450 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN THE GENTLE CRAFT. 



may be said of the tail of a lob worm, or small red worm, 

 either in summer or winter, when floods have caused a rise in 

 the streams, and probably a course of coloured waters. 

 Ground bait, which is usually a very expensive matter in 

 various other methods of fishing, is in roach-fishing very 

 simple and inexpensive. The roach-fisher seldom uses 

 anything but a stiff paste made of bread and bran. He 

 soaks his bread over night, and in the morning squeezes 

 the surplus water away, and then adds to it a quantity 

 of bran, working it up in his hands, until he gets a stiff 

 paste as tough and hard as putty. He baits his swim with 

 pieces of this ground bait about as large as a pigeon's egg, 

 or a good sized walnut. That is quite sufficient for the 

 purpose of baiting a roach swim. On the Lea they have a 

 practice which I have found wonderfully good at times, 

 when roach are exceedingly shy, and when they will not 

 take a bait under any conditions, and that is this. When 

 these experienced operators have baited their hook with an 

 ordinary piece of paste or with gentles, they take a little 

 of this tough ground bait, and nip it immediately over the 

 two shots which are usually put on the bottom length of 

 hair or gut, about two inches above the hook. When the 

 float is thrown gently up-stream, the extra weight causes 

 it to sink, but the rodster lifts it carefully along until it 

 gradually reaches the point where the roach are supposed 

 to be lying. The whole way it comes down the stream, 

 this little bit of bread and bran keeps flaking small parti- 

 cles off along its downward track- This is especially 

 attractive to roach, and practice has frequently proved that 

 they will then feed a great deal better than they had been 

 doing previously, when the simple bait itself had been 

 floated time after time down the swim. Now, the roach is 

 a particularly quick and active fish in its habits. It follows 



