

 the bait as much and as soon as possible, that many may get a 

 taste, but few a surfeit, which latter they easily do when the 

 large adhesive clay balls are used. 



If it be not convenient to the angler to bait a swim overnight, 

 he will do well, if possible, to pursue the same plan as is recom- 

 mended in pond-fishing, viz. of baiting two or three pitches, 

 stopping in each only so long as the fish continue biting ; then 

 casting in a little bait and going on to the next, and so each 

 again in turn, and thus he will most probably get the most sport 

 possible at the least expenditure of time. 



The pitch having been properly baited, the tackle should be 

 suited to it. The float should be proportioned to the depth and 

 strength of the stream, and should be also so weighted as to 

 sail steadily along, carrying the hook just touching the bottom 

 without the float being sucked under by the whirl of the stream, 

 and with about from one-half to three-quarters of an inch of the 

 quill showing above water. 



To ascertain the depth of the water and suit the float to it, a 

 leaden plummet is generally used by Thames fishermen, though 

 the Nottingham fishers eschew it and have another method of 

 ascertaining the depth, which I shall notice in the proper place. 

 In Plate I, Fig. 7, page 9, will be seen cuts of two plummets, 

 one of rolled sheet and the other of solid lead. Unroll the 

 rolled one for a turn or two, hook the hook on the bottom edge 

 of the lead and roll it up so as to secure the hook within, or put 

 the hook through the ring and hook it into a piece of cork fixed 



