THE ROACH AND RUDD 

 good teeth and bones for mortals. If the new " Standard " bread contains 

 the same goodness of the wheat as the old English farmhouse bread made 

 from English red wheat, ground on the trout stream mill, then I should 

 say use that for paste for roach, and chub, and bream, and tench, and for 

 children. 



Grains of wheat and pearl barley, stewed gently until they are swollen 

 and just bursting, are often used for roach as hook-baits; in Norfolk 

 even maize, Indian corn, is steeped in water until soft, and found a good 

 bait at certain times. 



Of worms I have found two or three blood-worms — ^the larvae of the 

 gnat — ^tied together with a strand of red worsted, a capital bait for 

 roach in deep clear swims, but the bother of baiting is too much. A small 

 lively red-worm is taken at times, and the tail of a freshly-dug lob-worm 

 or big garden worm is often a deadly bait in a river after a flood, when 

 the water is clearing a little and gradually falling. Then float ledgering 

 is very interesting, i.e., having a goose -quill float on your line and fishing 

 right on the bottom in quiet bays and corners out of the rush of the current. 

 Almost any river fish, in fact, every one big enough to get it into its mouth, 

 likes the tail of a lob, and in fishing for roach under such conditions I 

 have even caught small pike. 



As regards the natural baits, one can find in almost any river by pulling 

 out a big lump of water weeds — shrimps, snails, creepers, caddis (i.e., 

 the larvse of sedges and other water files in their curious cases of sticks 

 and stones and empty snail shells, etc.) — all these small deer are what 

 the roach and other fish hunt for among the weeds, and they are all killing 

 baits at times. In fishing with gentles, which are the larvae of the blue- 

 bottle fiy, it is a custom of some anglers to colour them with some of the 

 innocent colourings used by confectioners; but if a nice plump, naturally 

 yellow gentle, with a bright red cry sails, to which the gentle turns before 

 emerging as a fiy— if that combination does not tempt the roach, no arti- 

 ficial colouring will. 



Anglers who find the fish off the feed under conditions which appear 

 to be quite favourable, should bear in mind the thousands of tons of tar 

 which have been, and are being, spread on our roads; the traffic breaks 

 it up, and even months after it may get washed from street and roads 

 into our rivers, and where it does not kill fish it may sicken them. I have 

 seen far too much of its injurious effects not to dread the tar barrel and 

 the spraying cart. 



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