PRACTICAL ESSAY. 32? 



as good as paste. Boiled wheat and dried malt have each their 

 votaries, and the silk-weed is also stated to be a good bait when 

 wrapped around the hook, but I have never had sufficient faith to 

 try it. Wasp-grubs are also good for the large roach. 



If you can see the roach, let your bait hang at the depth they 

 appear to be swimming ; but if you cannot see them, three or four 

 inches from the bottom will be about right. Strike the moment 

 the float dips, and always at the end of the swim if in a stream. 



Sinking and drawing without a float, and with a fly or gentle, or 

 both on the hook, is very deadly. You cast your line into the 

 stream, and work it gently up and down while it floats down stream, 

 striking when you feel a bite. Daping with a fly is also killing, and 

 fly-fishing with a small black gnat or other small dark fly, tipped 

 with a gentle or bit of white kid glove, is a capital way. The pit- 

 men on the banks of the Wear use a casting-line of single hair well 

 oiled. A fly is put on the hook, there is of course no shot, and the 

 fly and line float on the surface till the former is seized by the fish. 

 This is said to be a most deadly method. The roach bites well on 

 open days during the winter. 



Mr. Francis says that " there are few of the ordinary fresh-water 

 fish so good for the table as a roach out of a gravelly stream, from 

 Christmas to the end of March." 



The rudd referred to in the note may be fished for in precisely 

 the same way as the roach. 



THE DACE. 



The same tackle, baits, and mode of fishing that are applicable 

 to roach fishing are also applicable to dace fishing, except that 

 vegetable food is not so much to their mind as animal. The small 

 red worm is perhaps the best general bait. 



The dace is a brighter and more active fish than the roach, and 

 is a river fish only. It rises well at the fly, and whipping for dace 

 on summer evenings is a capital amusement, and a good introduc- 

 tion to fly-fishing for trout. The dace is gregarious, and in favour- 

 able situations is found in large shoals. I have seen some parts of 



