SEA FISHING 



in the pool a slab of tunny in sucli a state of decay tliat its bouquet must 

 reach every moreia in the archipelago. Suddenly you see the man stiffen 

 as he spies the snakelike form of his victim glide from some cranny, but 

 he goes on singing and whistling as if he had seen nothing. Next, he catches 

 it in one of three ways: on a baited hook attached to a short rod; in a pair 

 of wooden tongs, which grip its slippery body fast; or in a curious trap 

 consisting of a hollow cane in which a running noose works. This would 

 be a difRcult instrument for catching any other kind of fish, but, hyp- 

 notized by the wailing, or attracted by the tunny, the moreia usually 

 falls an easy victim, and, as soon as it is safe on the rock, the fisherman 

 makes short work of it, beating it to a pulp. The mursena is a dreadful 

 creature, and one can watch its last moments unmoved. 



Rock-fishing, as practised in Australia, is an altogether more robust 

 sport than in Europe. Residents, used to such exercise, nimbly trip from 

 one rock to another, groping their way along narrow, beetling ledges 

 a hundred feet above the water, which is deep, rough, and alive with 

 sharks. On the lower levels, it is possible to use a rod, and, baiting with 

 cungevoi, a mollusc found below high -water mark, to catch grouper, 

 wirrah, toadfish, leatherjacket, and traglin, all of them ugly animals, 

 with the exception of the last. The blue grouper, the chief object of these 

 breakneck expeditions, resembles a great wrasse, and the toadfish has 

 an ingratiating habit of swelling like a football, and is, by way of added 

 attraction, poisonous to eat. Fishing from the upper ledges, a handline 

 is essential, and even so the risks are considerable, as encouragingly 

 celebrated in the names of some of the favourite stations, known as 



•* Brown's Folly " or " Smith's Mistake." 



* « • 



IV. BEACH-FISHING. Partly, no doubt, owing to the rival attractions 

 of boats and piers, but also to ignorance of the fact that bass and cod, 

 among other fishes, feed right in the waves, close to the beach, this style 

 of fishing is less known than it deserves, and many opportunities of en- 

 joying it are neglected. Only at a very few spots, indeed, like Aldeburgh, 

 Budleigh Salterton (with its near neighbours, Sidmouth and Seaton), 

 Folkestone, Hastings, Selsey and Yarmouth (with Lowestoft and some 

 neighbouring resorts), is fishing from the beach a recognized sport. 



Beaches in this country are either sandy, with a very gradual decline 

 to the water's edge, or of shingle, with a steeper gradient. A rod is easier 

 to use from a shingle beach, therefore, and handlines from the fiatter 



299 



