270 MULLETS AND MACKEREL. 



worm, I am not prepared to state it is the best ; Mr. Couch who 

 possesses great knowledge in matters of this kind, as quoted by 

 Mr. Yarrell, informs us that the mullet is most readily taken with 

 the bait formed of the fat entrails of a fish, or cabbage boiled in 

 broth. 



According to Mr. Yarrell also, this fish rises freely at the flies 

 used for trout, and even at the larger and more gaudy flies used 

 for salmon. I have not however succeeded with the artificial fly, 

 though often tempted to try it when I have seen these fish play- 

 ing about in the shallows : but though I myself may not have 

 succeeded, it by no means follows that others more skilful may 

 not prove more fortunate. Basse, as has been already remarked, 

 will take an artificial fly very freely. 



It is also probable there are many salt water fishes that may be 

 caught with an artificial fly, although that bait has never yet been 

 employed for the purpose. Mr. Pennant mentions that a friend of 

 his, Mr. Low, of Birsa, in the Orknies, assured him that he had 

 caught many thousands of herrings with a common trout fly in a 

 deep hole in a rivulet into which the tide flowed. And a gentle- 

 man into whose company I chanced to spend some very agreeable 

 hours a short time since,(Mr. Brooking of Dartmouth,) informed me 

 that excellent sport was often to be met with in the Range out- 

 side that harbour, by casting an artificial fly from a boat, and that 

 by that means during the summer and the early part of the au- 

 tumn, great numbers of fine mackerel were caught in the course of 

 a few hours. The fly generally used was a red palmer trimmed 

 on rather a larger hook than is commonly used for trout, and the 

 fly itself proportionably larger. 



This must indeed afford noble sport to those who can brave the 

 dangers of the deep and of sea sickness; a mackerel being a re- 

 markably game fish, swimming with wonderful swiftness and 

 possessing great strength in the water, as I myself can bear testi- 

 mony of; having besides a very multitude of these fishes I have ta- 

 ken with the ordinary sea lines, often captured them by means of a 

 rod and fine tackling, which it required some degree of skill to 

 accomplish. 



The best amusement I ever met in this kind of fishing was at 

 anchor in a boat in the Southampton water, about three miles above 

 Calshot castle, where cousin Dick and I in the course of an after- 

 noon contrived between us to pull out eight dozen mackerel, and 



