118 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



one there, but one afternoon George and I hooked 

 what he graphically, and with evidently more 

 regard to size than the quality more definitely 

 indicated, described as a " snorter." In this 

 fishing also, though in more open water, the boat 

 is moored at either end, broadside to the rock, and 

 the time for fishing is on the first of the ebb, when 

 you can moor a hundred yards east of the rock 

 and let the bait drift into the shadow of it. The 

 bait is not in this case flung out, but is dropped 

 gently over the side, and the tide does the rest. 

 On the afternoon in question we were fishing not 

 indeed for bass at all, but for the large drift-line 

 mackerel, for which, on its day, the Gwingeas 

 ground is as good as any in the bay. We must 

 have caught some weighing over two pounds, 

 using the fine tackle necessary for such work, with 

 three or four feet of single gut. In a drifting boat, 

 where you can follow the fish, there would, or 

 should, be no difficulty in killing the heaviest bass 

 on such tackle, but with the anchor down it is a 

 very different matter. Therefore, when one of 

 my mackerel-lines went flying over the side, the 

 wooden winder jumped about in the boat as it 

 unwound dangerously near the end of the line, 

 we knew from the beginning that the game was 

 up. We did what we could. I let the line go 

 through my fingers as gingerly as possible, and, 

 as George was putting forth all his strength in a 



