FLY-FISHING FOR ROACH 23 



rod alternately, gradually following your bait down-stream : 

 strike gently but quickly at the least symptom of a bite or a 

 touch. In this way you also kill dace and sometimes perch, 

 and occasionally a trout. You may also take roach, and good 

 ones by fly-fishing. Indeed, in some waters, particularly 

 where bottom-fishing is difficult to follow by reason of weeds, 

 shallows, etc., excellent sport may be had with the artificial 

 fly. An imitation of a bluebottle or a common red or black 

 palmer, with a pair of wings of starling feather added to it, 

 is a good fly. Dress it on a No. 8 hook. It will be all the 

 more attractive if the hook be pointed with a gentle or a little 

 bit of stringy bacon skin of the size of a gentle. In default 

 of this, a small piece of white kid or wash-leather does well. 

 As a rule, roach do not take fly well upon the Thames, though 

 I have seen them at special times feeding voraciously on flies. 

 One warm day, in October, 1860, the ant fly was swarming in 

 the air, and the water was thronged with it. I was fishing 

 at Hampton, and every roach in the river was feeding most 

 greedily on it, and on enquiry I found that the same thing 

 had been noticed at Twickenham and elsewhere. As the 

 method is exceptional there are no rules for the choice of a 

 fly, but if the roach are rising freely it will be desirable to 

 find out what they are rising at and to use that fly ; in default 

 of this, the angler may whip with a gentle if the fish are 

 inclined to rise well, and he will be pretty sure to get good 

 sport. 



Large roach are often taken also with the lob worm when 

 barbel-fishing. The ground-baits for roach are as various 

 as the hook-baits. In still streams and quiet eddies these 

 should be scattered loosely in, without any admixture of 

 clay or any sinking matter, but the angler in doing so must 

 always calculate whereabouts his bait is likely to ground, 

 and fish there ; for if he baits in one place, and fishes a few 

 yards off it, his ground-bait will do him more harm than no 

 bait at all would. Never overbait roach ; a very little bait 

 will draw them together, and a few scraps occasionally will 

 be all that is necessary to keep them on the watch. And 

 therefore a little bait scattered over a space where all can 

 get at it is better than a mass where only two or three can 

 plunge their noses into it and succeed in gorging themselves. 

 There is no plan so absurd, so literally destructive of sport, 

 as that pursued by the majority of Thames fishermen, with 

 their huge piles of puddings of clay, bran, gentles, greaves. 



