346 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



medium-sized roach, and being run out eventually with a chub, 

 which he would scarcely have killed without a reel line. 



A. meanwhile, by dint of patience and a frugal use of ground- 

 bait, gets after a while amongst the three-quarter pound roach, 

 and keeps among them for an hour or two. He misses with 

 some strikes, mistaking a drag on the bottom for a bite, though 

 this is no more than he expects, and his rule is to strike at the 

 slightest movement of his float. Should it seem to pause ever 

 so faintly in its steady swim, the top of the rod, always about a 

 foot from the water, strums upwards as if by an involuntary 

 movement, and a fish is hooked. Should it slant slightly, the 

 same result ensues. To the unaccustomed eye there has been 

 no bite, but it has been plain enough to the artist, as the issue 

 indeed is to the roach. 



B. truly enough urges that he is saved endless exertion in 

 the course of a day by keeping his bait clear from the bottom, 

 and as, thanks to his dace and chub, he can show at the finish 

 as heavy a bag as his friend, there is not much to be said. As 

 they leave the meadow they discuss the vexed question of gut 

 versus hair. A. uses hair, to procure which as he requires it is 

 the trouble if not the object of his life. B. declares that, what 

 with the nuisance of getting it, and the treachery of the knots, the 

 game is not worth the candle. For these reasons I always use 

 fine gut, or in very clear water the less desirable, because uncer- 

 tain and rapidly destructible, drawn gut. Yet I must confess 

 that A., who is the best roach-fisher on the water, and all the 

 really crack men I have seen the men who are roach-fishers 

 pure and simple, making it a study, and retaining it to the end 

 of their days as a passion swear by chestnut hair and tight 

 lines. I never heard of a Lea champion who would admit the 

 superiority of gut over hair. Of the various explanations 

 advanced in favour of hair, which is the bulkier strand, the 

 one which in my opinion is most cogent is the power it has 

 of repelling those globules of water which hang around the 

 finest gut. 



The baits for roach are legion. Simple paste, and well- 



