SEA FISHING 



the rings thus removable, the tips can be packed in bundles, and when 

 one is broken with the play of a heavy fish, another can be substituted 

 without loss of time. In fact, these removable guides are, in themselves, 

 a vast improvement on the old system. 



The second, and even more important, innovation takes the form of a 

 kind of turntable, with a square socket that fits in a corresponding hole 

 in the butt of the rod. With the aid of this device, the rod can be swung 

 in any direction, and the reel is always above it. It is, in fact, an attach- 

 ment in every way superior to the old-fashioned leather cup. 



The reel holds 400 yards of thirty-nine thread line, and is fitted with 

 powerful brakes, but perhaps the chief improvement on the older pattern 

 consists in the bolt and split collar ring which attach it respectively to 

 the butt and tip, making it impossible for the latter to twist round, as 

 so often happens with ordinary tuna tackle. 



Last, but not least, a shoulder strap attached to the rod enables the 

 fisherman, literally, to put his back into it and to get immense increase 

 of power over the fish. In short, Mr Mitchell Henry's series of im- 

 provements must be welcomed as most ingenious, and he has lately 

 added to them yet another in the shape of a hook with a barb on either 

 side, which, while making no larger a wound, seems absolutely unable 

 to tear out. 



Something has been said of the almost world-wide range of the tuna 

 (as it is commonly called by sportsmen), and it will now be convenient 

 to consider in turn the various localities in which it either is, or might be, 

 taken on the rod. 



The nearest to England is, without doubt, the Biscay coast, in the vicinity 

 of Bayonne and St Jean de Luz, and so on round the west side of the Penin- 

 sula. The French and Basque fishermen catch quantities of tunny, though 

 not of the largest size, in the summer months, baiting their handlines 

 with a shredded husk of maize, and anglers would probably enjoy sport 

 by going out with the natives. Anyway St Jean de Luz, a favourite winter 

 resort, is reached in little more than twenty -four hours from Charing 

 Gross, by the Sud-Express, and this would certainly mean the nearest 

 tunny fishing to be had. 



Madeira at one time raised great hopes. Its possibilities were first 

 suggested, early in 1905, by Colonel Stead, who, having caught tunny on 

 the handlines used by the Portuguese fishermen, asked whether they 

 could not also be taken, as in California, on the rod. I made the attempt 



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