March 25, 1893] 
THE FISHING GAZETTE 
225 
THE BOOK OF THE ROACH. 
By the Late John Geeville Fennell. 
Edited and Revised by John Bickebdyke. 
{Continued from page 186.) 
CHAPTER VIII.— continued. 
Ground-baiting on the Trent. —On this 
river, -which we consider as typical, or representa¬ 
tive, as the Thames or Lea, there is a great 
aversion to use any clay or mud to sink the 
ground-bait. I f ivheat and malt are used for bait, 
the ground-bait is usually brewer’s grains, or 
sometimes only a few pellets of the hook bait 
thrown in ; if gentles are used, a few are thrown 
in some yards above, so as to settle about the 
place the float travels over, and if lobworms are 
employed, a few are chopped up into very small 
pieces and thrown in as above; red worms are 
used in the same manner, but it must be remem¬ 
bered that the Nottingham roach fisher allows 
his gossamer line and light float to travel in the 
clear water ten or fifteen yards below the spot he 
stood upon, and will then hit the majority of 
bites with ease and certainty. 
Boiled Bice is often extremely useful, as it 
swells enormously, and is very adhesive when 
used with bran and pollard. It may be added 
with advantage to any ground-bait. 
Mr. Joseph Briggs, in the Fieid of Aug. 7,1869, 
speaking of a great day among the roach in the 
Trent, says, “ I never bait a hole, as I consider 
it somewhat unsportsmanlike, by enabling the 
fisherman to take too many fish at one time.” 
The take on this occasion was 100 roach, some 
weighing one pound each. This axiom is very 
well for the Trent, where the fish are far more 
numerous in proportion to the area of water, than 
they are in the Thames, Lea, or any Metropolitan 
TN'ater, and we certainly consider that there is no 
great magnanimity in abstaining from ground- 
bait when it is proved to be unnecessary ; wo may 
say, however, that we are not acquainted with 
any place on the Thames or Lea where a tenth of 
the above number of fine roach could be captured 
without it. 
Colonel Williamson’s ground-bait consisted of 
oatmeal browned over the fire, and afterwards 
worked up to a stiff paste with treacle. Pieces 
the size of a small marble are thrown in near the 
hook, and in some waters it is remarkably 
effective. 
Overdosing the fish with ground-bait is a farce, 
opposed both in theory and practice to every 
notion of common sense. Men do not surfeit 
themselves before they sit down to dinner, and to 
give fish as much as they can eat of greaves, 
worms, gentles, and bread, before you invite them 
to partake of a worm suspiciously suspended on a 
hook attached to a lino, is equally absurd. How 
such a system could have lasted so long amongst 
a class of men who really do occasionally think 
for themselves, are fond of arguing with each 
other, and who endeavour to come to a just con¬ 
clusion, is one of the contradictions which prove 
how fallible is poor human nature. 
Upon one occasion a gentleman and his fisher¬ 
man were angling from his ]iunt at Marlow, and 
wo were fishing from the bank. He had a great 
tub of ground-bait, of which he most liberally 
cast in large balls to propitiate the roach, dace, 
and chub. Vet they would not come to hook. 
During this time wo could hear all the angler 
uttered, and the words were something to this 
effect: ” Give them another lump of ground-bait. 
Bob. They don’t come about us, do you think 
you have put enough worms in it ? Perhaps the 
bran is sour. Bob; or maybe, Bob, the bread is 
musty. I don’t fancy the greaves. Bob, are as 
good as they u.sed to be; this new-fangled 
hydraulic pressure work I am told the tallow- 
chandlers use, extracts every bit of fat, and leaves 
but skin and rubbi-h. Give them another lump. 
Bob: that gentleman is taking some good roach 
and chub from the bank.” 
