238 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



" Yank him in," is the order for medium sizes, and 

 I had the opportunity very early of seeing how it was 

 done. We were nearing a canoe in which a gentleman 

 was seated, holding his hand-line over the gunwale, 

 and slightly jerking it to and fro ; suddenly he struck 

 with might and main. The effort should, as one would 

 suppose, have wrenched the head off an ordinary fish, 

 and I should say this event often happens with 2-lb. 

 or 3-lb. victims. In this instance there was no harm 

 done. Out of the water, like a trout, ten yards or so 

 astern of the canoe, came a yellow-hued, long, narrow- 

 bodied fish, and presently, hand over hand, it was 

 dragged up to the side and lifted in by sheer might. It 

 was a 'lunge of apparently 7 lb., and the only one taken 

 by the fisher, though he had been out three or four 

 hours. 



We had not been long afloat before I began to see 

 that Ben was not far wrong in preferring his rude tackle 

 to mine, though he was all abroad in his reasons for 

 ruling me out of court. His belief, expressed in the 

 vigorous language of the born colonial, was that it was 

 darn'd nonsense to suppose that my line would hold 

 a fish, or that my rod was other than a toy. The diffi- 

 culty, of course, was with the boat. For the sort of 

 spinning to which we are accustomed in England the 

 thing was useless. The discomfort was vast and con- 

 tinuous, and as the hooks were everlastingly fouling 

 in loose weeds, and the progress of the boat converted 

 the hauling in of the line into not inconsiderable manual 

 labour, the outlook became barren in the extreme. 

 My companion A. in the stern was furnished with the 

 orthodox hand-line, and I sat on the second thwart 

 facing him. The rod rendered this necessary, and A. 

 told me afterwards that Ben spent most of his time 

 winking and contemptuously gesticulating over my 



