408 MODERN SEA FISHING 



or three hooks attached to rather a long snooding lie on the 

 bottom. 



There is a method of fishing for flounders without a hook. 

 A common pin about an inch long is the substitute. It should 

 be of rather fine wire. To its centre is knotted or whipped a 

 piece of very fine silk line, which corresponds to the hook link 

 of gut in the paternoster tackle. The arrangement is baited by 

 hiding the pin in a piece of a lobworm. When the fish swallows 

 this, and the silk line is pulled tight, the pin takes up a 

 transverse position in its throat. The pin is sufficiently strong 

 to enable the flounder to be brought to the surface and lifted 

 into the boat with or without the assistance of the landing net. 

 To disengage the fish it is only necessary to pull the silk line, 

 when the pin bends in the middle. It has to be bent straight 

 again before being rebaited. To get these pins into the piece 

 of worm is a little difficult. The way of it is to place the pointed 

 end of the pin in the quill feather of some bird, such as a rook, 

 partridge, or fowl. The worm can then be easily slipped over 

 the head of the pin right down over the quill, which is with- 

 drawn, leaving the pin in the centre of the worm. Personally I 

 prefer to use a hook, but this arrangement, which appears to me 

 to give unnecessary pain to the fish, is much favoured by some 

 anglers. In the Thames estuary, on the coast of Essex, thorn 

 hooks are still used. The form of these curious contrivances, 

 which we should expect to find among aborigines rather than in 

 English waters, will be understood from the illustration. Each 

 thorn has about an inch of lugworm twisted round it, and the 

 lines so baited are laid about fifty yards from the shore at 

 low tide. 



With the two-hook paternoster, using hooks of the size 

 shown in the illustration, one can feel a bite and strike at once, 

 as a rule hooking the fish in the mouth. The lead should not 

 be heavier than is required to hold the bottom. A professional 



