ROACH-HOOKS. 



before I could get on terms with these roach. In summer 

 and in clear water it was hopeless. If you could get a 

 tree at your back, you might catch two or three, but that 

 would be a signal for the rest to disperse. In coloured 

 water, however, and more particularly in winter, I found 

 at last that after three or four days baiting, and with 

 single hair, I could give a good account of them, and I 

 made some splendid takes, though they are still very capri- 

 cious. Roach-fishing is certainly very enjoyable, and, 

 seated on a stump, under the shade of an old pollard 

 willow, by some deep quiet hole on the Lea or Colne, the 

 fisherman may enjoy most agreeable sport ; and while 

 watching his float with a mundane eye to the main chance, 

 may dream or moralise to his heart's content, as did dear 

 old Father Izaak in days of yore. Here be the eddy he 

 loved, and there the bunch of water-flags, and yonder the 

 honeysuckle hedge ; and as I live, there are the gipsies, 

 too, cheating one another as usual all but little changed 

 these two hundred years or so. 



The means usually pursued in roach-fishing have 

 already been described in bank and punt-fishing. The 

 rods and tackles requisite in the sport are such as are there 

 set down. The hook, if the water be full and the fish 

 biting freely, should be a No. 9, to carry two gentles. If 

 the water be very clear, and the fish shy, a No. 10 or 11 

 hook, to take only one gentle, will be found preferable. 

 Two dead gentles jammed together in the fashion in which 

 the hook is usually baited, are not a common spectacle to 

 the fish when the angler is using gentles as ground-bait, 

 and they are therefore rather liable to challenge suspicion 

 than otherwise. In fishing with paste or even pearl barley 

 a larger hook may be used. In roach-fishing, it is very 

 customary with some anglers to use the short-shanked 

 hooks I have spoken of previously ; but they are bad hooks 

 for striking, and do not strike true on the point of the hook. 



