372 MODERN SEA FISHING 



saithe, sethe, sey-pollack, skrae-fish, stenlock, and tibrie. The fry 

 are variously termed soil, poodler, billets, or billiards, up to one 

 year ; also cuddies, saithes, coalman, saidhean, or suyeen (Moray 

 Firth), gerrocks (Banff), and herring-hake (Aberdeen). In 

 County Down the fry are gilpins, next size blockan, then gray- 

 lord, and adults glashan. In some localities the young are 

 cudden, pickey, and gtassin. At Portrush the following names 

 are given according to the age of the fish : cadan (pr. cudden}, 

 ceithnach (pr. catenach), glasan (pr. glashin), and, when full- 

 grown, gray-lord. 



The name cuddy is, so far as my experience goes, commonly 

 applied to the young of both pollack and coalfish in Scotland, 

 but is, perhaps, more strictly the property of the young of the 

 saithe. These little fish give rare sport to the fly fisher on a 

 warm August evening, as I have described on p. 168. They 

 sometimes come very short to the fly which, if fish skin, may 

 have its holding powers improved by the addition of a small 

 triangle just beyond its tail. 



Coalfish are found on all our coasts, but are, perhaps, most 

 plentiful off Yorkshire, in the north of Scotland, and all round 

 Ireland. They are sometimes taken in the Downs by the 

 whiting and cod fishermen. The coasts they appear to favour 

 are steep and rocky, and when they come close inshore in the 

 evening on the top of the tide, chasing sand-eels or the herring 

 fry, they give grand sport indeed to the man who can cast a 

 straight line and can play a fish. 



Though found close to the shore, they like not such 

 shallow waters as are frequented by pollack, the largest fish 

 being taken in several fathoms of water on the edge of a tide- 

 way. It is, as a rule, when feeding on the fry of other fish 

 that they come close to the surface. At other times they hunt 

 in shoals along the bottom in search of food, and may be caught 

 on any ordinary bottom-fishing tackle. I have made several 



