THE ROACH. 91 



whatever it is to judge by. Roach very seldom exceed three 

 pounds in weight ; and we have very few instances where 

 the fish reach this. A two-pound roach would be considered 

 a giant if taken from the Trent; and I have only seen 

 one roach that reached this weight. This was caught by a 

 labourer with a large lob-worm for a bait ; it weighed 2 Ib. 

 5 oz., and it was literally quite greyheaded. The Avon, I 

 believe, has the biggest roach ; I have heard of them being 

 frequently taken from that river of the weight of from two 

 pounds to two and a half pounds. Two-pound roach are 

 sometimes taken in the Thames ; but in the Trent I only 

 know of the solitary one mentioned above. A half-pounder 

 is a sizeable fish, a pounder is a good one, while a pound and 

 a half fish would make the heart of a Trent angler rejoice ; 

 indeed, I have known the first prize for a specimen roach to 

 be taken with a pound fish. I once took fifteen roach that 

 weighed fourteen pounds; and again, seventeen fish that 

 weighed fifteen pounds ; and an old friend of mine once took 

 six grand fish close to Newark, weighing seven pounds, and 

 not an ounce difference was there in the weight of them. 

 It appears that big roach are more plentiful in the Trent 

 than I had thought possible. When the bream hole at the 

 bottom of Foottitt's meadow was netted some years ago (so 

 one of the men who were engaged in that business told me), 

 there were several roach got out that weighed from two to 

 three pounds each, and since I penned the foregoing notes, 

 there have been several caught and weighed in our local clubs 

 that have turned the scale at from one and a half pounds to 

 one and three-quarter pounds a-piece, and only a few weeks 

 ago, two were weighed in that scaled two pounds, one ounce, 

 and two pounds, four ounces, respectively. 



Roach are very fond of a lazy eddy by the side of a swift 

 stream, and being a bulky fish are not found much in very 

 strong and rapid waters. They like the slow, lazy curls 

 under bushes, or the slow streams by the side of flags, rushes, 

 &c.; quiet lie-byes or corners away from the main stream are 

 very much affected by roach ; streams that flow at the rate 

 of not more than two miles an hour ; or in the curls and eddies 

 in the vicinity of a weir, or in the neighbourhood of an old 



