ground with the heavy leads; with the Sand-Eel as bait, large Flounders are also taken.

In the north of Devon, at Instow, in the mouth of the estuary of the Taw and Torridge Rivers, they use for harbour ground-fishing a four-pound lead of the shape of half an orange, having a projection on the top through which a hole is bored to receive the line. This shape is chosen because the flattened base sucks into the oozy bottom, and anchors the line (so to speak) in the very strong tide which runs in that locality. A stout three or four inch revolving chopstick is placed between two knots close above the lead to receive the snood, similar to that of the Mackerel-line (fig. 39, p. 124). This method of fishing is by no means equal to the following, which is superior to all others.

DRIFT-LINE FISHING FOR BASS IN BAR-HARBOURS.

This differs in nothing from Pollack-fishing with the driftlines, except that you would try at known resorts of Bass, such as in the mouth of a bar-harbour in a rippling tide at anchor, in which locality you will take both kinds of fish. In harbours also which have deep water entrances, there are often numerous Bass in summer and autumn, and the most certain places to find them are in the gullets or narrow throats of these harbours and rivers. It by no means follows that the actual mouth of a harbour is the best place for Bass, for the contraction of the channel, or the presence of a tongue of rock at the forking of two channels, may be excellent pitches for Bassfishing, although miles up from the open sea. From half flood until high-water, is commonly the best time of tide, well up from the sea. In this method of fishing, where you are always moored, the living Sand-Eel is the only bait really to be depended on, second to which is the Mud-Worm. One line without lead should be always kept out, as the Bass is a fish which so frequently comes to the surface.

This method of taking Bass can be strongly recommended to visitors to the sea-side, who may object to open sea-fishing on account of suffering the mal-de-mer, which so completely

L

prostrates many people that they dread even to get into a boat. It can be carried on in sheltered positions, where, under the ordinary conditions of wind and water, the violent undulations of the sea rarely enter, to the great satisfaction of amateurs of aquatics of either sex. As many sea-side visitors may not know in what a bar-harbour consists, a short description of its leading characteristics will not be amiss, as it may help many to obtain sport which they may not be aware can be developed in such localities. In brief, then, a bar-harbour is a harbour where, owing to the formation of the shore, the opposing currents from the river and sea cause an accumulation of sand or shingle across the entrance, greatly reducing the depth of water and causing the sea to break heavily when the wind is on shore. Inside the bar the depth of water generally increases rapidly.

The banks of sand which are found, either on both or one side only of the channel outside the throat of the entrance, are termed 'poles,' and are often fruitful of quantities of Sand-Eels, which bury themselves in these banks on the receding tide. Here they may be obtained by the well-known method of scraping. A bar-harbour has generally on one side of its entrance a nearly straight shore, with a point of sand and shingle running towards it at a right angle, past which the tide runs with great strength, and scours out the sand and gravel to a considerable depth by the force of the ebb stream. Just inside the entrance there is usually a deep pool, generally the deepest water of the harbour, which is caused by the strength of the current impinging on the straight beach during the ebb, whence it is reflected in a rapid eddy during spring tides. At the last quarter of the ebb fish accumulate in this pool, which gradually becomes tranquil as the current slackens, and at the last hour of the ebb they may be fished for with success, until the current of the flowing tide perceptibly runs upward through the pool. When this occurs the chance of sport may be said to cease, and it is then necessary to go more seaward and anchor outside the point. The precise distance cannot be given, except in the case of any particular harbour. The Sand-Eel baskets or courges constitute the most important

feature in live bait fishing, either at sea or in harbour, for without them little or nothing can be done, simply because no efficient substitute has been found in which the Sand-Eels can be preserved alive. Many persons imagine they can keep seafish alive in a tin, or bucket, or bait kettle, without suspending it in the water, but there can be no greater delusion, for the oxygen therein contained soon becomes exhausted, causing the fish either to die at once, or to get so faint and weak that there is no vigour, upon which their attractiveness depends, left in them. The reader will find this basket illustrated and described at fig. 19, p. 66, together with the method of manufacture. The Sand-Eels are best and most lively when caught in a seine net (see fig. 70, p. 229); but if no such net can be met with, resort must be had to raking or scraping, as it is termed. They suffer, however, so much by this method of capture, that they are but little use unless fished with the same day as caught, for they have to be snatched up in the hand, which is decidedly injurious to them. The scraper is of the form of a hoe, and the iron plate should be 10 inches long by 7 inches wide, with a handle 2 feet 6 inches long made out of a mop or brush stick. The method to be observed, when scraping, is as follows, and should be strictly adhered to if you desire sport. Proceed to the sands just before low water, being provided with a scraper and Sand-Eel basket. If there is any loose gravelly sand near the edge of the water, dig there, first taking care not to trample on any portion of the sand you are about to dig, for if it be trampled on the Sand-Eels will be alarmed, and depart speedily from your vicinity. Place the basket in water four or five inches deep, and put the Sand-Eels into it as soon as captured. If you find it necessary to dig at twenty yards from the water's edge, which is sometimes the case, a pot or bailer should be taken for the purpose full of water, and when half a dozen baits have been procured, run over and empty them into the basket. An ordinary paint-pot is a convenient size for this purpose, supposing it has not been used, or an Australian 6-pound meat tin, with a bit of galvanized wire across the top for a handle. When scraping it will be found a good plan to dig a trench in the form of a circle, 10 to 15

