102 By Stream and Sea, 



movements, and he soon came up on his side. Two joints 

 of the bamboo rod were unshipped, and the cheven was 

 basketed with a couple of dozen of roach that had pre- 

 viously been taken. 



Another man was using the blow-line with some success. 

 This is a favourite Lea fashion in chub-fishing, and on windy 

 days not at all a bad notion. It is a well-known mode of 

 dealing with the May-fly on the West Meath lakes, but it is 

 not much practised in England, except upon this river. The 

 Lea blow-line fisher uses the "daddy long legs," grass- 

 hopper, blue-bottle, or housefly, and in very hot weather 

 takes large roach as well as chub by his long floss-silk line. 

 My Rye House friend had a bunch of " daddy long legs," of 

 the size total of a walnut, and he had the mortification of 

 hooking and losing a heavy chub that rushed half way 

 across the river before it seized the mystic object flitting so 

 naturally on the rippled surface. The fish was struck too 

 sharply, and the floss silk gave way. With the blow-line 

 unusual delicacy of striking is required, because of the 

 length and stiffness of the rod and the slackness and a 

 certain. waywardness in the behaviour of the line. 



A roach fisher is nothing if not Job-like in the matter of 

 patience. And a very pretty amusement roach fishing is — 

 when the fish bite : otherwise I must say the occupation is 

 a dull one. It is monotonous to hold the long rod in one 

 position, to make it follow the float to the end of the swim, 

 to lift the bait out of the water and drop it in the same 

 spot as before, and to repeat a thousand times over that 

 uneventful journey of the quill to the end of its tether. 

 Perhaps once in fifty times the float disappears. It is a 

 doubtful motion. The slender tell-tale, to be sure, has gone 

 under the water, but it is in so faint-hearted a manner that 

 you are quite disposed to believe it is caused by the bait 



