10 MODERN SEA FISHING 



can be obtained from the fishmonger. But sea fish are as 

 local in their habits as those which dwell in fresh water, and 

 whether fishing near the bottom, drift line fishing, or whiffing, 

 it is of the first importance to go to places where the fish are 

 commonly found, to use suitable baits, and to be sure to place 

 them where they can be seen by the fish. 



The man whose knowledge of nautical matters is limited to 

 that derived from a sojourn of twenty minutes or so in or near 

 a bathing machine at a South-coast watering-place may deem it 

 a hopeless task to pick out a certain definite spot on the wide 

 waste of waters which spreads out all round our shores. The 

 professional fisherman finds no difficulty in the matter, provided 

 there is light enough to see particular marks on the coast. By 

 marks are not meant chalk marks or anything of that kind, but 

 trees, barns, headlands, hills, churches, homesteads, in fact any- 

 thing sufficiently conspicuous for the purpose, and the more 

 durable the better. 



For every position on the open sea two sets of marks are 

 necessary. In the diagram these are represented by two head- 

 lands to the eastward, and by a church tower and an old barn 

 to the northward. We are stopping, say, in a little fishing village 

 in Devonshire, in the bay at A, and we know that at the point 

 B there is a noted ledge of rocks in the cavities of which dwell 

 many enormous congers, large shoals of bream swimming 

 near, which can be caught any night during the summer if 

 the sea be not too rough. Of course we have a general idea 

 of the direction, and know, or have been told, the bearings. 

 That is to say, as soon as the second headland (c) opens out 

 to the eastward we know we are on one line of the marks, 

 and shall be in the desired position when, keeping the two 

 headlands in a line, we also find the church in a line with the 

 old barn on the hill-top. 



The first thing, then, to do is to strike one pair of marks by 



