] 02 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



an advantage when the angler goes for a long day's paste 

 fishing and the weather is warm, to take a bit of bread with 

 him, so that he can make another lump of paste by the river 

 side if necessary, as the one he mixed before he started 

 would have a tendency to turn sour after a few hours. 

 These pastes should be rolled up in a bit of damp white rag, 

 and I suppose I need not tell you this ought to be clean. I 

 might just say that new bread is nothing like so good as 

 bread a day or two old, and home-made bread is not so good 

 as that from the baker's. 



The ground bait that I have described can be used in this 

 fishing, but anglers generally take a few pieces of bread with 

 them, and chew them up and spit into the swim, or rather 

 blow them out of their mouths, and some good catches of 

 roach are sometimes made by this plan without any previous 

 baiting. Creed wheat and malt are very good baits during 

 the months of August and September, and are used a good 

 deal on the Trent. An old angler has often told me that he 

 does not consider the roach are in condition until they will 

 take malt, and I agree with him. When I cook my malt 

 and wheat I put it loosely in a calico bag and boil it in the 

 kitchen boiler. Be sure you allow the corn to have plenty 

 of room to swell however, that is, don't tie the string of the 

 bag too close to the corn. I boil it in the boiler, because it 

 then has plenty of water, and after two or three hours, when 

 the skin cracks open and shows the white inside, it is ready. 

 It looks nice, white, and clean when it is cooked like that, 

 whereas some anglers stew it in a jar ; and when cooked 

 like that it looks black, dirty, and disagreeable. This bait 

 is used in the same manner as the paste, one or two corns 

 being put on the hook ; for ground bait use brewers' grains. 

 Beware, however, of overbaiting with brewers' grains, for 

 many a good day's sport has been spoiled by a too free use 

 of this ground bait. I have seen anglers come down to the 

 river with a huge bag of grains and dash them in by the 

 peck, when about as many as would fill a quartern measure 

 would be ample ; the roach feed on these grains, and when 

 fishing with malt I have taken roach with their mouths full 

 of it. It is of no use fishing with malt and wheat before 



