48 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
but this does not last long, and by far the best 
bait are gentles (especially those of the blue- 
bottle), or paste mixed with cotton-wool. 
In our mind’s eye there is at this moment a 
favourite “dub,” where, in bygone years, we 
used to capture fish of great size and numbers, 
which were supposed to be roach. They turned 
out, however, to be Rudd, “red-eyes” as the 
old poachers called them. Walton was not 
at all sure of the rudd, and thought it was 
a kind of bastard roach; and he remarks that 
the Thames, below London Bridge, affords the 
“largest and fattest” in this “nation.” According 
to the knowledge of his times, these red fish 
were produced by bream and roach mixing their 
eggs and milt together, and although they be- 
came numerous, they never grew to any great 
size. This is quite erroneous. At this moment 
a brace of magnificent monsters are lying before 
me, and of all coarse fish, surely they must be 
the handsomest. They have only been out of 
the water a couple of hours, are in the pink of 
condition, and just turn the scale at four pounds. 
And this is how they came by their death. We 
were searching for coot’s eggs among the reeds 
of a mountain tarn, when two or three big fish 
began to rise from the warm, shallow bank. A 
single hair-line was quickly tied, and the end fly 
