1 62 MODERN SEA FISHING 



Imagine a large rocky island standing a furlong and a half 

 from the -mainland. In the little channel intervening, runs at 

 times a tremendous tidal current. The tide has turned an hour 

 or two past, but has not yet begun to make with any speed ; 

 running quietly, perhaps a couple of knots or so. On the 

 cliffs are hundreds of sea gulls, apparently asleep. By degrees 

 the tide runs faster and faster, there are swirls and eddies on 

 the surface, and presently we find ourselves in a miniature 

 maelstrom. The birds begin to wake up, and feathered scouts 

 take short flights over the sea, returning to the cliff. Presently 

 all the gulls set up harsh cries, launch themselves into the air, 

 and, hovering over the most troublous of the water, dip and 

 dip and dip again in their endeavours to pick something off 

 the surface. Just beneath them there is a splash, and then 

 another, and another. A few seconds later the surface is broken 

 in a fresh place by the hungry fish, and away hurry the gulls to 

 share in the banquet. 



There can be no possible mistake about the bass being 

 on the feed ; you can even see them. They have hunted the 

 herring fry to the surface and are attacking them below, while 

 the gulls are worrying them from above. Go, cast a whitebait 

 fly over those fish, and see if you cannot avenge the death of 

 many a hundred paor baby herring, sprat, and mackerel. These 

 will not be big fish, mind, but what are called ' school bass ' ; 

 anything from two to five or six pounds. They must make up 

 in numbers for lack of size. They are the fellows the fly fisher 

 should look after ; the monster bass, weighing maybe fifteen 

 pounds, which we see basking in the sunshine off the rocks or 

 round about the harbour, are, as a rule, too stately to worry 

 themselves over such inconsiderable trifles as baby herrings 

 or whitebait flies. They like something larger and more tasty, 

 as you will discover if you turn to Chapter XL Sometimes, 

 however, a really splendid fish is found among the school bass. 



