THE ROACH. 79 



ever, that roach are, for the most part, a ground-feeding fish 

 As an iUustration I may say, I was only last year fishing a 

 good swim with a friend. The swim was well baited, and 

 we both had to stand side by side, and allow our floats and 

 btiits to travel down together ; we each fished with the same 

 bait. I fished, however, on the bottom, and he was some 

 eight or ten inches above it. We did this by mutual con- 

 sent, and during the whole of the time he never caught a 

 roach, and I did not take a single dace. We both had 

 very good catches, and strange as it may appear, that my 

 fish were roach and his were dace, the conclusions I arrived 

 at then backed up my former observation, viz. that roach 

 are for the most part a ground-feeding fish ; I know that 

 they will take an artificial or a natural fly on the surface ; it 

 is the formation, therefore, of the mouth that allows them to 

 take a bait at all depths. (The above will be found a good 

 plan, to fish a swim that you know contains both roach and 

 dace). I have been rather particular in my description of a 

 roach, because the would-be roach anglers ought to know the 

 peculiarities and habits of these fish, and also because during 

 certain stages of their growth they may be confounded with 

 fish of an apparently similar character, but which on closer 

 observation, side by side, are widely different. Eoach 

 spawn about the latter end of May, and are a very prolific 

 fish. They are then very slimy, and have a lot of rough pim- 

 ples on their scales. When they have done spawning they 

 retire into deep holes, or among the thick weeds, and live 

 upon the weeds and the insects found among them. About 

 the latter end of July or so they come out of the weeds, and 

 take more to the open water ; and they may be found some- 

 times in considerable quantities by the side of rushes, flags, 

 or weed beds, especially if the water is from five to eight feet 

 deep. About this time, when as old roach fishers say, " The 

 weed is out of them,*' and the slimy coat they wore among 



