A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



roach with the fly. I was wading a long shallow with the pur- 

 pose of catching dace, and I discovered several small shoals 

 of good-sized roach basking in the warm sunlight at various 

 points. A black gnat, tipped with a small piece of white kid, 

 proved very attractive to these somnolent fish. It was pretty 

 to see them swim lazily after the fly as it was pulled slowly 

 across stream, opening their mouths and absorbing it at the 

 latest possible moment. All coarse flsh are deliberate in their 

 manner of taking flies, but roach are pre-eminent in that re- 

 spect. On another day I visited the same shallow, fly-rod in 

 hand, with intent to repeat the performance, and there was not 

 a roach to be seen on it, though the weather was much the same 

 and the state of the river had not altered. Somewhat dis- 

 appointed I wandered on upstream, wishing I had brought 

 some other kind of rod, because fly-fishing was evidently use- 

 less. Lunch time found me, with very little in my basket, 

 sitting beside a dark deep pool into which I threw idly a few 

 pellets of bread rolled up from the crust that accompanied 

 my cheese. I could see the little white balls sinking far down, 

 and then suddenly I could not see them. They vanished, 

 methought, too abruptly for a mere fading out of sight. To 

 be brief, I surmised the interference of roach, and so it proved. 

 Similar pellets offered on a stripped fly-hook at the end of my 

 cast very soon settled the question, and the dull day became 

 a day of rejoicing. On the light fly-rod the big roach fought 

 with splendid vigour and pertinacity, and it was brave sport. 



With roach I always class bream in my own mind as pro- 

 ductive of that placid yet absorbing sport which is heralded 



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