160 SNAPPING MACKEREL. 
dressed on gut, is attached. As the teeth of these vora- 
cious fish are sharp, and after being hooked they snap 
continually, the silk whipping of the hook, as well as the 
gut itself, is soon bitten through. Either a small quill 
may be slipped down over the hook before it is attached, 
and into this the teeth sink without damage, or care must 
be taken to put a couple of half hitches with the snell 
over the shank, as the whipping wears out. 
A light rod and reel are necessary for this sport, and 
there is the same skill and excitement in the repeated 
casts that lend to striped bass fishing one of its peculiar 
charms. The morning hours, the last of the ebb and first 
of the flood, are the most propitious times ; but as the 
Fall advances, any hour, tide or place will furnish sport 
in abundance. 
I was once fishing with a friend whose experience is 
greater with the pencil than the rod, on one of those 
glorious evenings of what might be properly styled in 
our country " fiery brown October," and our success 
made us unmindful of the fleeting hours that had bid the 
sun farewell and welcomed the moon from her bed. 
Cramped as we had been in a cockle-shell of a boat, we 
had taken one of the thwarts and the oars, and placing 
them across the gunwale, had made two high but dan- 
gerous seats. The boat was extremely unsteady, and 
many and solemn had been my unheeded warnings to 
move as little as possible, and to exercise care in what- 
ever motions were unavoidably necessary. The fish were 
out in force, and seized our bait frantically the instant it 
touched waves, over which the moonlight glanced in 
tiny ripples. A northeaster had been blowing, but, dying 
