DECEMBER 191 



indispensable, as, when we could no longer hold the 

 bottom with fifteen ounces of lead on an undressed pike 

 line, the braided wire fished easily with three ounces. 

 However, a silk line with 2^ ounces of lead did very 

 well here and is certainly nicer to work with than 

 the wire, which needs special pulley-tops and rollers 

 along the rod and tends to spring off the reel unless 

 carefully handled. We had not got our baits properly 

 down and started to light a pipe, before my boatmate's 

 reel commenced to sing, and in another moment he was 

 into a fish ; one or two digs at the rod top showed he 

 was something better than a whiting. As soon as he 

 came to the surface the net was under him and he was 

 tumbled into the boat, first fish, a nice little cod of 

 S^lbs. It has always been a puzzle to the writer to know 

 where a cod begins and a codling leaves off. Most sea- 

 anglers, if other people catch such fish, call them cod- 

 ling ; should they happen to fall to their own rods, they 

 call them cod. The safest system seems to take the 

 average of sexual maturity (3lbs. to 51bs), and then 

 to call all over 51bs. cod. My boatmate and I had 

 arranged a little gamble per codfish before leaving, and 

 this gave him first blood; while he was unhooking his 

 fish, I felt a pull and struck into something better, which 

 proved to be another cod of 71bs. We then took each a 

 few large po uting, and then my rival got another two 

 codling, increasing his lead by one. Meanwhile, Captain 

 Doughty, of Walmer, the then local agent of the British 

 Sea Anglers' Society, came out and anchored alongside 

 us in his little 12 foot yawl. Just as he arrived I got a 

 couple of whiting, and my friend another codling. The 

 cod, however, would have nothing to say to the Captain's 

 stale sprats, although he got hold of a few nice whiting. 

 We, however, kept hooking codling, my boatmate 

 getting another 7-pounder to match mine. By a 

 quarter-past three the ebb tide came through, and fish 

 left off biting ; and as there was no wind we started to 

 row back to Deal again over the tide. By the time we 

 got half way darkness was setting in, and we required 

 all our wraps, even when rowing, to keep out the cold. 

 By a few minutes past four we were ashore and hauling 



