8 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



sea-fishing, in which skill is at a discount, but to 

 class in one category every style of salt-water 

 angling is about as reasonable as bracketing 

 deerstalking and pigeon-shooting from traps. 



Fishing for mackerel from a sailing-boat, or 

 :t plummetting " as it is called on parts of the 

 Cornish coast, is one of the modes in which no 

 skill is required. A heavily leaded line is towed 

 astern, and the way on the boat hooks three 

 mackerel out of four that tamper with the bait. 

 All the fisherman has to do is to haul in the line 

 the moment he feels a fish on it, take the mackerel 

 off the hook, put on a fresh bait if necessary, and 

 fling the lead over the side again. Shelling peas 

 is a problem to it ! As a means of picking up 

 fresh bait on the way out to the pollack-grounds, 

 this manner of fishing has its uses, and it may 

 even amuse those with whom a sail occupies the 

 same position with regard to fishing as, with so 

 many hunting folk, a gallop with regard to venery ; 

 but it cannot by any stretch of the imagination 

 be seriously reckoned as artistic sport. Very 

 little higher in its demands on skill is the old style 

 of hand-lining for small pout or whiting. You bait 

 the hooks (unless you prefer to let your boatman 

 do so) and let the lead run out till it touches 

 bottom ; then you haul in the obliging fish that 

 hook themselves on. Worse in a measure than 

 either of these is the too common practice of baiting 



