POLLACK AND PILCHARDS 117 



but a veteran who can count his chances and 

 make the most of them. This I quickly realise, 

 and also determine that if the line is to break, I 

 may as well do the trick as look on. Finesse 

 must be thrown to the winds. Here is meat for 

 a straightforward match of muscle, so I put on all 

 the strain I dare, and more indeed than less ex- 

 treme case would warrant, and by a sheer forcing 

 game the great head is pulled once more towards 

 the boat, and half the battle is thereby won and 

 lost, for a good fish with his shoulder to the line 

 is worth two of another with his face to the foe; 

 The broad tail lashes the shallow water ; now, and 

 now again, the reel comes to a standstill between 

 two equal and opposing forces, but my position, 

 a few feet above the level of the water, gives just 

 the advantage without which I believe the bass 

 would have won home, and, after a stand up fight 

 that must have lasted nearly half an hour from 

 first to last, with one of the combatants exhausted, 

 and the other not wanting any more exercise for 

 the moment, George slips the gaff into the flank 

 of an eight pound bass of great beauty, whose 

 scouring in the recent gale has burnished it to a 

 dazzling sheen. 



Another bass-ground lies just round Chapel 

 Point, beside the Gwingeas, a rock which stands 

 out of the water like a lion couchant of Herald's 

 College. We never in all our experience killed 