feet in diameter, for by this means you will enclose an area of undisturbed sand. Work towards the centre round the inner edge of the trench; the Sand-Eels will retire before you, and in the last twenty or thirty strokes you may get a number of them. I have struck out of the sand as many as half a dozen at a stroke when they are plentiful. To all these details, whether it be regarding the actual fishing or in the procuring of bait, due attention must be paid, or sport cannot be expected. The following description of a few hours' fishing on September 2, 1872, at Teignmouth harbour, as it gives the whole modus operandi, will doubtless be welcome to our readers. We anchored in Shaldon Pool, just inside the harbour's mouth, at 10.30 A. M., wishing to commence fishing at three-quarters ebb tide. At and near the spring tides quantities of weed are in motion, and fishing is therefore impracticable until nearly low water; that is to say, until three-quarters of the ebb tide. has run out, at which time the current has considerably slackened, and the drifting weed for the most part been carried out to sea. As the bottom of this pool is much of it very rocky, or, as sailors term it, foul, it is necessary to scow or bark the anchor, by which method you are generally enabled to lift it if it should drag into a rock. For this method, see p. 202. A stone is not, in a locality of this sort, so well adapted as a scowed anchor, as the anchor will hold in a gravel bottom, clear of the rocks, which a stone will not. Having moored the boat, we prepare for fishing in the following manner. In the first place we remove the basket from its position at the stern, and make fast its cord to the middle thwart of the boat, in order that it may be both readily accessible and also out of the way when playing fish, which sometimes sheer across the stern from side to side in their efforts to escape, and might probably get free if any obstacle were offered to the adroit handling of the line. We are provided with a bucket of a coarse open canvas known as cheesecloth, depth one foot, diameter 9 inches. It is kept open by two cane hoops at top and bottom, and a lead of couple of pounds weight, attached by a sling to the lower hoop, keeps it sufficiently submerged, that is to say, about a third of its depth. We sling

of the basket about a Here they remain well

this over the side, and pour into it out dozen and a half Sand-Eels at a time. alive, and a bait can be taken out of it readily without opening the basket, recourse to which is only had when nearly all the SandEels in the bucket have been used. At the stern of the boat we use two drift-lines, and bait them as for Pollack, p. 64, fig. 16.

Dropping the bait instantly into the water as soon as securely attached to the hook, we pay out as much length as we can venture, according to the depth of water, here from 20 to 25 feet, and the strength of the current will allow. At one hour before low water, a considerable strength of current yet remains, consequently several leads will be required, and as I have previously explained that 12-feet intervals are left between the leads, the exact length veered away can be at once known by counting them. Each lead can be easily marked in Roman numerals, which was generally done by our late old friend Peter Le Noury, to avoid hauling in the line to count the leads, which is undoubtedly an excellent plan. From 20 to 25 feet of water will require about 6 or 7 leads, for they are small, barely an ounce weight each. As there is always some drifting weed, the hooks require examining every minute or two, for if any weed catches on the bait it renders it useless; it is the best plan too, if two are in the boat, for each to manage a line. As the tide slackens we shorten the lines to avoid fouling the bottom, and the fish beginning to feed we catch three Bass; when, the tide being entirely done, we cease to feel them. When the tide is running strong a heavy line with a single plummet is sometimes very killing, and I therefore put out a line ordinarily used for Mackerel, having a one-pound plummet. See p. 124. It is now dead slack, and the lines are perpendicular, and as the flood current will shortly set into the pool, we haul up our anchor and prepare to whiff; that is to say, we pull along slowly through the pool and past the point, with six leads out. We have two or three more bites and get another fish. By this time the flood current is well made, and pulling out about a hundred yards past the entrance of the harbour, we anchor in the middle of the channel, putting out four leads to begin with, increasing the number up to eight or ten, as the