278 FISHING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PLYMOUTH. . 



herring nets are smaller, and do not mucli exceed one mile in length. 

 The large luggers carry five men and a boy. 



The boats employed in long-line fishing, or, to use the local term, 

 in " bultering," are the most numerous. They are rigged either as 

 luggers or cutters, a mainsail without a boom always being used in 

 the latter case, and vary from twenty-five tons down to quite small 

 rowing boats. A certain intermingling of classes takes place between 

 the long-line boats or " hookers " and the drift-net boats, because 

 at certain seasons a large lugger may fish by net and at another by 

 line. In this case she carries the same crew for working the lines 

 as she did when employing nets. A boat, however, which carries 

 a large fleet of mackerel nets seldom has a long line on board at 

 the same time. She may abandon one style of fishing and take up 

 the other, but it is reserved for the herring and pilchard boats to 

 carry both at the same time and set either. The boats which use 

 only the long line and never venture far out into the open Channel 

 after the shoals are of about twelve tons. These form the class of 

 hookers proper, and work round the Hand Deeps and Eddy stone. 

 After them comes the swarm of little boats which may use set-lines, 

 hand-lines, moored herring-nets, or shrimp trawls ; but of all the 

 boats fishing out of Plymouth the small hookers probably render the 

 best account of themselves, not only because the price of the " take" 

 has to be divided amongst fewer hands, but because the expense of 

 keeping up a small boat of the kind required is comparatively insig- 

 nificant ; and, since they do not go far from land, the fish can be 

 more quickly caught and put in the market. 



For Customs purposes the limits of the port of Plymouth are 

 from the river Erme, eight miles east of Plymouth Sound, to the 

 river Seaton, ten miles west of Plymouth Sound. In this district 

 there are 257 boats registered under the Sea Fisheries Acts. 180 

 belong to Plymouth proper, 10 to Stonehouse and Devonport, 29 to 

 Cawsand, and 38 to Yealm. The boats are registered as follows : 



Trawlers . . . .72 



Drift-net boats . . .36 



Hookers .... 149 



257 



The fishing-boat harbour at Plymouth is, however, never without 

 a considerable number of boats hailing from other ports. Brixham 

 trawlers fishing in the west, or round in the Bristol Channel, land 

 their fish here ; and any Grimsby, Yarmouth, or Lowestoft boats, 

 fishing on the south coast, find their market and harbour at 

 Plymouth. 



