168 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



began our " picking." I have known experts, " Limpeny " 

 Joe (a man from Limpenhoe) in particular, who was a rare 

 one to notice an eel-blow a hole in the mud which the 

 buried fish used for breathing purposes ; there was a tail- 

 hole, too, and " Limpeny " seldom struck with his pick but 

 he withdrew it with a nice fat eel fast fixed in the prongs. 



" He was a 'nailer,'" said "Snicker" Larn one day, when 

 discussing the old school of Breydoners. " You didn't see 

 him pickin' promiscuss-like ; but he'd work the bare places, 

 and never got armache with speckerlatin'. Gord bliss my 

 sowl and body ! it was born in him ! None of us could touch 

 him." 



Jary and I picked in mechanical fashion, getting a nice 

 mess each for dinner. There happened nothing eventful, but 

 I suppose it was the glamour of the day, the pleasant gossip, 

 and the novelty of the situation that impressed it on my 

 mind ; it was my first essay too as an eel-picker ! 



The eel-pick is a well-tempered steel weapon made some- 

 thing like one's hand of five fingers closely placed together, 

 with sharp points and keen filed notches up either edge of 

 the individual tines. One can half a large turnip with a 

 thrust easier than it can be done with a knife. The tines are 

 pliable, and an eel is held fast, sometimes threaded between 

 them like a letter co . The pick, when used on the flats, has 

 a four-foot shaft ; when used in deeper drains or channel 

 a correspondingly longer shaft is necessary. You stab or 

 pick edgeways, for the eel lies horizontally in either mud or 

 " grass." After a few stabs into the Zostera a big bunch of 

 " grass " has accumulated on your pick, which becomes heavy 

 with it ; the pick is then drawn up and laid flat to the gun- 

 wale, and a wedge-shaped piece of wood used to push off the 

 weed, which breaks off, or is cut by the tines as easily as 

 cutting through celery. When an eel comes up a left-hand 

 finger and the thumb, pressed in different directions, open 

 the pliable steel tines, and the eel drops into the well of the 

 punt, which it at once starts exploring, finally drawing itself 

 tail first under the bottom-boards. Two to ten pounds of 

 eels may reward a tide's work. One has to be careful not 

 to be stranded on the flat ; it is no easy matter to push even 

 a punt over the flat grass. 



When picking is done in the drains and channels, large 



