a leather-mouthed fish, and has a kind of saw-like teeth in his throat. And lastly, let me tell you, the Roach makes an angler excellent sport, especially the great Roaches about London, where I think there be the best Roach anglers. And I think the best Trout anglers be in Derbyshire; for the waters there are clear to an extremity. Next, let me tell you, you shall fish for this Roach in winter, with paste or gentles: in April, with worms or cadis; in the very hot months, with little white snails; or with flies under water, for he seldom takes them at the top, though the Dace will. In many of the hot months, Roaches may also be caught thus take a May-fly, or ant-fly, sink him with a little lead to the bottom, near the piles or posts of a bridge, or near to any posts of a weir - I mean any deep place where Roaches lie quietly -and then pull your fly up very leisurely, and usually a Roach will follow your bait to the very top of the water, and gaze on it there, and run at it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away from him. I have seen this done at Windsor and Henley bridge, and great store of Roach taken; and sometimes a Dace or Chub. And in August, you may fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs of bread, which should be of pure fine manchet: and that paste must be so tempered betwixt your hands, till it be both soft and tough too: a very little water, and time, and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent paste. But when you fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick the churchyard; and in that cemetery lies an angler, upon whose gravestone is an inscription, now nearly effaced, consisting of these homely lines: In memory of Mr Thomas Tombs, goldsmith, of London, Each brother Bob, that sportive passes here, Who to this pitch* did oft resort, Before I dismiss the subject of Thames fishing, I will let the reader know, that formerly the fishermen inhabiting the villages on the banks of the Thames were used to enclose certain parts of the river with what they called stops, but which were in effect weirs or kidels, by stakes driven into the bed thereof; and to these they tied wheels, creating thereby a current, which drove the fish into those traps. This practice, though it may sound oddly to say so, is against Magna Charta, and is expressly prohibited by the 23d chapter of that statute. In the year 1757, the lord mayor, Dickenson, sent the water bailiff up the Thames, in a barge well manned, and furnished with proper implements, who destroyed all those enclosures on this side Staines, by pulling up the stakes and setting them adrift. A particular spot, called a Pitch, from the act of pitching or fastening the boat there. eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and the fish too, if one may lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I said, take both the Roach and the Dace, or Dare; for they be much of a kind, in matter of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And therefore take this general direction, for some other baits which may concern you to take notice of: they will bite almost at any fly, but especially at ant-flies; concerning which, take this direction, for it is very good : Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, in which place you shall find them in the month of June; or if that be too early in the year, then, doubtless, you may find them in July, August, and most of September.* Gather them alive, with both their wings: and then put them into a glass that will hold a quart or a pottle; but first put into the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out of which you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of the said hillock; and then put in the flies gently, that they lose not their wings; lay a clod of earth over it; and then so many as are put into the glass without bruising will live there a month or more, and be always in a readiness for you to fish with; but if you would have them keep longer, then get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, (which is better,) then wash your barrel with water and honey; and having put into it a quantity of earth and grass roots, then put in your flies, and cover it, and they will live a quarter of a year.† These, in any stream and clear water, are a deadly bait for Roach or Dace, or for a Chub: and your rule is to fish not less than a handful from the bottom. The ant-fly is the male or female ant, which can never certainly be got in a mole-hill, but occurs from midsummer till September.-J. R. They will not live so long with their wings on; for the female ant strips off her wings as soon as she is comfortably settled, and the male does not live long.-J. R. I shall next tell you a winter bait for a Roach, a Dace, or Chub; and it is choicely good. About Allhallontide, (and so till frost comes,) when you see men ploughing up heath ground, or sandy ground, or greenswards, then follow the plough, and you shall find a white worm as big as two maggots, and it hath a red head; you may observe in what ground most are, for there the crows will be very watchful and follow the plough very close it is all soft, and full of whitish guts ;* a worm that is, in Norfolk and some other counties, called a grub;† and is bred of the spawn, or eggs, of a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she digs in the ground under cow or horse-dung, and there rests all winter, and in March or April comes to be first a red, and then a black beetle. Gather a thousand or two of these, and put them, with a peck or two of their own earth, into some tub or firkin, and cover and keep them so warm that the frost, or cold air, or winds, kill them not: these you may keep all winter, and kill fish with them at any time; and if you put some of them into a little earth and honey, a day before you use them, you will find them an excellent bait for Bream, Carp, or, indeed, for almost any fish. And after this manner you may also keep gentles all winter, which are a good bait then, and much the better for being lively and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles thus: take a piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick, hang it in some corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay and as the gentles grow big, they will fall into the barrel and scour themselves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to fish; and these gentles may be thus created till after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gentles to fish with all the year, then get a dead cat, or a kite, and let it be fly-blown; and when the gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them in soft moist earth, but as free from frost as you can; and these you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them: these will last till March, and about that time turn to be flies. But if you be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers seldom are, then take this bait: get a handful of well made malt, and put it into a dish of water; and then wash and rub it betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free from husks as you can; then put that water from it, and put a small quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something that is fit for that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but leisurely and very softly, until it become somewhat soft, which you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb; and This is the too common grub of that destructive insect, the cockchaffer, or May bug, (Melalontha vulgaris,) which takes two years to become full grown. Anglers term it the earth bob.