CHAPTER III-Roaching.

T

HERE is always a delicious uncertainty about angling, and this, perhaps, gives it some of its delicate charm and aroma. If human contrivance could have availed this chapter would have been a most scientific one, upon the roach and how to angle for him, filled with those stiff statistics which extort admiration, and salience, from the supposed reader. It should have enlarged the sphere of human knowledge, an object which has a certain De-Wet-like evasiveness about it.

For a long time Dr. Luke had agreed with me that a careless empiricism reigned in the angling world. Haphazard and the bonds of tradition obscured intelligent knowledge. It was time that we changed all this. We would angle mathematically, and with forethought and elaborate preparations, as men who observe eclipses, or

"Find the North-West Passage out

Although the longest way about."

We resolved to begin upon the Roach,

and we left no stone unturned, which could hide a bait, or a fragment of cunning. We first held high converse upon the place. Should the Parret bring forth abundantly at the call of science? or should the Ile be the teeming mother of results? Each favoured some special spots, but finally a deep pool with a level bank was agreed upon. It is one of the universities of Roachdom, none being respected unless he has spent much time in its deeps and shallows, and tasted its caddis mud. The time chosen was January, when roach bite more boldly, and are in their sauciest trim. We prepared with much care, watching wind, hygrometer, barometer, thermometer, nautical almanac, moon and water. The wind varied from N.N.W. by N. to s.w. I see, for several days before. The air sucked up and discharged water as if it had been a a bath sponge. I remember guessing the rainfall, as about halfan-inch, and the grave triumph of my friend who assured me that it was only '13405 for the whole week, Sunday till Thursday midnight. The barometer hardly wavered from 29°, first doing little sums in decimals to prove that it was on the alert. The moon was new-a compromise,-for I hold with

Worlidge that these fishes hate moony nights, and feed better by day than when the chaste beams fall upon their rival silver. My friend, on the contrary, thinks meanly of the moon, and maintains that they no more fear her shine than they fear Hesperus, Orion, or the Pleiades; but a reference to our diaries seems to show that the weightier fishes bite at the full, and the greatest number when the nights are dark, for then the big ones eat, and the polloi hide themselves. The water was of an excellent colour, and fairly full-flowing, I confess to some little excitement over the preparations, and Mrs. Luke betrayed that her calm and collected husband had looked at the stars more than once during the night. Of course we naturally read up our authorities. Walton nodded a little when he dealt with the roach. He, (the fish, not the writer), is by no means the water-sheep, for he is very far from being an easy prey to his enemies. The French call him Le Gardon, from his wariness. Dennys first put about this figmentum Anglicanum of sheepishness. His lines are worthy of the reader's eye, with this small exception, though they seem to refer to Summer fishing only.

"Then see on yonder side, where one doth sit,
With line well twisted, and his hook but small;
His cork not big, his plummets round and fit,
His paste of finest paste, a little ball;
Wherewith he doth entice unto the bit

The careless roach, that soon is caught withal:
Within a foot the same doth reach the ground,

And with least touch the float straight sinketh down."

This last is so important that the mounted lines should be tried in the waterbutt to see that they are rightly poised.

"And as a skilful fowler that doth use
The flying birds of any kind to take,
The fittest and the best doth always choose
Of many sorts a pleasing stale to make;
Which if he doth perceive they do refuse
And of mislike abandon and forsake,
To win their love again, and get their grace,
Forthwith doth put another in the place?

So for the roach more baits he hath beside;
As of a sheep the thick congealed blood,
Which on a board he useth to divide

In portions small to make them fit and good,
That better on the hook they may abide;
And of the wasps the white and tender brood;
And worms that breed on every herb and tree,
And sundry flies, that quick and lively be."

For some days before the solemn festival we collected baits. Gentles and insects of

any sort were not to be had: but I laid in a stock of boiled malt, macaroni, (boiled with a little sugar, and some dried flies, which are sold for cage birds), and blood. The blood was very messy, and would get into no other state than that of a thin jelly. I dabbled in it, (feeling like the good Coligny's hoary head in Macaulay's ballad), baked some of it into black paint, warmed some more, and at last got it into a sort of gruesome state, when it resembled flaccid liver. To this delightful list I added currants and sultanas, (why not? Roaches love a vegetable diet), and also suet. My cousin Hilda suggested egg paste and ants' eggs made up with a little flour and water into a sweet pudding, and Dr. Luke saw to the ground bait-bran and barley meal mixed with garden mould,—and brought some of his famous arrowroot biscuit paste, by which he has slain his thousands. Then I got as a special concession from the baker, a hot slack-roll, and by the courtesy of the cook, pearl barley, sago, semolina, Quaker oats, cornflour, and several other cereals devised from larder tins. With all these viands it seemed a small matter of patience "to win their love again, and get their grace."