424 GENERAL DIRECTIONS. 



BLUE FISH FISHING. 



A GENERAL favourite from his southern to his extreme 

 northern limit, this great Mackerel is everywhere an object of 

 pursuit, and deserves to be so, both for the fun of taking and 

 the pleasure of eating him. When fresh from the water he is 

 superlative. A very bold and daring biter^ he is caught in 

 great numbers in swift tide-ways, eddies, and inlet mouths. 

 In the Sound, in the Long Island South Bay channels, in the 

 inlets of the Jersey beaches, from June to August, he affords 

 rare sport. 



Sail for him in a large cat-rigged boat, and the fresher the 

 breeze, and the brisker the sea, the better. In large schulls 

 he swims near the sui'face, leaping at every Hving thing which 

 crosses his track of devastation. 



When you have the luck to strike a schull, stick to it per- 

 severingly, crossing it tack and tack, as fast as you can go 

 about in the direction of its course; and if the gods of the 

 deep look with benignance on your labours, you shall kiU a 

 hundred at the least, in a tide. 



Thus fish for him : To a stout cotton line of a hundred yards, 

 affix a squid of bright tin, or bone armed with a good-sized 

 Kirby hook, with a strong gimp hook-link. Made fast the end 



