90 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



Mind and make it up as stiff as you can, for if it is too soft 

 it will rise to the surface and swim away. The cost of this 

 ground bait is only trifling, and I have proved its efficacy to 

 my own satisfaction. The quantities I have given will make 

 about a dozen lumps the size of your fist, and will be plenty 

 for any ordinary swim. It is all the better if you can 

 manage to drop two or three lumps of it in your swim the 

 night before you fish, a round stone about the size of a large 

 walnut being placed in each lump, which should be dropped 

 in quietly. Be sure that the bran is sweet and not musty 

 when this ground bait is being made, or your chance with the 

 roach will not be a very good one. When this ground bait 

 is used and one is fishing with gentles, a very few of the 

 latter scattered down the swim will be an improvement. A 

 little wrinkle I will also give you now : the biggest fish very 

 often lay at the extreme end of the swim, and so don't be 

 afraid to let your float go a few extra yards. I have seen 

 splendid roach struck time after time when the float has been 

 forty yards away, ay, and hooked too. 



Of course, paste, creed malt, or wheat, can be used in this 

 style of fishing, and with that ground bait ; but good roach 

 anglers adopt a difi'erent plan for paste baits. They use the 

 paste and grain in nice quiet waters by the side of streams, 

 just over some flags or weeds are very good spots, or where a 

 corner or any obstruction forms a slow eddy; in fact, anywhere 

 in a very lazy stream that they know or think contains roach 

 and is of four or five feet depth. Paste baits are fished as a 

 stationary bait, and this style is locally known as " pegging." 

 The tackle is the same as for the other method, and is hardly 

 ever used or practised above a yard from the bank, unless the 

 rushes or weeds extend further out. Your pill of paste is 

 put nicely on the hook and then thrown out, the slight 

 stream gradually works the float and bait down till it is about 

 fifteen yards below you, and it is then held stationary, the 



