GROUND-BAIT. 7 



merely to gorge the fish, but to keep them anxiously 

 expecting food. On the Thames, for example, more 

 ground-bait is often wasted and thrown away in one day 

 than, judiciously applied, would suffice for a week's sport. 

 If a little bait can be thrown in daily some days before 

 fishing, of course the chance of sport will be improved. 



In ground-baiting a pitch overnight, the method de- 

 pends upon the bait to be employed. If gentles are to be 

 employed, the best plan is to enclose them in a ball of bran 

 and clay mixed up. The same may be said of chopped 

 worms. Greaves or scratchings should be scalded, broken 

 small, and mixed up with the clay or not, according to 

 the stream. Bran with bread, rice, boiled wheat, grains, 

 and such baits, are best worked up with the clay for sharp 

 streams, while cheese should be made up into small round 

 balls, not larger than marbles. But for the baiting while 

 fishing it is beet to cast in the worms, &c., loose without 

 any clay, merely 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, &c., 

 should be worked up into small balls, about the size of 

 an apple, 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 un- 

 broken 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 



