FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



bait to use depends on the fish in that locality, and the manner of using 

 it to best advantage must be regulated by the nature of the bottom and 

 strength of the tides and currents. In still water, at dead high or low tide, 

 it need only be thrown overboard and allowed to sink slowly to the bottom, 

 but in a strong tide or current it must be lowered in a net or other 

 receptacle, else it will be dispersed so quickly as to entice the fish in 

 pursuit and thereby, so far as those in the boat are concerned, do more 

 harm than good. Pieces of fish, pounded crabs or mussels, make excellent 

 ground bait for the majority of fishes on our coasts, but for grey mullet a 

 ground bait of bran and barley meal is used, and for black bream there are 

 pungent mixtures in use in both Turkey and Australia, which are described 



in their proper place. 



» « * 



II. PIER FISHING. The drawbacks of boat-fishing are the advantages 

 of pier fishing, and vice versa. The pier, even if a slight extra charge is 

 made to fishermen, is infinitely cheaper than continual hire of boats, 

 and it also does away with the discomfort of sea -sickness and the risk 

 of drowning. On the other hand, it gives the fisherman access to only 

 a very limited area of shallow water, and if the fish do not bite, he has no 

 chance, as he would in a boat, of seeking them elsewhere. In addition 

 to these perfectly obvious disadvantages, which include the annoyance 

 of summer crowds, piers have one or two other discomforts in store for 

 the fisherman, who will find their landing stages exceedingly draughty 

 and the gratings veritable traps for such valuables as he has the mis- 

 fortune to drop. 



Overcrowding is one of the worst handicaps of pier fishing. Some 

 of the best sport to be had from piers is in the late autumn, when those 

 on the East Coast give chances with cod and whiting, and others in the 

 West Country offer pollack and mackerel. It is, however, in the summer 

 holidays that all the world and its children fiock to the seventy piers be- 

 tween Berwick and Blackpool, anxious to catch a dab or an eel, with woeful 

 results, since there is not, on most of them, room to swing a line, and the 

 crowd of anglers is daily augmented by ten times the number of loafers 

 off the pleasure steamers that hourly churn the water with their paddle 

 wheels. 



A quarter of a century ago, or, better still, ten years before that, when 

 the sport of sea fishing was followed by only a few people indifferent 

 to the gibes of candid friends, many piers that are nowadays impossible 

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