ROD FISHING IN THE SEA. 75 



may use three, but they should not be more than a 

 foot from each other ; in fact, in sea fishing I think you 

 can hardly have your flies too close together. There is 

 one fly called the " shaldon shiner," which I hope to try 

 for myself, and which is described by Mr. Willcock as 

 "a kind of imitation of the dragon fly. The body is 

 as thin as possible, being nothing but flattened silver 

 wire, a small brush of scarlet feather for the tail, a 

 little green, blue, and red dubbing out of an old Turkey 

 carpet for the shoulders, and bright blue wings, to which 

 add half a dozen fibres of goose feathers in front. With 

 this, fishing at the mouth of a river, harbour, or in the 

 pools just inside, you will probably take a sea trout or 

 two, or even a salmon, particularly if you fish at the 

 beginning of the ebb tide. Make it on a '9,' ' 10,' or ' 1 1 ' 

 hook. In the Taw and Trowbridge estuary at Instow, 

 North Devon, the fly in use is made with white and grey 

 feathers and a silver body, and with this, great sport is fre- 

 quently obtained." The fish taken by the rod in Ramsey 

 Bay by the fly are mackarel, pollack, and coal-fish; and by 

 the troll I have taken rock-cod, sea bream, and wrasse. 

 The whiting pollack, which is known in the Isle of Man 

 as the " calig," is a fish which afibrds great sport, and may 

 be got on the coast weighing from a quarter of a pound to 

 eighteen or twenty pounds. It is called in Scotland and on 

 the north coast, the "lythe," whilst the coal-fish, known in 

 the north as the " saithe," is by the Manxmen called the 

 "bloggan," and has been known to attain a weight of 

 thirty pounds. Both these fish are to be taken off rocky 

 ground and over the large beds of tangle near the shore ; 