-J. R. This is the grub of the dung beetle, (Gestrupes stercoraria.)-J. R. This strange transformation from red to black is of course fabulous. -J. R. when it is soft, then put your water from it; and then take a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward with the point of your knife, take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet leaving a kind of inward husk on the corn, or else it is marred; and then cut off that sprouted end, I mean a little of it, that the white may appear; and so pull off the husk on the cloven side, as I directed you; and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook may enter; and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be a very choice bait, either for winter or summer- -you sometimes casting a little of it into the place where your float swims. And to take the Roach and Dace, a good bait is the young brood of wasps or bees, if you dip their heads in blood; especially good for Bream, if they be baked, or hardened in their husks in an oven, after the bread is taken out of it; or hardened on a fire-shovel: and so also is the thick blood of sheep, being half dried on a trencher, that so you may cut it into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook; and a little salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse, but better: this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered. There be several oils of a strong smell that I have been told of, and to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could say much; but I remember I once carried a small bottle from Sir George Hastings to Sir Henry Wotton, (they were both chemical men,) as a great present: it was sent, and received, and used with great confidence; and yet, upon inquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir Henry; which, with the help of this and other circumstances, makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk of. Not but that I think fishes both smell and hear, (as I have expressed in my former discourse,) but there is a mysterious knack, which, though it be much easier than the philosopher's stone, yet is not attainable by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chemical man, that, like the Rosicrucians, will not yet reveal it. But let me, nevertheless, tell you, that camphor, put with moss into your worm-bag with with your worms, makes them (if many anglers be not very much mistaken) a tempting bait, and the angler more fortunate. But I stepped by chance into this discourse of oils and fishes' smelling; and though there might be more said, both of it and of baits for Roach and Dace, and other float-fish, yet I will forbear it at this time,* and tell you, in the next place, how Roach delight in gravelly or sandy bottoms; their haunts, especially as winter approaches, are clear, deep, and still waters; and at other times, they lie in and near the weeds, and under the shade of boughs. They spawn about the latter end of May, when they are scabby and unwholesome; but they are again in order in about three weeks, The you are to prepare your tackling: concerning which, I will, for sport sake, give you an old rhyme out of an old fish-book, largest are taken after Michaelmas, and their prime season is in February or March. The baits for Roach not already mentioned, are cad-bait and oak-worms, for the spring; in May, ant's eggs, and paste made of the crumb of a new roll, both white, and tinged with red, which is done by putting vermilion into the water, wherewith you moisten it: this paste will do for the winter also. The largest Roach in this kingdom are taken in the Thames, where many have been caught of two pounds and a half weight: but Roach of any size are hardly to be come at without a boat. The haunts of Dace are gravelly, sandy, and clayey bottoms; deep holes that are shaded; water-lily leaves; and under the foam caused by an eddy: in hot weather they are to be found on the shallows, and are then best taken with an artificial fly, grasshoppers, or gentles, as hereafter directed. Dace spawn about the latter end of March: and are in season about three weeks after: they are not very good till about Michaelmas, and are best in February. Baits for Dace, other than those mentioned by Walton, are the oakworm, red-worm, brandling, gilt tail; and indeed any worm, bred on trees or bushes, that is not too big for his mouth; almost all kinds of flies and caterpillars. Though Dace are often caught with a float, as Roach, yet they are not so properly float-fish: for they are to be taken with an artificial gnat, or ant-fly, or indeed almost any other small fly in its season; but in the Thames, above Richmond, the largest are caught with a natural green or dun grasshopper, and sometimes with gentles; with both which you are to fish as with an artificial fly. They are not to be come at till about September, when the weeds begin to rot; but when you have found where they lie, which, in a warm day, is generally on the shallows, it is incredible what havoc you may make : pinch off the first joint of the grasshopper's legs, put the point of the hook in at the head, and bring it out at the tail; and in this way of fishing you will catch Chub, especially if you throw under the boughs. But this can be done only in a boat; for the management whereof, be provided with a staff, and a heavy stone fastened to a strong rope of four or five yards in length: fasten the rope to the head of the boat, which, whether it be a punt or a wherry, is equally fit for this purpose, and so drive down with the stream: when you come to a shallow, or other place where the fish are likely to lie, drop the stone, and, standing in the stern, throw right down the stream, and a little to the right and left; after trying about a quarter of an hour in a place, with the staff push the boat about five yards down, and so throw again. Use a common fly-line, about ten yards long, with a strong single hair next the hook. It is true, there is less certainty of catching in this way than with a float or ground-bait: for which reason I would recommend it only to those who live near the banks of that delightful river, between Windsor and Isleworth, who have or can command a boat for that purpose, and can take advantage of a still, warm, gloomy day; and to such it will afford much more diversion than the ordinary inartificial method of fishing in the deeps for Roach and Dace. In fishing at bottom for Roach and Dace, use for ground-bait bread soaked about an hour in water, and an equal quantity of bran; knead them to a tough consistence, and make them up into balls, with a small pebble in the middle, and throw these balls in where you fish; but be sure to throw them up the stream, for otherwise they will draw the fish beyond the reach of your line. Fish for Roach within six, and for Dace, within three, inches of the bottom. Having enumerated the baits proper for every kind of fish in their |