196 By Stream and Sea. 



miles in it. Fishermen still make a good living by plying 

 their calling, although, in common with their brethren every- 

 where, they sadly mourn the hauls of other days. 



It is blowing a good deal more than half a gale of wind, 

 and there are waves tumbling over the bar that a victim to 

 mal de mer would not probably regard with an excess of 

 favour but we have a stiff boat, with a keel of twenty-two 

 feet, and a general run reminding you of the fishing cobles of 

 the Yorkshire coast. A couple of large fore and aft sails 

 send us at a spanking rate through the lough, and in the 

 centre we espy, tossing and fretting at the restraint, the 

 buoys marking the whereabouts of nets and lines. 



As we shoot through the water the fishermen dispel an 

 illusion. The lough has always been reputed a home of 

 the Gillaroo, the strange, thick, gold-coloured trout found 

 but in few waters, and whose habits are fully described in 

 the book of the Erne, an old but most delightful volume on 

 Irish sporting. The helmsman who is the patriarch of our 

 crew says he never caught but one Gillaroo, and his two 

 comrades never saw one perhaps; the supposition is that the 

 race has declined in Lough Neagh. To make amends for 

 the disappointment we are, however, introduced to a finny 

 stranger, a pretty little fish, called the pullan, a fresh-water 

 herring of delicate flavour, but used chiefly here as baits for 

 night-lines. It is not at all out of order to call this genteel 

 fish a fresh-water herring, but he is more compact than that 

 delicious plebeian, and has a dash of the grayling about his 

 silvery overcoat. 



It is great fun pulling in the eel lines, each of which is 

 taut, and troubled with a wriggling captive. In they come, 

 one after another, protesting until the last line is drawn, and 

 there is very little short of half a hundredweight of such 

 game in the basket. A big pike or salmon has broken out 



