the gear. The hook-links must always be of such a length that the two hooks when brought towards, will not touch each other, and the line having been securely fastened to the loop in the top, the tackle, with the addition of the bait, is complete. As soon as the boat is anchored, the lead being dropped overboard, is allowed to find the bottom, and then raised a few inches until a bite is felt, when the fish is to be hooked with a slight jerk, and to be drawn on board as speedily as your tackle will permit, without endangering its breaking.

This kind of tackle will answer best where the depth is not more than 10 or 15 fathoms; the cross piece of brass wire or

whalebone, however, offers a very great resistance to the passage of your tackle through the water, and the shortness of your snooding, which cannot be more than 10 or 12 inches long, the length of the wire being hardly two feet, is a great objection, particularly if the fish are shy;, if the united length of your two snoods exceeds the length of the wire they will be continually fouling, which is both unpleasant and unprofitable. I mention this form of ground-tackle because it has been much used at Southampton, and at other localities, where fishing for groundfish is followed in comparatively shallow water. I consider it

however, a very poor form of tackle, both cumbrous to use and troublesome to stow, the long wire or whalebone spreader being much in the way, as it is longer than the reel can accommodate either along the sides or diagonally.

The Guernsey Rig (fig. 2, b), for ground-fishing, consists of a dip-lead with long snoods, a portion of line known as the sidstrap, brass swivel and two hooks, the whole attached to a 5-inch elder-wood revolving chopstick, having one end dartshaped, and the other wider and flatter to admit of a hole being burned out with a hot wire. Ten inches of the end of the line should be served over with waxed thread or tarred sail-twine, to prevent chafing, and the piece of line being put through the hole, a knot is made both above and below to keep the chopstick in its place. A loop is also shown in the cut, useful for bending or unbending the line. Sometimes a sling of stout upper leather is used in lieu of a piece of line. For offingfishing in 20 fathoms and upwards, 9 feet of sid-strap and 3 feet of snood will be a good length; but for Whiting, Dab, Pout, or other ground-fishing near the shore, both snood and sid-strap together should not exceed 5 feet in length. This form of gear, fitted with snoods, swivels, and hooks of proportionate strength, is used in Guernsey for Congering. For Whiting-fishing, the bottom being sounded, haul up equal to the length of the snood if the tide is slack, but only just clear of the bottom if much current.

The Portsmouth Rig consists of from two to three chopsticks revolving on the line at intervals of one, two, or three feet, and sometimes less, above the dip-lead, the chopsticks of whalebone, about 8 inches long. The chopsticks are often fixed and not revolving, being attached to the line by a clove hitch only, over a notch at one end. Two chopsticks are better than more, and the snoods should not be longer than the chopsticks, or much fouling will ensue. Let a swivel be fastened to each, to which loop on the hook-link. On clean ground, with this gear, the lead is allowed to rest on the bottom. A neat way of fitting is to make the chopsticks of brass wire, taking four turns at one end to make a spiral coil through which to reeve the line, answering to the hole in the wooden

chopstick. The chopsticks are kept in place by knots above and below as before-mentioned, and about three inches of the line at each chopstick must be served over with waxed thread, or the line will soon chafe and break. These lines are not favourites of mine for boat-fishing, as the shortness of the snoods gives so little liberty of action whilst unhooking the fish, but for throwing out from a pier or rock they are the best which can be used in my opinion. N.B.-One evil of this form and of all other gear with short snoods, is the liability to hook your fingers, by the lead falling off the seat of the boat, when placed thereon for the convenience of fresh baiting, or unhooking.

The Sprool Rig consists of a dip-lead of from two to five pounds' weight, of the shape of a ship's hand-lead, having a hole an inch or so below the hole in the top. Through the lower hole a bow of three-eighths galvanised iron is thrust, which measures from 20 inches to 2 feet across; and loops being lashed on to the ends, the snood and hooks are fastened thereto. The bow of iron is considerably arched-almost, in fact, half a circle—and as it is not a fixture the ends turn upwards as the gear descends, and drop downwards when the lead reaches the bottom, maintaining the same position in ascending. The lead is prevented sliding beyond the centre of the bow by two leather washers of the size of a sixpence, which are themselves kept in their places on either side of the lead by collars of sail-twine, lashed tightly round the bow outside the lead sufficiently to allow room for it to work. It is much used in Cod, Haddock, and Whiting-fishing in the North Sea. A snood of from 4 to 6 feet is attached to either end of the bow, and the manner of using is to sound and then haul up just clear of the bottom. It should be fitted with swivels of brass. The Cod smacks are hove to, and, as they slowly drift along, six or eight lines are worked from the weather side. For light fishing one and two pound sinkers are sufficiently heavy, and the bow may be used one foot across.

The Kentish Rig (fig. 3) is a dip-lead slung with a piece of double upper-leather, over which a widely-forked brass wire is passed, the middle of which has been twice turned round a half

inch bar of iron, to receive the leather. The arms are from 6 to 10 inches long, and have eyes at their ends for the snood and hooks, with the swivels. The angular bending of the wire makes it hang true with the tide, and sometimes the wire is cast into the lead and bent to the required angle afterwards. Fishing for Whiting or for Pout with this gear, raise the lead one to two feet from the bottom after sounding; but for Dabs, Plaice, or Flounders it should be just off the ground. The length of the snoods may be 2 or 2 feet, and the most useful weights for leads one and two pounds. For offingfishing quite double are requisite, and frequently heavier. I consider this to be the best of all the chopstick methods, and prefer the wire to work on the leather to being cast into the lead. For beginners I recommend the snoods to be only a trifle longer than one arm of the wire, but after a little use they may be lengthened to 2 or 2 feet.

FIG. 3.-The Kentish Rig.

The Dartmouth Rig (fig. 4) consists of a conical dip-lead of from two to five pounds' weight, slung by a piece of Cod-line having an eye spliced at either end, to which is lashed a spreader of either whalebone, brass, or galvanised iron wire, the two latter to be preferred. For the heavier weight threeeighths wire 18 inches long, for the smaller quarter-inch I ft. in length. The illustration represents the gear in the act of descending, and the use of the spreader or chopstick will be rendered evident at a glance in keeping the snood and hooks apart from the line. When the bottom is sounded the lead is raised sufficiently to keep the hooks just off the ground, the requisite height depending on the strength of the tide, which accordingly streams out the snood and hooks more or less as the case may be. If a good stream of tide is running,

the lead should be lifted just off the bottom; if moderate, a little higher; if slack, the height of the whole length of the trace.

For Whiting or Haddock-fishing in the offing 9 ft. will be found a very useful length for the trace ; but near the shore 5 ft. is sufficient from the lead to the lowest hook. Place a brass swivel in the trace, as shown in the woodcut, and loop on the snood and hooks over the knot. The sid-strap or upper portion of the trace may be of thirtysix hairs for fishing alongshore, but for the offing forty-eight. Many Devon and Cornish fishermen use a plaited sid-strap of twine, which is less liable to kink than three-stranded fishing line. I have myself been trying some two-stranded sid-straps of double snooding, and find them answer well, although nothing is superior to white horsehair, often very difficult to obtain. This arrangement of snoods and sid-straps is alike common to the Dartmouth dip as well as the creeper or grapnel sinker, the Newfoundland or Bank

ers, and boat-shaped leads,

FIG. 4.-The Dartmouth Rig.

about to be described. In the illustration three hooks only are represented, which will generally be found sufficient for