Roach

“ It is marvellous to see them carrying away the body of a great dead roach or centipede,—pulling and pushing together like trained laborers, and guiding the corpse over obstacles or around them with extraordinary skill.... ”

“ Roach is a handsome fish either in, or fresh out of the water; it inhabits many of our deep, still rivers; affecting, like the others of this genus, quiet waters; it is gregarious, keeping in large shoals; it has a small head, a leather mouth, which is round, and also small, with the teeth in the throat; large eyes, the circle of which resembles gold colour, and the iris red; the roach is deep, but thin, and the back elevated; the scales are large, and easily fall off; the fins are in general red, particularly whilst in perfection ”

“ A roach firmly hooked ought never to be lost; it requires a dexterous hand to pilot a dace safely out of a rapid current—that is to say, a dace of two or three to the pound.
And the dace is deserving of respect because it will honestly take the fly. True, the roach does so too, occasionally; but the dace, any time between June and September, rises regularly. We used to get them in the Colne considerably over 1/2 lb. in weight, and an afternoon's perseverance and a little wading would, in favourable weather, put from twenty to thirty fish into your basket. ”

“ The scenes in which the angler pursues his pleasant avocations are among the most delightful that Nature yields. The broad river, meandering through the meadows, here and there widening into calm and placid pools, that reflect in mirror-like perfectness the pollard-willows on the bank, and allow the eye to trace without difficulty the ruby-finned Roach and Perch, the gleaming Chub, and the speckled Trout, as they play or dart through the crystal element, cannot but be delightful ”

“ Put Carp, Bream and Tench by themselves: Pike, Pearch, Eel, and Tench (the Fishes Physician) by themselves; for Food of the greater Fishes, put store of Roach, Dace, Loach and Menow; and Lastly to one Melter, put three Spawners, and in three Years the increase will be great, and in five Years with difficulty be destroyed.
In 3 Years Sue your Pond; which you must continue to do, for the Roach will increase in such abundance, that eating up the sweet food, will make other Fish, as Carps, &c. be very lean: Therefore every Year view your Pond, and observe if any such Fry appears, thin them. ”

“ The hollow is illumined by the light which sinks through the stream outside the root; and beneath, in the green depth, five or six roach face the current. Every now and then a tiny curl appears on the surface inside the root, and must rise up to come there. Unwinding as it goes, its raised edge lowers and becomes lost in the level. Dark moss on the base of the ash darkens the water under. The light green leaves overhead yield gently to the passing air; there are but few leaves on the tree, and these scarcely make a shadow on the grass beyond that of the trunk. ”

“ He is a fish of no great reputation for his dainty taste; and his spawn is accounted much better than any other part of him. And you may take notice, that as the Carp is accounted the water-fox, for his cunning; so the Roach is accounted the water-sheep, for his simplicity or foolishness. It is noted, that the Roach and Dace recover strength, and grow in season in a fortnight after spawning; the Barbel and Chub in a month; the Trout in four months; and the Salmon in the like time, if he gets into the sea, and after into fresh water. ”

“ Then attach your line and plummet as described, and when all the rest is ready put in a little ground-bait, some yards above your swim. Chewed bread will do if you have no bran to mix with it.
If your tackle is in order, and the roach are there, you will have a nibble before many minutes; but at this stage of your education it is useless to strike at nibbles. Keep on the alert, and you will find that if you can manage to strike as the float is sinking, when a bite occurs, you will hook your fish; not otherwise. A gentle jerk is enough, as your little hook is sharp, and the roach’s mouth soft. ”

“ While the fry of most other fish swim in shoals, sometimes in countless numbers, the tiny jack, hardly so long as one’s little finger, lurks all alone behind a stone which forms a miniature harbour. On a warm day almost every such place has its youthful pirate. Notwithstanding the terror of the roach when pursued, they will play about apparently without the slightest fear when the pike is basking in the sun with his back all but on a level with the surface—that is, when the lake is at its ordinary height. ”

“ Jack may then be seen basking by the weeds.
When an exceptionally long continuance of dry weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they please with the other fish, and the roach especially suffer. Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping into the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface which shows the course they take. ”

“ You throw the line of seventy feet without lead, with a butterfly or a beetle, so that the bait floats on the surface; you stand in the water without your trousers and let it go with the current, and tug! the roach pulls at it! Only you have got to be artful that he doesn’t carry off the bait, the damned rascal. As soon as he tugs at your line you must whip it up; it’s no good waiting. ”

“ The roach, of course, was not designed to be a household insect, and it lived out of doors for ages before man constructed dwellings, but it happens that its instincts and its form of body particularly adapt it to a lire in bouses. Its keen sense, its agility, its nocturnal habits, its omnivorous appetite, and its flattened shape are all qualities very fitting for success as a domestic pest. ”

“ In the shallower parts of the rivers you will get more dace and bleak than chub in this way, and very pretty sport it is, only second to trout-fishing.
When you are trying for roach only, it is best to use a sunk fly, and to move it up and down very gently. You can feel the roach bite if you have a delicate hand, but if you find this difficult put on a small gentle with the fly. ”

“ When thus spawning the roach are preyed on by rats—not the water-rat, but the house or drain rat. There are always a few of these about the lake, and they grow to an enormous size. They destroy the roach in great numbers. I have seen the sand strewn with dead fish opposite and leading up to their holes; for they catch and kill many more than they can eat, or even have time to carry away. I have shot at these great rascals when they have been swimming fifty yards from shore, and I strongly suspect them of visiting the nests of moorhens and other waterfowl with felonious purposes. ”

“ The best are those that are ‘hollow-bellied,’ roach backed, and have deep black spots on a dark tawny ground, the spots on the back being close to each other; that have the eyes bloodshot, small and narrow ”

