BOBBING FOR EELS. 105 



misfortune can befall an angler in a boat; but he is always equal to the 

 emergency. When an eel-sharp discovers what he has on his line, -he 

 summons to his aid his cutest expedients. He first clears all hampej 

 from the bottom of his boat, and then lifting the eel dexterously over the 

 gunwale, slips his foot on to his neck as he falls squirming to the boards, 

 and deftly disengages the hook; or, if the hook be gorged, he cuts the 

 line, or even amputates the head, care being taken to throw the body 

 overboard forthwith, or else to place it where its prolonged contoritions 

 can do no mischief. The most expeditious and approved method of deal- 

 ing with such hard cases is practiced in the West Indies, where the moray, 

 which is the most obstreperous of all eels, is hauled head-foremost into a 

 smack's scupper, and then clubbed as soon as ever his head appears in- 

 board. This moray is armed with wicked teeth, and his vicious attempts 

 to bite make him a two-fold terror. 



I used to know something about eels when I was a boy, and I fished 

 for them con amore, especially those sweet salt-water eels, not of inord- 

 inate size, but just large enough to be good when cut into three-inch 

 sections, rolled in corn meal or bread-crumbs, and fried brown. Many 

 an appetizing meal have I made off fried eels at Nettleton's on Morris 

 Cove, and down at Five Mile Point, in New Haven harbor, and around at 

 Double Beach, and at Malachi King's at Branford, in the old days. The 

 head of the harbor is shoal, and when the tide is out it leaves broad mud 

 flats which harbor shellfish in variety and profusion. 



Between the sand-beach and the flats was a ribbon of mussel-beds 

 and sedge, with an upright face eighteen inches high toward the water. 

 When the tide made, and the young flood had filled the head of the 

 harbor so that the depth of the water was even with the top of the 

 sedge, and all the barnacles and kelp which overlaid it began to seethe 

 and hiss with the gently-lapping waves of the advancing tide, I used to 

 moor a flat-bottomed skiff so that it would tail in toward the shore, and 

 near enough to permit me to toss a line in under the breast of the mussel- 

 bed; there sitting in the stern I caught eels galore. 



The best time to fish was in mid-summer at the full of the moon, but 

 I could discount all legitimate methods of setting a lantern in the stern- 

 sheets on a dark night, with a southerly wind blowing up the harbor. 

 Then the eels would come up to the surface in schools and play about 

 the boat near enough to be touched with the hand. I could have scooped 

 a score at a time with a dip-net, but, scorning mean advantages, took them 

 fairly. I used a stout ten-foot handline with a bob of earth-worms, and 

 I had only to haul them in as fast as they caught on, lift them ov,er the 

 gunwale, and slat them into a bushel basket placed conveniently at hand. 

 Assuredly, it was great sport. Seldom did one gorge the bait, or tangle 

 his teeth, so that the process was simple. Naturally I became quite an 

 adept in threading worms with broom-straws and bunching them into 

 attractive bobs of red-ripe lusciousness which was hard for eels to resist. 



I never knew of but one lure to beat earth-worms. The same 

 reminds me of the eel-pots I used to set off shore, marking their location 

 with buoys so that I could visit them at flood tide and boat their wriggling 

 contents. These pots were wicker cylinders thirty inches long by a foot 

 in diameter, with a funnel in one end, and were baited with what would 

 most attract. Offal was perhaps better than anything else. 

 NOTE. This chapter was written by Mr. Hallock in 1886. EDITOR. 



