FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



unlike a plaice in shape, has brown spots and a rougher skin. The sole, 

 with its long, narrow body, smooth skin and small eyes, is too familiar 

 to need description, and the flounder, which, though broader than a sole, 

 is narrower than a plaice, has the peculiarity of spending much of its life 

 in fresh water, though it has (like the river eel) to go down to the sea 

 to spawn. The gurnards, some of which are brilliantly coloured, may be 

 known by their disproportionately large and grotesque head, which is 

 armed with a number of finger -like appendages. The dory is, as has been 

 said, an ugly customer, with an enormous head and tube-shaped mouth. 

 Last of all, the garfish, in shape not unlike an eel, though with a forked 

 tail, in colour blue and silver, has, as its most distinctive feature, a bony, 

 slender beak, not unlike that of a woodcock. Its green bones prejudice 

 many people against it, but it is better eating than many of its neighbours. 

 With the exception of the larger cod and halibut, these are all compara- 

 tively small fish, and two or three hooks may therefore be used without 

 the same risk of disaster as when angling for big game. One of the most 

 useful forms of tackle is that known as the '* paternoster," in which the 

 hooks are strung at intervals on a length of gut, with a pear-shaped lead 

 at the bottom, a stronger version of the device commonly used for catching 

 perch. Another arrangement, also in general use, is the crossbar, or chop- 

 stick, pattern, in which a stiff bent wire projects about a foot on either 

 side of the lead, a hook on five or six inches of gut hanging from each 

 end of the bar. It should, however, be remembered that the type of crossbar 

 tackle commonly used by the longshoremen who let out boats for fishing, 

 is much too cumbersome for use with a rod, and the angler with a fancy 

 for this sort of pattern must exercise his own ingenuity to devise something 

 much lighter. As yet another alternative, he may use a light form of the 

 tackle already described for pollack, with the special Cornish lead, but 

 this, it will be remembered, has to be thrown out in a particular way, 

 so as not to foul the line, and when used with a rod, this must first be done 

 by hand, as any attempt to do it with the rod will probably end in trouble. 

 As, moreover, even when thrown out in the wrong way, the mistake is 

 not always apparent until the lead has sunk out of sight, the angler may 

 be placidly fishing with the hooks and lead all in a tangle without knowing 

 that anything is amiss. Others, again, fish with a long "streamer " of gut 

 carrying two or three hooks and attached to the line just above the lead, 

 which lies in that case on the bottom (in the Cornish pattern, of course, it 

 is withdrawn about a fathom or two, with the hooks below it), and this, 

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