THE EOACH. 89 



one gentle, then two, or a wasp grub and a cad bait. I have 

 found all these dodges to answer ; in fact, if the angler wants 

 to be a successful roach fisher, he must try all the dodges that 

 suggest themselves to him, but he must beware of overfeed- 

 ing the fish, his business being to attract them and not to 

 overfeed them. A quart or two of coarse gentles are plenty 

 to fish a forty yards swim all day. Two or three handfuls of 

 them are scattered in before the fisherman's tackle is put 

 together, and then after he has got the proper depth he puts 

 in another handful. After this he takes about a dozen of 

 his scoured gentles and throws them in, just to give the fish 

 a taste of what they may expect. He only now renews his 

 baiting when the fish give over feeding, and this must be 

 done sparingly. Thus by all the dodges I have named, viz. 

 changing the baits, fishing fine and far off, keeping out of 

 sight as much as possible, he may manage to secure a bag of 

 roach, should the day be anything like, even if the fish are 

 only biting indifferently. If the angler has not been able to 

 procure any coarse gentles and has only a few scoured ones 

 with him, a very good substitute can be made for his ground 

 bait as follows :— Take a basin-full of broken bread or refuse 

 crusts and put them in a small receptacle, and pour boiling 

 water upon them sufiicient to cover them. Put a cover over it 

 then to keep the steam in, and let it stand an hour or two ; the 

 water is now to be drained and the bread squeezed up so that no 

 lumps are left While the bread is going through the process of 

 scalding, the operator can have a pound of twopenny rice in a 

 bag boiling on the fire (be sure that the bag is big enough to 

 allow the rice to swell), and when it is thoroughly cooked 

 and the bread ready, a quartern or so of bran is added, and 

 the whole mixed well together till it is a very stiff pudding. 

 A handful or two of barley meal is an improvement to this. 

 It is necessary to be sure that this mixture is made fresh just 

 before it is wanted to be used, for it is apt to turn sour. 



