128 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



CHAPTER XII 

 A night's fishing for conger, skate, and ling 



A FIGHT WITH AN EIGHTY-SEVEN-POUND CONGER 



To start seven fishers off for pollack, with rods and 

 tackle up-to-date, even when aided by three of them 

 having rods and some gear of their own, needs activity 

 to prevent the last boat being late in starting. Such 

 was the task that caused me to leave the table before 

 tea was finished. 



I had engaged an extra boat and men to row it; 

 this was started first; then came the Shag's boat 

 with only Frank, the mate, as oarsman. He took 

 two more of the fishers, my eldest sons, anglers of some 

 experience. The remaining three I took aboard the 

 saihng boat, and there set their tackle up, while they 

 assisted the captain to haul his anchor and set his sails 

 to the breeze, which continued fresh enough for 

 'pollack speed.' 



Throughout my long experience the pollack has 

 ever held the prior place in my esteem as the best 

 sport giver of all our sea fishes. I have had many 

 wonderful takes of them, and much pleasure in coach- 

 ing friends, when these plucky fish have astonished the 

 holders of the rods by the boldness of their feeding 

 and the toughness of their fighting. Yet the evening 

 of which I write made a record in more respects than 

 one, primarily for the loss of tackle, and secondly for 

 the aggregate of fish that the seven fishers took ashore. 



My two eldest sons, with their oarsman keeping 

 to the ground where the fish were feeding in a ring 

 of considerable dimensions (within which the shoal 

 of pilchards on which they preyed rose first here, 

 then there, with a flutter that gave a hiss to the surface 



