

POLLACK AND PILCHARDS 115 



A whole pilchard, not too fresh, since the bass 

 likes, when raiding the shore commissariat, to 

 scent its food from a distance, is tied on the hook 

 in a peculiar manner. As George has paid parti- 

 cular attention to the strength of flavour recom- 

 mended above, the interesting process of baiting 

 is left to him, as I have promised to dine out this 

 evening and should not easily get such flavour 

 off my hands. So George baits the hook, and, 

 standing on the thwart, swings the line well out 

 on the sand, so that the bait lies at the edge of 

 the rocks. There it is given two or three minutes 

 to settle, and then, without further disturbing 

 it, I gently wind in the slack. That accomplished, 

 and George having squeezed two or three more 

 pilchards, similarly circumstanced to the first, 

 and flung them out around my line, we both light 

 tobacco and talk over old times. The conversa- 

 tion is abruptly checked by a muffled exclamation 

 from George, who points to the rod as if he saw a 

 ghost. True enough, there is the slightest per- 

 ceptible twitching of the top ring, and a couple of 

 slack coils, which I left purposely on the seat 

 beside the reel, are narrowing, as the line creeps 

 out through the rings. The rod is a stiff one, 

 about sixteen feet long, one that I had originally 

 built by Messrs. Watson and Hancock, of Hol- 

 born, and well adapted to this work, though 

 designed by me for angling from the high Admiralty 



