362 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
cleared up by material collected from the Fisher Bank and adjacent 
grounds. 
After several days on the Bank our skipper began to think of 
getting nearer home, so a course was steered for the west end of the 
Dogger, where we had pretty fair catches, and finally we ran home 
after an absence of twelve days. It was not possible to say anything 
really complimentary about the weather the whole time, and luck 
was completely against us at the start, but by sheer perseverance 
the skipper had managed to get together a very fair “ voyage” of 
fish. Indeed, I am of opinion that what is called “luck” has a less 
share in determining the fortunes of a fisherman than is generally 
attributed to it. A man who will have fish, gets them somehow or 
other. Many men, no doubt, on finding a poor supply after 
running over to the coast of Denmark, would have simply lamented 
their ill-fate and fished about on the same ground until the coal ran 
out, and then come into port without enough to pay wages. Not 
so our friend, who got his fish, though he had to steam pretty well 
all round the North Sea to get them, covering about 700 miles, 
without counting actual fishing operations. 
Fishing can hardly be called a lucrative business at the best of 
times, and the discomforts are greater than can readily be imagined 
by anyone who has not witnessed, and to some extent taken a share 
in them. It is astonishing how extremely cold it can be even in the 
height of summer, with a keen wind blowing and the water 
splashing all over you as you sit cleaning the fish on deck at one 
o'clock in the morning In winter of course the discomforts are 
intensified. It happened that when I was at sea in March, 1892, 
we encountered a snowstorm which lasted two or three days. The 
cold on deck was intense, but of course the work had to be done. 
When the trawl-beam comes aboard, all hands have to get in the net. 
The boat is broadside on to the sea, rolling her utmost, as the sails 
are nearly always left standing to intensify the roll, so as to make it 
easier to get in the slack of the net as she dips ; and laying over the 
beam under such circumstances of weather, with the sea breaking 
all over you, is about as unpleasant a job as a man need wish to 
avoid. 
