45^ APPENDIX 



efforts were rewarded by three small jack. The Spaniards, again, would be 



capital sea-fishermen were it not for their indomitable laziness. Those among 



them who know that their living depends on skill and hard work are perhaps 



the most skilful netsmen and hand-liners on the threshold of the Mediterranean; 



but the amateurs are sadly lazy. They have, for example, a favourite, and 



very practical, plan of collaboration, in which one man angles from the rocks 



while his colleague keeps the fish round the hook by constantly throwing 



pellets of ground bait ; and positively I have seen a man choose the latter 



share in the work because, while getting half the spoil, he could earn it 



lying at full length, whereas the angler had to stand. 



It is not possible in the present notes to do more than enumerate the 



chief British methods of angling in salt water. Needless to .say, anything 



in the nature of nets (beyond a landing net, or a .seine for 



English , . , , , . , , .'...,, 



^, , catchmg sand-eels as bait) or dynamite is rigidly eschewed, 



metnoas. o ^ 



though that explosive, made up with slow fuses, furnished a 

 favourite form of "sport" with some of my friends in Italy. 



Amateurs must catch their sea-fish from one of three situations : from 

 a boat, from a pier or harbour, or from the foreshore — be it sand, rock, or 

 shingle. They use either the rod (in growing favour during the past ten or 

 fifteen years) or the hand-line. A number (as the seven or eight hundred 

 members of the " British Sea Anglers' Society," which I proposed and helped 

 to found in 1893) are in a measure pledged to the use of the rod; others 

 prefer it only under favourable conditions, substituting the hand-line in very 

 deep water, or when strong tides or currents necessitate the use of extra 

 heavy leads that would put too great a strain on the rod. 



Fishing from pier or shore necessarily resolves itself into some form of 

 what anglers across the Atlantic might term "still fishing." some pattern of 

 paternoster or leger tackle, or some arrangement of rod and float line. In 

 a kw cases, I believe, fly-fishing is successfully practised from the rocks ; but 

 of this I have had no practical experience. In boat fishing, however, not 

 only are all these methods (except, perhaps, the float tackle) feasible, but 

 also others, as the " chopstick," a bowed spreader of wire or cane, made on 

 various models, from the middle of which generally hangs the lead, the baited 