“ There the current on either side is for ever endeavouring to eat away the narrow neck, and forms two deep pools. Some few piles have been driven in on one side to check the process of disintegration, and a willow tree overhangs the pool there. By lying on the grass and quietly looking over the brink, the roach may be seen swimming in the deeper part, and where it shallows up stream is a perch waiting for what may come down. Where the water runs slowly on account of a little bay, there, in semi-darkness under the banks on the mud, are a few tench. ”

“ The roach scarcely needs an introduction, being quite well known to all classes of society in every inhabited part of the world. That he has long been established in human communities is shown by the fact that the various nations have bestowed different names upon him. ”

“ Many ways are recommended to catch this fish by angling, when in deep waters, near piles of bridges, flood-gates, &c.: in hot weather, a May or ant-fly is to be sunk by a little lead, within a few inches of the hook, near the sides of these posts or piles; this is to be pulled up very leisurely; a roach will generally attend the fly to the surface, there gaze on it for a moment, and then take it. ”

“ Many species of fish, as the Salmon, Smelt, and others, in forsaking the deep water, and approaching a suitable spawning station, leave the sea altogether for a time, ascend the rivers and their tributary streams, and, having deposited their eggs, return again to their usual haunts. Even a certain species of fish, inhabiting lakes, as the Roach, betake themselves to the tributary streams, as the most suitable places for spawning. ”

“ The Gudgeon, Ruff, and Bleak, take the smallest red worms, cad-bait, gentles, and wasps. The Bleak takes the natural or artificial fly, especially in the evening.
8. The Ruff taketh the same baits as the Pearch, save that you must have lesser worms, he being a smaller fish.
9. For Roach and Dace take small worms, cad-bait, flies, bobs, sheep’s blood, small white snails, all sorts of worms bred on herbs or trees, paste, wasps, and gnats.
The Bleak is an eager fish, and takes the same baits as the Roach, only they must be less. ”

“ The loach, the common carp, Prussian carp, roach, tench, and gudgeon, may be admitted, but the first three are preferable to the last. The common tadpole possesses considerable interest in its development into the frog. The small newt and the triton are objects of interest and quite harmless. ”

“ The roach grows sometimes to two pounds in weight, but in most rivers one pound is considered large, whilst in ponds the fish seems to deteriorate, and swarms of little roach are generally to be seen, but very few fish of over a quarter of a pound. ”

“ If the least bit of butter or grease should touch a suit, one may depend upon it that unless it is put in a roach-proof trunk the roach will find that spot, and in the morning a hole will be eaten through. They devour wool as a horse eats hay ”

“ The shrunken, discarded remnant of the skin is now such an insignificant flake that it scarce seems possible it so re- cently could have enveloped the body of the insect. The newly liberated young roach dashes off on its slim legs with an activity quite surprising in a creature that bas never had the use of its legs before. ”

“ Now, between brook-life and river-life there is a great gulf fixed. There is no sideways in the river. All things that would stay at rest obey the current. The fishes point their noses against it; the [Pg 169] plants lie as it guides them. Up or down is the law of quiet existence. The newt knew nothing of this, and, when a rush of waters swept him into the river-bed his natural instinct was to seek the bank. This laid him broadside and helpless. A roach snapped idly at him as he floundered past the shoal. The snap cost him his tail, and was probably his salvation. ”

“ Roach are here the kingfisher’s most common prey. He chooses those about four inches long by preference, and ‘daps’ on them the moment they come near enough to the surface. But he will occasionally land a much larger fish, perhaps almost twice the size, and will carry it to some distance, being remarkably powerful on the wing for so small a bird. The fish is held across the beak, but in flying it sometimes seems to be held almost vertically ”

“ There are fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands) ; little sandpipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs herons stand out in the shade. ”

“ If the roach is of good size, remember that your tackle is weak, and play your fish carefully; and don’t attempt to get it out, whether with net or otherwise, till quite exhausted. Even if you have only a small fish it is well to land him gently, or you will scare others. ”

“ Wheat, barley, and oats are then sown, and the seed thus fertilised by the slime produces a crop double that produced by the land in the vicinity. After the harvest is collected, the water is permitted to return to its former bed, and carp, tench, and [Pg 562] roach are then thrown into it. Some of these ponds will support 100,000 of carp, and 100 pounds of little tench and roach. In the course of two years these carp, which weighed only one ounce and a-half, will have attained the size of two pounds and a half. ”

“ About London, where he forms a great
attraction to a numerous body of anglers, he is particularly sharp; and nothing but the finest tackle, such as a single almost colourless horse hair, will take him, even gut being refused when he is much fished for. A very light quill float and a few sinkers are desirable. Roach weighing 2 lb are not at all common, from 1 lb to 11⁄2 lb being the usual limits. The best hook baits for roach are gentles, greaves, red worms, a plain paste made of flour and water or worked up bread crumb or pearl barley. ”

“ The men, the children, the buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters, the broad waves sparkle with shoals of fish, and fowl of every wing flutter over them in clouds. Nor is this jubilee of Nature confined to the higher orders of creation. The moment the sand becomes moistened by the 232 approach of the fertilising waters, it is literally alive with insects innumerable. ”

“ And here is a world of itself in this hidden pasture corner, for here linger the trout and the water-cress, and many another shy woodland thing, driven to bay by the encroachments of surrounding civilization.
[Pg 83] In early July you will find the water-cress in bloom in the open pools, surrounded by quaking bog and alder shade. Toward this my butterfly had gone, and I followed, balancing warily from clump to clump in the grateful coolness, testing each foothold lest it drop me into the clinging depths below whence nothing but a derrick might lift me. ”