TRAWLING. O:^ 



ground on wliicli tlic Brixham men habitually fish 

 lies between the Start Point and a little to the north- 

 east of Torbay, a distance altogether not exceeding 

 20 miles, and of variable width, but mostly from .'] to 

 8 miles off the land. This ground lias always been 

 more or less productive, and continues so at the present 

 time. There were nearly a hundred smacks regida-rly 

 fishing over this ground in 1872, a larger number 

 than had ever worked there before ; and we hear from 

 several independent sources that the fishing trade at 

 Brixham was never more prosperous than it has been 

 of late. 



The Plymouth trawlers also have their own ground, 

 and rarely leave it; they like to keep within sight of 

 the Eddystone ; and work over an area about 21 miles 

 long, and not exceeding miles at its widest part, 

 including some very productive ground not very far 

 from the land. Bad weather often interferes with 

 their working steadily in winter ; but the smacks 

 have gradually increased in size as at other places, 

 and also in number up to a certain point, from which 

 there has been only a slight variation during the last 

 ten years. There were sixty-six smacks fishing from 

 Plymouth in 1872 over the same ground as has been 

 constantly worked for considerably more tlian fifty years. 



Of other important fishing banks, the Inner and 

 Outer Diamond Grounds, off Hastings, and the Yarne 

 and the Ridge in mid-channel, farthei' to the Ciistward, 

 have long been famous for the better kinds of flat-fish ; 

 whilst from the North Foreland far into the North 

 Sea, there is a great range containing numerous banks 

 apparently inexhaustible in their supply of fish. Many 

 of these fishing grounds lie off tlie coasts of Norfolk 

 and Lincolnshire, and produce vast numbers of soles 



