36 MODERN SEA FISHING 



suggest to him that his researches in my work had not 

 been very deep, or he might have learnt that the pollack was 

 not a mud fish. That was, of course, an extreme instance of 

 carelessness or stupidity ; but the popular idea certainly is that 

 fish are fairly distributed all over the sea. 



The difficulty which meets me at the outset, in attempting 

 to give any advice as to locality, is that sea fish sometimes 

 suddenly desert places on the coast, which have long enjoyed 

 a great reputation for affording sport to the sea fisherman. 

 A rapid decrease in the number of fish may be owing to 

 inshore trawling, or the plying of steamboats, or torpedo or 

 gunnery practice ; but where any very sudden migration takes 

 place I think it must be due to the exhaustion of the food 

 supply. The fish perhaps have increased to such an extent 

 that they find the food insufficient in this otherwise favourite 

 locality, so, like wise creatures, they suddenly decide to migrate 

 to other parts of the coast. For a few years the food supply is 

 thus given an opportunity of increasing, and then back come 

 the fish. 



Let us begin our survey on the shores of Scotland. In 

 the north and round the islands of Shetland and Orkney 

 the sea fishing from August onwards is remarkably fine. 

 Pollack and coalfish, called locally lythe and saithe, are very 

 numerous, and the cod fishing in October and during the 

 winter is sometimes splendid. A friend who had been making 

 a tour of Great Britain told me that he saw a man come from 

 fishing an inlet of the sea in Shetland whose boat was simply 

 paved with cod running from 5 Ibs. upwards. These had been 

 caught with rod, reel, running line, and gut paternoster. 



On the north-west coast of Scotland are numerous inlets or 

 fjords, called up there sea lochs, in most of which the fishing 

 is first-rate. The great charm these waters have for many 

 people is that, being enclosed by high mountains, they are shut 



