CUNNING OF OLD ROACH. 55 



bait should be placed there for a day or two previous, 

 always allowing a whole day and night's interval 

 betweeen the final baiting and the time for angling. 



Having first ascertained the depth by the method 

 previously described, and arranged the float so as to 

 admit of the bait ranging three or four inches from 

 the bottom of the water, the hand supporting the 

 rod should be ever ready to knock home the hook 

 nicely and carefully, and not too hastily. The 

 correct motion will be readily acquired by practice. 

 Small fish will often take the float under by a jerk, 

 whilst the corpulent members of the same species 

 will scarcely indicate their presence by a disturbance 

 of the float at all, though when these begin to pay 

 their addresses to your lure after this style, it 

 generally proves a favourable symptom for sport ; 

 but frequently this exhibition of tenderness and 

 delicacy is merely the result of their style of mouth- 

 work, if we may be allowed to use the expression, 

 the object of which, as the angler soon finds out, 

 is to abstract the bait from the hook neatly and 

 effectively. Now this is just as bad a sign as the 

 other is a good one, and what is worse, as a general 

 thing, the angler cannot help himself. A plan we 

 have found to answer ourselves in these circum- 

 stances, is to hang a scrap of the finest and best 

 gut one quarter of an inch below the hook, and 

 upon this excessively fine gut to attach a very small 

 hook (though of small size, to retain good strength 

 of metal), upon this one-half of a maggot or gentle 

 is attached, with a full sized one, or even two, upon 



