FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



proceeded to gorge, but I never heard of a thresher taking a hook, though 

 they were commonly entangled in the drift nets. This is the shark which 

 engages whales in deadly combat; but it is the shark which does not, 

 as the fishermen on some parts of the coast firmly believe, swallow its 

 young ones to protect them from danger, after the manner popularly 

 associated with the adder. 



The so-called dogfish of our coasts are, as has been said, only small 

 kinds of shark. Some illuminating rubbish was recently published in one 

 of the magazines, in the course of which the writer described the tope as 

 ** a sort of cross between the dogfish and the ordinary man-eating shark 

 . . . yet belonging to neither species." What the writer meant by this 

 amazing tertium quid, he best knew; but what he apparently did not 

 know was that there is no single species known as either a dogfish or a 

 man-eating shark, though there are many species of both. The tope is 

 actually a small grey shark, which grows to a length of six or seven feet, 

 and hunts its prey in packs. It has no spines in front of the back fins, 

 like the so-called spur-dog, and its body is not covered with spots like 

 that of the other common dogfish known as the nurse. The name tope 

 is somewhat obscure, but may probably be regarded as a form of *' top," 

 in allusion to its habits of feeding at the top of the water, which, in fact, 

 as well as its trick of jumping when hooked, makes it popular with sea 

 anglers. Like many of our sharks, the tope is to some extent a wanderer, 

 and is most conspicuous in Kent during the summer months. It occurs 

 at Margate on the pouting ground, close to the jetty, and specimens of 

 over fifty pounds weight have been caught there, the tackle being a strong 

 rod and line, with a piano wire trace and a whole whiting or other small 

 fish for bait. 



This deliberate fishing for tope is a development of the last four or five 

 years, coinciding, in fact, with the eventually successful attack made 

 by Mr Ross on the tunas of Gape Breton, for it was not until 1908-9 that 

 the more than occasional success of anglers with these dogfish inspired 

 them to specialize in tackle and methods of capture. Mr Daunou, one of 

 the pioneers, caught forty-six of these fish in one season (1911), 

 the heaviest weighing forty -two and a half pounds. His tackle consisted 

 of a split cane rod of seven and a half feet, with one hundred and fifty yards 

 of strong silk line and a trace of steel wire, coppered and silvered as pre- 

 ventive of rust, with swivels, the bait being a small whiting or dab. This 

 is heavy tackle, and is adapted to catching the largest tope in the strongest 

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