FISHING "DOWN OUTSIDE" 165 



Judging by Carker it must have been good fishing 

 for cunners. Like Carker this fish comes to you 

 teeth first. His mouth is so full of them that 

 they stick out like quills on the fretful porcupine. 

 Nature, which gives each tools for the trade 

 which he most loves, made him a bait-stealer 

 extraordinary with these. 



The beginner who fishes in the salt sea does it 

 almost invariably with a pole, whether from clifT 

 or 'dock or from a boat. Experience brings the 

 desire for the hand line. The farmer's boy who 

 comes down for the salt hay tucks his long birch 

 pole into the bottom of the wagon and the trolley 

 tripper comes to the beach with his split bamboo. 

 Down in Maine years ago the pinkies used to sail 

 equipped with numerous short poles whereby to 

 trail for mackerel. In the day of your grand- 

 father and mine it must have been a sight to see 

 the crew of a pink-sterned chebacco boat dancing 

 from pole to pole flipping the number ones aboard 

 when a good school-struck in. Of course, all 

 that is a waste of energy and of wood. A hand 

 line is the more intimate and serves the purpose 

 better. A man is not really a salt water fisher- 

 man till he has learned the use of one. Then let 

 him go forth. Through that line shall flow to 



