202 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



Hand-Line Mackerel Fishing. 



BY AARON LIGHTFOOT. 



The amount of moral courage and Christian fortitude required for a lands- 

 man to get up out of a comfortable bed and struggle up on a cold, wet, 

 cheerless deck to handle cold, wet lines and colder, wetter fish, all for the 

 "experience," will never be known except by those who have allowed them- 

 selves to be deluded into the thing. It is diabolical. Now the mainsail is 

 up, the jib down, and the captain is throwing bait. It is not yet quite light, 

 but we hear other mainsails going up all around us. A cold, drizzling rain 

 does not add to the comfort of the situation, and we stand around shivering, 

 half asleep, with our sore hands in our wet pockets, about as "demmed, 

 moist, uncomfortable bodies," as ever dear old Mantilini saw, and all wish- 

 ing we were home, and had never heard of a mackerel. The skipper, how- 

 ever, is holding his lines over the rail with an air which clearly intimates 

 that the slightest kind of a nibble will be quite sufficient this morning to seal 

 the doom of the unfortunate mack. 



"There, by Jove ! the captain's hauling back — I told you so ! Skipper's 

 got him — no — ah, captain, you haul back too savagely ! " 



With the first movement of the captain's arm indicating the presence of 

 fish, everybody rushes madly to the rail, and jigs are heard on all sides 

 plashing into the water, and eager hands and arms are stretched at their 

 full length over the side, feeling anxiously for a nibble. 



" Sh — hish ! " there's something just passed my fly — I felt him," says an 

 old man standing alongside of me. " Yes, and I've got him," triumphantly 

 shouts out the next man on the other side of him, hauling in, as he speaks, 

 a fine mackerel and striking him off into the l^arrel in the most approved 

 style. 



Z-z-z-zip goes my line through and deep into my poor fingers, as a huge 

 fellow rushes savagely away with what he finds is not so great a prize as he 

 fondly supposed. I get greatly flurried, miss stroke half a dozen times in 

 as many fathoms of line, and at length succeed in landing my first fish safe- 

 ly in my barrel, where he lies floundering, "melancholy and melodious," as 

 my next neighbor styles it. 



Daylight soon dawns, and the rain, which has been threatening very 

 moistly all night, begins to pour down in dead earnest ; and as the big drops 

 patter in the sea the fish begin to bite furiously. 



" Shorten up ! " says the skipper, and we shorten in our lines to about 



