SEA FISHING IN EUROPE 459 



hooks beinc^ at either end. This, of course, is used with the craft at anchor 

 Then there are the different forms of railing, whiffing, or (as it is called, 

 from the form of lead, in Cornwall) " plummeting," practised under oars 

 or light canvas, the general principle being to tow natural or artificial baits 

 in the wake of the boat, attracting in pursuit bass, mackerel and other 

 predatory fishes that are to be caught b}' such means. Among the baits 

 used in this method are artificial flies and spinners and imitation rubber 

 eels, as well as living sand-eels (caught in the seine-net, or dug with a fork 

 from the wet sand near low-water mark), ragworms (dug from the soft mud 

 of harbours uncovered by the ebb tide), or a strip of pilchard, or, better 

 still, mackerel, cut from the side of the tail. The last-named is the only 

 bait used in Cornwall, and with it I have known eight lines (all worked by 

 one man, who also navigates the boat) kill their three and four hundred 

 mackerel in a tide. This is, of course, only possible in the summer months 

 and when the mackerel are very " thick " ; and four of the lines have to 

 be kept clear of the other four by means of long cane spreaders fixed at 

 right angles to the gunwale of the boat. 



Another very deadly method of fishing in a boat for mackerel or pollack 

 in the tideway is with what is known as the drift-line. A single hook, baited 

 with a living sand eel, two ragworms, or a strip of mackerel or pilchard, is 

 attached to the end of a gut trace, single or double according to the size 

 and fighting qualities of the fish expected, and the trace is allowed to 

 drift at the end of thirty or forty fathoms of line with the tide. Little or 

 no lead is used, and a rod may be used or not, the fineness of the lower 

 gear making this method in any case particularly killing and artistic. The 

 only drawback is that this is also the surest method of catching any prowling 

 blue or porbeagle shark, a nuisance most likely to be encountered west 

 of Plymouth. The living sand eels, perhaps the most killing bait for large 

 fish in use on our coasts, are best kept alive in torpedo-shaped baskets, 

 made, originally at any rate, in the Channel Islands, largely introduced to 

 Engli.sh fishermen by the late J. C. Wilcocks, and known as " courges." 



Perhaps the most capricious fish in English seas are large grey mullet. 

 At Leghorn, and elsewhere in the Mediterranean and South Atlantic, they 