And so we were, for although they had one of 
the best swims at Marlow, we thoroughly beat 
them by the most simple of plans, and for the most 
natural of reasons. We were sitting out of sight 
of the fish as a matter of course, at the head of a 
very quiet, steady stream, about four feet deep, 
using a light Nottingham line, a small float, and 
baiting with paste made with wheaten tlour and a 
little honey. Every now and then we chewed a 
little bread, and blew it from our mouth into the 
water. This was (|uite sufficient to attract the 
notice of our fish, without pampering them, and 
when the bait floated down they were on the qui 
vive, and quite ready for it; and thus nearly 
every swim we got a bite, and about every three 
swims took a fish of some sort, big or little. We 
met this gentleman at the Complete Angler, at 
dinner, the same night, and he, on recognising us, 
inquired what we had baited with. We told him 
truly what we had thrown in, and what we covered 
our hook with. ITe rang the bell, sent for his 
fisherman, and told him what we had just com¬ 
municated. Bob scratched his head, desired to see 
our fish, which were fetched in. After turning 
over several roach of more than a pound each, and 
dace galore, he exclaimed, “ If my father was to 
rise from his grave, and tell me them fish were 
taken as that ere gent says, I’d tell him he was a 
-” “ There, that will do ! ” cried the angler. 
“ Bob, leave the room.” Bob did leave the room, 
but only to tell the fishermen in the kitchen what 
he had heard in the parlour, and there was but one 
opinion among these sapient and long-experienced 
men—that we had walked away from the truth. 
But, if not taken in this way, how were they 
taken ? We were in sight of more than one punt 
the whole of the time, and not a boat came in on 
that day with more than a few small fish. 
The fact is, it is to the interest of the puntsman 
to make angling as cumbersome as possible. 
Lighten it of its half hundi’edweight of clay, 
quarterns of bread, pecks of gentles, and hundreds 
of worms, and a punt is scarcely necessary. How 
is it on almost every other river in England but 
the Thames ? On the Trent a punt with an 
angler therein is scarcely to be seen between Bid- 
dulph and Gainsboro, and it will hardly be said 
that those who wield the rod over silvery Trent 
have not well earned the right to be heard upon 
such a subject. 
“ When fishing with boiled wheat, &c., a similar 
practice may be adopted to that spoken of in paste 
or gentle fishing. G rains may, however, be thrown 
in instead of wheat or barley, as the former 
separate better in the water, and do not clog in 
lumps. Angling with worms in the same way, 
the worms for ground-bait should be almost 
minced.”— Bailey. 
[Nottingham anglers place four or five worms 
in a half cocoanut shell and then snip them into 
small pieces with the points of a pair of scissors. 
The result is a horrid mess, but the process is, on 
the whole, more cleanly and humane than tearing 
the worms into several pieces, as I have seen 
Thames anglers do.—J. B.] 
On Rept. 21, 1868, we were witness to one of 
the greatest takes of roach we have ever seen on 
the Thames. The fish were taken from a punt 
by two rods, the sport being close under the 
high bank on the Berkshire side, not far from 
the entrance to the Thame. It is the same spot 
mentioned by us in No. 2 of “ The Rail and the 
Rod,” as the one from which Tom Wells, of 
Brightwell, and his boy, took so many perch. It 
is perhaps better indicated as being in an exact 
line with the first gate on the tow-path which 
skirts Hog Common. Here Mr. Mark Raphael and 
Mr. Hart commenced angling with gut lines and 
running Nottingham tackle as soon as it was light, 
and left off at eleven o’clock a.m., with 871b. of 
roach, quitting the swim fairly satisfied, while 
the fish were still well on the feed. There 
was not a roach under a quarter of a jiDund 
amongst the take, and none more than one pound 
two ounces; but considering that it was a dead 
easterly wind, and they fished not more than six 
hours in all, the quantity is most remarkable. 
