ROACH-FISHING AS A FINE ART. 339 



A learned tome which I once read treated of the brain power 

 of fresh-water fishes, and placed the carps, or Cyprinidtz, lowest 

 on the list. As the roach is not the quickest witted ol the 

 family we may, therefore, to some extent agree with the old- 

 fashioned writers who dubbed it the water-sheep. Yet noi so 

 very sheepish after all, if by the expression is meant silliness. 

 The perch and pike, when thoroughly on the feed, commit 

 the most astonishing stupidities. In their primitive state, 

 before they have been much worried by the angler, roach 

 are, no doubt, easily taken in, and even done for, but once let 

 them become indoctrinated into the enemy's plan, as they soon 

 will be, and it is very difficult indeed to restore them to that 

 feeling of innocent confidence which was their original state. 

 You may worry a shoal of perch to-day, or ravage a flock of 

 bream to-morrow ; may thin out the dace merrily foraging in a 

 running stream, and may yet come again, before a long interval 

 has passed, and find them in a liberal frame of mind. Not so 

 with roach. With them it is generally a clear case of ' once 

 bit, twice shy.' At rare times, however, the shyest may be 

 surprised, and these occasions are what the artist has to find out 

 by careful study and accumulating personal experience. 



Much of the contempt which salmon- and trout-fishers 

 entertain towards what we have got to speak of as coarse fish 

 arises from early experience of their simplicity. Most of us, I 

 suppose, as youngsters most of us, that is to say, who have 

 begun the descent from the summit of the life journey either 

 caught roach, or witnessed their capture, in quantities. Before 

 we were allowed to handle a gun or break into other sporting 

 domains, we had free run of some pond or stream from which, 

 morn and eve, we were seldom sent empty away. I have often 

 compared notes with angling brethren upon this matter. Very 

 interesting is it to do so at luncheon-time on a bad day upon a 

 well-fished water. With all the improvements in the way of 

 appliances, with all the cunning born of years of practice, you 

 meet under the clump of elms and confess your disappoint- 

 ment. At such time some one is almost certain to casually 



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