/ROM LAND AND PIER 201 



this tackle. If large fish are about, one hook is sufficient, as, if 

 two are used, the one on which the large fish is not hooked will 

 as likely as not catch in the seaweed or rocks. 



From piers either paternoster, float tackle, or the pipe-lead 

 tackle just described may be used. With float tackle the baits 

 can, of course, be worked away from the pier with the tide. When 

 flat fish, whiting, or codlings are expected this is a great advan- 

 tage, as a considerable expanse of fishing ground can be covered. 

 But the best all-round tackle is certainly the paternoster, for on 

 it the slightest bites can be felt and, owing to the line being 

 taut, the fish can be struck immediately. With float tackle the 

 bites are not perceptible when there is any wind unless the float 

 is drawn under water, and not always then ; and by the time 

 the angler strikes, the fish has perhaps discovered that the bait 

 contains a hook, or has ascertained from the resistance of the 

 float that something is wrong. 



A very deadly tackle for casting out some distance is the 

 upper paternoster shown on p. 243, the lowest hook link 

 lengthened to two yards and furnished with two or three hooks. 

 It is very good on a sandy or muddy bottom where flat fish, 

 codlings, or eels are present. I must confess, however, that I 

 do not like a number of hooks on my tackle. They perhaps 

 appear to catch many fish, but in the long run so much time is 

 lost by baiting them and clearing the various entanglements to 

 which complicated arrangements of the kind are very subject, 

 that, after all, the more simple tackle often catches most fish 

 in the course of the day. 



Where a very strong tide runs round a pierhead, a drift trot 

 can easily be set. There is no lead at the end of this piece of 

 tackle, which, in fact, is exactly like our paternoster with the 

 lowest hook link elongated to four or five fathoms, and bearing 

 short hook links at every foot or eighteen inches. First of all, 

 the end hook is lowered, and then, as the tide takes this rosary 



D D 



