SEA FISHING 

 I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 



By F. G. ALFLALO 



"^^ NYTHING in the nature of retrospect into the past history 



y^k of sea fishing as a sport would lie outside the practical 



^ ^^ scope of these pages. The vogue of rod and line for salt- 



r ^L water fishing must have come from Mediterranean shores , 



g ^k where it is general to this day, and has been so within 



.^C vL. living memory, not to mention numerous allusions 



in the classics. Gradually the sport, while marking time among those 



southern nations, has developed in Anglo-Saxon hands on both sides of 



the Atlantic, and the historian would have to take account of such recent 



landmarks as the capture of the first tarpon {circa 1882), of the first large 



Galifornian tuna (1898), and of the first Canadian tuna (1911), as well as 



the founding of the British Sea Anglers' Society (1893), and of the Tuna 



Club (1898), aU of them interesting and significant milestones. 



For present purposes, however, we are concerned rather with the sport 

 as it is to-day, with the rod gradually supplanting the once general hand- 

 line. I do not propose to submit any special pleading for the use of the 

 rod. Like some other admirable reforms, its advocacy has gone altogether 

 too far, and zealots, some of them among quite recent recruits to the 

 ranks of sea anglers, are actually ignorant of the conditions under which 

 the handline may be not only legitimate, but also more artistic than the 

 rod. The skill with which Messrs £. and K. Whittall caught the largest 

 bass in the Gulf of Ismidt on fine horsehair lines, with forty feet of single 

 gut at the end, was quite equal to my own performances on the same 

 grounds with a sea-trout rod, and is infinitely preferable to butchering 

 the fish with the so-called " sea rod " in general use. The fine handlines 

 used in Australia for catching black bream were a revelation. Mr Walter 

 Shaw used to go whiffing for pollack single-handed, catching big fish 

 in the heavy water off Bolt Tail, near Salcombe, and, unable to manipulate 

 both rod and oars, used a handline, with wonderful results. For snapper 

 fishing on the Australian coast, from a large boat drifting rapidly over 

 reefs sunk in water that was always deep and often rough, the rod was, 



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