FROM YACHTS AND LARGE FISHING BOATS 287 



trots, and, as I have said above, also bulters and spillers, the 

 last name being a Devonshire term. 



The main line before being used should be wetted and 

 stretched, or, better still, towed after a boat for some hours to 

 get all the kink out of it. The snoods should be placed so far 

 apart that the hooks will not and cannot possibly foul one an- 

 other. If snoods of four feet are used they should be placed 

 at least nine feet distant. For conger professional fishermen 

 do not as a rule use swivels on their long lines, but these little 

 refinements are, as I have said, most desirable. 



Amazing are the lengths of line carried by the professional 

 fishermen who visit the North Sea and the fisheries of Iceland 

 and Faroe. Fully equipped boats carry about two hundred 

 and fifty lines, each forty fathoms in length, and each line 

 bearing from twenty to twenty-six hooks. These lines, when 

 being laid, are joined together into one immense line several 

 miles long, bearing 5,000 hooks or thereabouts. Of course, 

 the expense of adding swivels to each snood would be very 

 considerable. The amateur, who does not fish for the market, 

 may well be content with fifty hooks at the outside, and it will 

 save him a great deal of trouble if he has a phosphor-bronze 

 or brass swivel fixed in each snood. 



In the illustration is given the actual sizes of the principal 

 lines used by professional and amateur sea fishermen. The 

 comparison between the Faroe halibut line and the little twisted 

 silk reel line is remarkable. Forty fathoms of the halibut line 

 weighs about 5 Ibs., and the lightest long line used for North 

 Sea inshore fishing weighs 3 Ibs. per forty fathoms. This length 

 is called a half-piece, two lengths knitted together a piece, six 

 pieces constituting a dozen lines. In from twenty-five to thirty- 

 five fathoms of water a boat can work about twenty-five dozen 

 lines each day, but on the Faroe bank, in from 100 to 120 

 fathoms, not more than fifteen or sixteen dozen lines a day can 