It is true this hole is a good deal ground-baited, 
and but little fished, the vegetable offal of a 
slaughtered bullock being occasionally thrown in 
by an old angler in the neighbourhood ; but upon 
this occasion, it would seem, there was a meal 
provided for the roach far more attractive than 
even this savoury bovine salad. I was certainly 
not prepared for the foresight evidenced by these 
gentlemen, and in the cause of my brother anglers 
they must excuse my making it known—an 
apology being less necessary, as I find the plan 
has been resorted to by others with marked 
success. Any one who has seen the Thames tidal 
way at low water must have observed the red 
mud which lines its banks, the colour arising 
from innumerable small worms. Here then is 
the secret. A keg, or nine-gallon cask, is filled 
with this mud, and it is conveyed to the appointed 
angling rendezvous and placed on the lid of the 
punt-well. A piece of gutta-percha tubing is 
fitted to a tap attached to the bottom of the keg, 
the other end being carried down and made fast 
to the bottom of the river with a punt-pole, and 
then the tap is turned slightly on, being checked 
from time to time as the fish come or go oft' tlie 
feed; thus the mud and auimalcuhe are carried 
down the stream, attracting every fish for some 
distance below to within reach of the angler’s 
bait. The lure used for the first hour was the 
blood-gnat worm, found at the extreme inland 
portions of these deposits, up the ditches, creeks, 
and in any mud left stagnant for a time. The 
common practice is to wash them out of their soft 
homes by laving water over them; and, if left, 
they become gnats. But finding they were 
pestered with small chub, gudgeon, and dace, 
they tried gentles with more success, and ulti¬ 
mately a paste of flour mixed with sheep’s blood. 
It is difficult to guess how far this method of 
ground-baiting, if made general, would agree 
with the notions of the conservators of the Thames, 
who might well be surprised at the removal of the 
disgraceful mud banks of Kew and Hammer¬ 
smith into the more rural districts ; but, after all, 
it would be but a description of retributive justice 
to take the filth to the places from whence it 
came. Kingston and Windsor at least would not 
be able conscientiously to repudiate their off¬ 
spring. I am fully convinced, crowded as the 
greater portion of the Thames is with roach, that 
there are comparatively few of half a pound in 
weight, and that those of a pound or more ai’e 
very few and far between. In this respect the 
Thames will not bear comparison with many of 
our other English rivers, more particularly the 
Dorset Avon, the lower Exe, the Darent, &c. 
We may be pardoned for quoting a high autho¬ 
rity upon this subject of our art, to which our 
attention has been called. At pp. 22 and 2.3 of 
“ A Book on Angling,” by Francis Francis, is : 
“ The following plan is an ingenious one; it was 
communicated to me by an old roach fisher, who 
declared it to be a great patent. I have never 
tried it myself, but the angler can do so if he 
chooses. It often happens that when the water 
is clear and low the fish are difficult to attract, 
whereas if you could discolour the water a little 
you would not only coax the fish to come to 
your swim, but you would induce them to take 
well. . . . Get a tube shaped like a trumpet 
or a post-horn, or get a common funnel with a 
large tube, then get three or four lengths of zinc 
or tin pipe, which will fit into each other in 
joints like ferrules, of a foot or eighteen inches 
each in length, screw on a sufficient number of 
these to reach the b'ittom of the water. Tie a 
stone or weight on to the same end sufficient to 
sink to the bottom and keep it steady. Then 
thrust it overboard to the bottom of the water, 
the funnel remaining above the water and handy 
to you. Have a tub near, in which mix up some 
clay or mould with plenty of water. Stir it up 
until it becomes thick slush, then take a half-pint 
mug full of this liquid and pour it into the 
funnel. This runs slowly out of the lower end 
of the tube at the bottom of the water, and 
thickens it for two or three minutes, quite suffi¬ 
cient to attract the fish and set them biting, 
while it does not fill their bellies like ground- 
bait. Dropping your hook-bait into the muddy 
stream, let it follow it down, and you will bo 
likely to get a bite or two. You can renew the 
colouring matter about every quarter of an hour, 
and, said my informant, ‘ no matter how low or 
bright the water, you will get sport when none 
of the boats or fishermen near you will perhaps 
be able to get any.’ ” There is nothing new 
under the sun, whatever may be novel above it! 
The modus operatidi of the anglers alluded to by 
me, as fishing thus opposite the Thame entrance, 
was much more simple than this, as the bare 
turning of the tap at your elbow is sufficient to 
regulate the flow. Of course any mud from a 
neighbouring ditch or pond will do to a certain 
extent; but iu the instance of which I have made 
mention the filth was taken from the banks of 
the Thames at Hammersmith, and, for obvious 
reasons, kept hermetically secured in the tub, so 
that no objectionable effluvia could escape. [A 
very simple method of ground-baiting a roach 
swim is to cut two or three slices of bread, tie 
