FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



fisherman is landed, the boat should lie at some little distance, as the 

 water is often very clear and the bass are easily alarmed. The prawn 

 should be hooked just above the tail. Dead prawns are of no use whatever 

 with float tackle and should be employed only when railing. 



BASS FISHING IN TURKEY 



Reference was made above to the southern origin of the bass, a fish which 

 occurs right through the Mediterranean, where I have met with it from 

 Tangier to the quays of Smyrna. Thence it finds its way through the 

 Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora. I failed to identify it in the Bos- 

 phorus or in the Black Sea, but my observations were limited, and in all 

 probability it is to be found there as well. In the Sea of Marmora, at 

 any rate, and particularly in that beautiful arm of it, the Gulf of Ismidt, 

 which runs between the niountains of Anatolia to the ancient city of that 

 name, the levrak, as it is called by Turks and Greeks alike, reaches 

 a great size and gives magnificent sport on the light tackle needed in 

 those clear seas. A friend of the writer has caught them up to twenty - 

 five pounds on fine handlines, with over forty feet of single gut, and has 

 been broken by fish that he not unreasonably regards as much heavier. 

 Personally, fishing with my sea trout rod and twenty-four feet of single 

 gut (the utmost I could use with a rod of that length), I caught none 

 heavier than seventeen pounds. Even that, however, would be a very 

 exceptional bass to catch on the rod in England. I had others of fifteen 

 pounds, twelve pounds, etc., all of them heavier than any I had ever 

 caught, or seen caught, at home. 



The reason why so much single gut has to be used is due to two causes: 

 first, the fierce sun and clear water; second, the custom of using this fine 

 gear in that part of the world. Thus generations of Greeks have spoilt 

 generations of bass for anything coarser; and, not content with using 

 single gut, they actually polish it, before each day's fishing, with either 

 chamois leather or a cigarette paper, so as to smooth down any little 

 roughness that might make it more conspicuous. There is but one local 

 bait for bass and that is a bunch of live prawns (Greek, carides), which are 

 used on a single large hook, each of them hooked through the tail. These 

 prawns are plentiful in the weed along the shores of the Gulf of Ismidt 

 and may be caught each day in a hand net. The largest are best for bait. 

 Three of large size (or five smaller) are used at a time. On feeling the 

 354 



