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Side 96 av 113
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 to 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 up 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
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
manner 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 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.
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