140 AN ANGLER'S YEAR 



Time has disposed of the vessel, but the blocks 

 of stone still form an excellent harbour for codling and 

 large pouting. As the tide was running strongly when 

 we left the harbour we decided, before going far off- 

 shore, to have a turn at the dabs, and took about a score 

 in three-quarters of an hour, but missed many bites, 

 principally because the hooks used were too large, and 

 we had none smaller with us. We baited with lug-worm, 

 mussel, and soft-shelled crab. This latter bait, which 

 is referred to more than once in this book, is a great 

 favourite with most West-country sea-fishers, and is, in 

 the writer's experience, undoubtedly one of the most 

 killing and reliable of baits for flounders. The dabs, 

 however, did not favour it, being taken in about equal 

 quantities on the two first-named baits, while only two 

 small specimens were hooked on the crab. As some may 

 not be familiar with this bait, it may be explained that 

 the soft-shelled, shedder, or peely crab is the ordinary 

 shore crab when it is about to shed, is shedding, or has 

 shed its outer covering in order to grow a larger one. 

 When this is happening the wise crustacean, knowing 

 that his fellow crabs are no more chivalrous than City 

 operators, hides under a stone till his new coat is hard 

 and dry. Here the fisherman looks for him, and drags 

 him to light. If he has not yet changed his shell but 

 has grown a new one underneath, and if the carapace be 

 gently lifted about its junction with the tail, the soft 

 body will separate and the hard shell may be taken off. 

 After this is done the legs are pulled off and the soft 

 body is then cut up into four pieces if fishing for 

 flounders and into two portions if the crab is to be used 

 for cod or bass. The crab, which has already denuded 

 itself of its old shell, of course only requires cutting up. 

 In the former condition it is only the " peely crab," in 

 the latter the " soft crabs " of the Cheshire coast. With 

 this bait, years ago, the present writer used to take 

 bucketsful of good flounders from the channel inside the 

 Hoyle Bank, near Hoylake, working two hand-lines with 

 five hooks apiece, and hauling them alternately and re- 

 baiting. The most favourable time for the capture of 



