THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 185 



a leather-mouthed fish, and has a kind of saw-like teeth in his 

 throat. And lastly, let me tell you, the Roach makes an angler 

 excellent sport, especially the great Roaches about London, 

 where I think there he the best Roach anglers. And I think 

 the best Trout anglers be in Derbyshire ; for the waters there 

 are clear to an extremity. 



Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this Roach in winter, 

 with paste or gentles : in April, with worms or cadis ; in the 

 very hot months, with little white snails ; or with flies under 

 water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the Dace 

 will. In many of the hot months, Roaches may also be caught 

 thus : take a May-fly, or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to 

 the bottom, near the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any 

 posts of a weir I mean any deep place where Roaches lie quietly 

 and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a Roach 

 will follow your bait to the very top of the water, and gaze on 

 it there, and run at it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away 

 from him. 



I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley bridge, and 

 great store of Roach taken ; and sometimes a Dace or Chub. 

 And in August, you may fish for them with a paste made only 

 of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet : 

 and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands, till it 

 be both soft and tough too : a very little water, and time, and 

 labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. 

 But when you fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick 



the churchyard ; and in that cemetery lies an angler, upon whose grave- 

 stone is an inscription, now nearly effaced, consisting of these homely 

 lines : ' 



In memory of Mr Thomas Tombs, goldsmith, of London, 

 who departed this life Aug. 12th 1758, aged 53 years. 



Each brother Bob, that sportive passes here, 

 Pause at this stone, and drop the silent tear 

 For him who loved your harmless sport, 

 Who to this pitch* did oft resort, 

 Who in free converse oft would please, 

 With native humour, mirth, and ease, 

 His actions form'd upon so just a plan : 

 He lived a worthy, died an honest man. 



Before I dismiss the subject of Thames fishing, I will let the reader 

 know, that formerly the fishermen inhabiting the villages on the banks of 

 the Thames were used to enclose certain parts of the river with what they 

 called stops, but which were in effect weirs or kidels, by stakes driven 

 into the bed thereof; and to these they tied wheels, creating thereby a 

 current, which drove the fish into those traps. This practice, though it 

 may sound oddly to say so, is against Magna Charta, and is expressly 

 prohibited by the 23d chapter of that statute. In the year 1757, the lord 

 mayor, Dickenson, sent the water bailiff up the Thames, in a barge well 

 manned, and furnished with proper implements, who destroyed all those 

 enclosures on this side Staines, by pulling up the stakes and setting them 

 adrift. 



* A particular spot, called a Pitch, from the act of pitching or fastening the boat there. 



