n8 



MODERN SEA FISHING 



greater sand-eel is termed horner or horn 

 eel, in Cornwall the great lant; the St. Ives 

 fishermen calling adult eels snake bait, 

 and the young ones naked bait ; in Ireland 

 (co. Down) they are termed snedden. The 

 lesser sand-eel is called the lizard bait at 

 Land's End, and the ivriggle in Sussex. 



Sand-eels, which, by the way, are 

 capital eating, except in the winter soon 

 after they have spawned, are generally 

 caught either by digging or raking them 

 out of the sand at low water, or by enclos- 

 ing them in seines which are specially 

 made for the purpose. The sand-eel 

 seine a Channel Island institution con- 

 5 sists of a strip of netting (sometimes 

 as much as seventy yards in length) of 

 i various sizes of mesh, the mesh decreas- 

 : ing from the sides towards the bunt 

 or middle, which is of calico. In it are 

 some gores of exceedingly fine netting, 

 placed there to allow the water to pass 

 through it. This calico, some thirty feet 

 in length, cut fuller than the rest of the 

 net, forms a sort of bag which takes 

 the little fish when the net is drawn on 

 shore. The netting immediately next 

 the calico, which, like the calico, should 

 be gathered to make it bag, is of one-inch 

 mesh, the wings on the outside being 

 of three-inch mesh. The seine may be 

 about eighteen feet deep in the centre, 

 tapering off to five feet at the sides. 



