ROACH-FISHING AS A FINE' ART. 341 



falling upon the water ; drop his bait gently in, the float sliding 

 down to its position, without splash or ripple ; never permit the 

 line to dangle on the surface ; make sure of his strikes in the 

 firm belief that pricked or lost fish alarm the shoal ; and play 

 the hooked roach until it may be landed without commotion 

 on the top. 



These were amongst the leading doctrines of a boyish 

 creed, and leading doctrines they remain. Creeping through 

 the dewy grass as soon after daylight as possible, experiments 

 were commenced at an alder bush overhanging the little river. 

 A bit of paste, pea size, would be dropped into the water. 

 This, all the while crouching out of sight, I would anxiously 

 watch. Deeper and deeper sank the little pellet in regular 

 disappearance. What I watched for was a sharp twitch of the 

 white object, followed by its instantaneous disappearance, for 

 this indicated not only that the roach were there, but that 

 they were on the feed. If the decoy bait was snapped up 

 quickly, the float would be adjusted to keep the hook in mid- 

 water. Three-quarters deep was the best condition of affairs, 

 and if there was no twitching of the preliminary paste I 

 generally resigned myself to a poor bag, and was seldom dis- 

 appointed. When the mill people began work at six o'clock, 

 as indicated by a drowsy waterwheel monotone two furlongs 

 up, business commenced in real earnest, and it would be a 

 very unsuccessful morning that did not give me a couple of 

 dozen roach averaging a quarter of a pound each. The moral 

 of this personal reminiscence is this : Had I afterwards aban- 

 doned the practice of roach-fishing, I should probably have 

 gone through the world under the impression that the roach 

 was a silly sheep to be had for asking by anybody. 



Having looked at that picture, let me invite the reader to 

 look on this. Here is a reach of water meandering at speed 

 of say two miles an hour through a meadow. We know it to 

 be full of large roach. Any ordinary cast of the net shall 

 bring up a bushel of great fellows, between three-quarters of a 

 pound and a pound. Yet, of six or eight anglers who have 



