DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 143 



short line attached to the end of a pole running out 

 twelve feet at right angles to the boat, one on each 

 side, with a hand line running out to the other line 

 as a means for drawing in the captive without need 

 of moving the pole we were in the thick of a shoal 

 that gave every one a busy chance while passing 

 through them. Again and again the captain's 

 warning call came : " Mind the boom," as time after 

 time we turned to go back over the fish again. 

 Sometimes the stooping to avoid the swinging 

 timber was so leisurely done that the head was 

 overtaken and its ducking painfully hurried. 



The fact that mackerel will take any quivering 

 or spinning lure was that day fully demonstrated. 

 Each of the fishers had on a different bait in the 

 contest for a small pool to which all had contributed, 

 and the prize was won by the narrowest of margins, 

 the difference between the various takes being, I 

 think, more due to quickness in drawing in and 

 putting out than to the degrees of attractiveness in 

 the allurements. 



On the short journey home we watched the 

 gannet that we had left busy at their sport. It is a 

 strange sight to see them hovering at perhaps 100 

 feet above the sea, and then, with necks stretched 

 out and downwards, dive with their gooselike 

 weight into the water. The common belief is that 

 they fall directly on the fish that they have marked 

 out for prey ; I am more inclined to think that their 

 dive from such a height is meant to take them 

 beneath the shoal and that it is in their ascent to 

 the surface that they seize a fish. 



Our captures were a splendid sight and, on our 

 landing, were shown with pride to those who 



