CHAP. XVII. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 197 



is 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 be 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 to 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 up 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 Qhub. 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, 



Before I dismiss the t object 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 inclose certain parts of the riv r with what they called stops, but 

 which were in effect weirs or kideU, 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 

 Afagna. Chaita, 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 witli proper implements; who 

 destroyed all those inclosures on this side Staines, by pulling up the stakes and 

 setting them adrift. 



