106 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



opened roach that have had some half-digested weeds in 

 their insides, though catching roach with a weed bait is a 

 branch of sport I have yet to learn. Ledgering for roach is 

 not often practised on the Trent, but sometimes during a 

 thick, heavy water it is tried with success. It resembles 

 what I have described in ledgering for barbel, only the lead 

 is smaller, the tackle finer, and the hook is a No. 8. The 

 bait is of course a worm. 



The wind comes in for a fair share of odium, when the 

 angler is only having indifferent sport, and east winds I 

 know are not good for roach fishing, although I have known 

 good catches to have been made when the wind is in the 

 north, which I have heard some anglers say is a much 

 worse quarter than the east. Roach can be caught when 

 the wind is settled in any one quarter; it is when the wind 

 is shifting about to all points of the compass in a few 

 hours, that it is fatal to the success of the roach fisher. A 

 rough wind is not good for the roach angler, and if we could 

 have it as we liked, a west, or a south-west wind is the best 

 of all. A morning when the rime frost hangs about every- 

 thing should be carefully avoided by the roach fisher. If 

 the sun should manage to struggle out and lick the rime off, 

 then the angler might venture to go towards noon, with 

 some chance of success. I remember that an old friend and 

 I \vere once roach ing on the Trent ; it was very cold, and 

 the snow was falling fast. We were fishing with bread 

 paste, and yet we managed to take a bag of fish, though the 

 wind was in the east. I must confess, however, that in 

 the winter roach fishing is very uncertain. More often have 

 I been disappointed than I have taken fish, but neverthe- 

 less, as I have before said, roach are to be taken in the 

 depth of winter, if you know their winter haunts, and the 

 day is anything like fair. Snow broth is fatal to your 

 chance of success. Before I finish with the roach, I might 

 say that occasionally the angler takes a fish that he sup- 

 poses to be a roach, but which in reality is a rudd ; it has 

 a more coppery tinge than the roach, is shorter and deeper, 

 the back fin is nearer the tail, and while the roach has 

 a projecting upper lip, the rudd has a projecting under lip. 



