AND HOW 1 HAVE CAUGHT MY FISH 73 



then to haul our lines in, or take a deep turn out, 

 to clear the long spread nets of salmon fishers, 

 who, on account of private rights, have to ply their 

 calling out and away from the more easily worked 

 Bay and its lips, for a mile on either side. 



There are quite a number of these fishers' boats, 

 and splendid boats they are for such a stormy coast. 



They were supplied by the Congested District 

 Board to be paid for by instalments. The two 

 seasons 1901 and 1902 had been utter failures; 

 so the men were ready early in the year 1903, 

 anxiously hoping to retrieve the lost ground and 

 square up with those who so kindly trusted them. 



Numbers of these fishermen are dependent on 

 fishing for a livelihood, and, should the salmon fail 

 them and the winter following be a stormy one, it 

 is a blessing then that their greatest debt is to a 

 Board composed of men who will think not one iota 

 the less of them for inability to pay so brought about. 



After many days, perhaps weeks, of spread nets 

 and weary waiting the men have keenly anxious 

 faces as they watch for the leap of an interrupted 

 fish or the bobbings of a cork that shall tell of an 

 entangled one. 



The difference of expression on the faces of two 

 crews whose nets were not five hundred yards apart, 

 one of which had been phenomenally successful 

 while the other had not a fish, was such a contrast 

 as only Irish faces could possibly portray. 



The man of books seemed to know and be 



