BLUE-FISH FISHItTG. 321 



crossing it tack and tack, as fast as you can go about in the direction 

 of its course ; and if the gods of the deep look with benignance on 

 your labors, you shall kill a hundred at the least, in a tide. 



Thus fish for him : To a stout cotton line of a hundred yards, aflSx 

 a squid of bright tin, or bone armed with a good-sized Kirby hook, 

 with a strong gimp hook-link. Make fast the end of your line to a 

 cleet in the stern of the boat, then whirl out the squid to the whole 

 length of your line, and play it with both hands alternately. The fish 

 will strike itself, and is to be hauled in with a regular even pull, never 

 jerked, nor yet slacked for an instant, for if it be, the fish will dis- 

 engage himself almost certainly. 



When you tack your boat, if the water be shoal, haul in your line, 

 else shall you foul it in the sea-weeds. 



When you have hooked your fish, raise your squid with the hook 

 uppermost, and a slight shake shall cast him into the bottom of the 

 boat. 



Babylon, Islip, and Quogue, on Long Island, in Fire Island inlet, 

 and Pine inlet, Shrewsbury, Squam-Beach, and Barnegat, in New Jer- 

 sey, the estuaries of the rivers in Connecticut, and the tide-ways in 

 Boston harbor, are all favorite grounds for Blue-Fishing. 



To conclude : there is no pleasanter summer day's amusement than 

 a merry cruise after the Blue-Fish, no pleasanter close to it than the 

 clam-bake, the chowder, and the broiled Blue-Fish, lubricated with 

 champagne, learnedly frappee^ and temperately taken, no unpleasant 

 medicine. What adds most to the zest of such a day, is the presence 

 of the charming sex, this being one of the few sports of field or flood 

 in which they can femininely, and therefore fittingly, participate. For 

 the rest, you may take Blue-Fish, say the philosophers, of thirty pounds 

 weight, though I doubt it. Of four and five pounds you shall catch 

 him surely ; if of eight, rejoice ; if of ten, sing poeans, — for that is a 

 triumph. 



