306 LINE-FISHING. [CHAP. vn. 



Many a time too the fish are all eaten off the line by " dogs " 

 and other enemies, so that only a few fragments and a skeleton 

 or two remain to show that fish have been caught. The 

 fishermen of deck- welled cod-bangers use both hand-lines 

 and long-lines such as have been described. The cod-bangers' 

 tackling is of course stronger than that used in open boats. 

 The long-lines are called " grut-lines," or great-lines. Every 

 deck-welled cod-banger carries a small boat on deck for 

 working the great-lines in moderate weather. This boat is 

 also provided with a well, in which the fish are kept alive till 

 they arrive at the banger, when they are transferred from the 

 small boat's well to that of the larger vessel. 



Hungry codfish will seize any kind of bait, and great-lines 

 are usually baited with bits of whiting, herring, haddock, or 

 almost any kind of fish. For hand-lines the fishermen prefer 

 mussels or white whelks. White whelks are caught by a line 

 on which is fastened a number of pieces of carrion or cod- 

 heads. This line is laid along the bottom where whelks are 

 known to abound. The whelks attach themselves to the cod- 

 heads, and are pulled up, put into net bags, something like 

 onion-nets, and placed in the well of the vessel, where they 

 are kept alive till required for use. Another kind of bait 

 used by the boat fishermen for hand-lines is that of the lug- 

 worm. The " lug " is a sand-worm, from four to five inches 

 long, and about the thickness of a man's finger. The head 

 part of the worm is of a dark brown fleshy substance, and is 

 the part used as bait, the rest of the worm being nothing but 

 sand. The " lug " is dug from the sand with a small spade or 

 three-pronged fork. 



The principal fishing-grounds in the North Sea where cod- 

 bangers are employed are the Dogger Bank, Well Bank, and 

 Dutch Bank. The fishing-ground of the open-boat fishermen 

 is on the coasts of Fife, Midlothian, and Berwickshire; for 

 haddocks, cod, ling, etc., it is around the island of May and 



