FROM LAND AND PIER 209 



In estuaries, and particularly in harbours where shrimps are 

 sifted, a live shrimp hooked by the tail is one of the best baits 

 for flat fish. Next to that, perhaps, ranks a peeled, unboiled 

 shrimp. Lug and rag worms are always killing baits, better 

 even than the usually useful mussel. 



Some shallow inshore waters swarm with small flat fish 

 not larger than one's hand, and the angler, if so disposed, may 

 fish for these with what I have termed the paternoster-trot, 

 illustrated on p. 243 ; soft crab or ragworms being about the 

 best baits. Mussels are also good ; but, so far as my experience 

 goes, a bait that will kill in one harbour is sometimes almost 

 useless in another, so that local knowledge is very valuable, 

 and, as I have pointed out, should be acquired at the earliest 

 opportunity. 



I have had excellent sport fishing from the beaches and 

 sands of the East coast in autumn, when the codling come 

 inshore. There is a tackle peculiar to that district, known as 

 the 'throw-out line,' which, if not so killing as a paternoster 

 tackle, deserves mention here. 



At the end of the line proper is a piece of finer line, eight 

 feet in length and about as thick as common whipcord. The 

 lead weighs about a pound, and is fixed to the whipcord (I will 

 call it so for convenience) by means of a strip of leather put 

 through the hole of the lead. At the other end of the whipcord 

 is a button. The hooks begin at the end of the main line, 

 and may number from six to twenty or even more ; they are 

 fixed on snoods seven inches long and placed fourteen inches 

 apart. A necessary part of the tackle is a broom handle ' six 

 feet long with a cleft cut at the end of it, and the whole line 

 when not in use is wound on a winder similar to that shown in 

 the illustration, there being a strip of cork along the top of it in 



1 With a not too stout ash stick which has some spring in it a longer cast 

 can be made than with the stiff broom-handle. 



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