ROUND THE BRITISH AND IRISH COASTS 61 



of the town. Long ago, those shy fish used to be found in the 

 fresh waters of Mutford, now Oulton, Broad. Smelts are very 

 plentiful in the harbour. 



There are important herring and mackerel fisheries off this 

 part of the coast ; but both fish are caught in nets, the profes- 

 sional fishermen asserting that the water is too thick for mackerel 

 fishing with lines. In September and later there is first-rate 

 codling fishing from the shore on the north side of the harbour. 

 There is a shell-fish shop in Lowestoft from which large estuary 

 mussels can be obtained for bait, and where, sometimes, lugs 

 are kept in stock for the especial benefit of amateur sea 

 fishermen. 



At Yarmouth there is little sea fishing until the autumn, 

 when codling, cod, and conger are caught from the piers and 

 the shore, much as at Lowestoft. Codling, indeed, push up the 

 Yare right into Breydon Water, where, also, are flat fish and 

 smelts. Very large cod are taken from the Yarmouth and 

 Gorleston piers ; occasionally fish of twenty pounds or more. 

 I have heard it said that the cod visit Yarmouth in great 

 quantities every alternate year. I give this statement for what 

 it is worth. 



At Cromer there is codling fishing in autumn, and quantities 

 of flat fish are caught in small beam trawls, on stretches of 

 sand known to the fishermen, lying between reefs of rocks. 

 Crab and lobster fishing is carried on extensively, but amateur 

 sea fishing is very much neglected. 



I know of no good sea fishing in the neighbourhood of the 

 Wash, or for some distance northward. Grimsby is, I need 

 hardly say, a sea-fishing station of great importance, but not 

 from our point of view ; the trawlers which sail from it working 

 the North Sea and the Iceland and Faroe fisheries. Close to 

 Grimsby, at Cleethorpes, is a small marine laboratory. 



Off the Yorkshire coast the fishing improves, and we meet 



