SURFACE-FEEDING SEA FISH 361 



about between it and the bright sky. j. A. c. K.'s plan after 

 hooking a fish is to give him the butt remorselessly, in fact 

 treat him as one would a salmon which was being played, or 

 rather held, a few yards above a considerable waterfall. 



The mullet has a tender mouth, and it might be supposed 

 that harsh proceedings of this kind were fatal to success, but 

 some mullet anglers declare that there is less likelihood of the 

 hook cutting out when the fish is played roughly from the very 

 onset than if he were dealt gently with and kept on the hook a 

 considerable time ; perhaps this is very much a matter of 

 opinion. Certainly strong measures adopted from the very 

 beginning of the battle sometimes appear to cow fish and take 

 all the nerve and pluck out of them. The method described 

 is suitable for fishing when the tide is slack. At the beginning 

 of the flood or ebb, four or five split wine corks should be 

 added at even distances to buoy the tackle. Throw in an 

 extra allowance of ground bait, and drop the baited hooks just 

 over it, so that all float away together. 



One opinion I will venture ; that now j. A. c. K. has let out 

 the secret of his success (by the way, he catches bass as well 

 as mullet in this manner), a troop of sea fishers will forthwith 

 journey to the bridge over the Fleet and give those unfortunate 

 mullet such a dose of the bait that it will -be a case of toujours 

 macaroni, and some other lure will have to be invented. It must 

 not be supposed, however, that j. A. c. K. or anyone else has 

 been invariably successful with large grey mullet. It took this 

 ingenious fisherman six or seven weeks to bag his first mullet. 

 If he caught one he was content, if two he was pleased. Two 

 mullet averaging 8 Ibs. each and a bass of 14 Ibs. was the biggest 

 bag. These were taken in about an hour at the top of the 

 flood, and were the outcome of about ten fish run. Blank days 

 were frequent, and would be expected in a neck-of-a-bottle 

 tideway, slack water in which the gathering bait could abide 



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