LINE-FISHING. 313 



walks along the bank up-stream. Both these methods 

 are considered as rather poaching devices, but they are 

 too well-known for this short notice of them to increase 

 their employment. The various other and more recognised 

 methods of fishing with rod and line in fresh water would 

 require more space than we have at our command to give 

 even an intelligible sketch of ; for it may be fairly said that 

 from fly-fishing for trout and salmon to the humble yet 

 lively sport of gudgeon-fishing, there are niceties in rods 

 and tackle, and in the ways of using them that can only be 

 properly understood after plenty of practical instruction 

 and experience. Angling, as we said at the beginning of 

 these pages, is mainly connected with sport and amuse- 

 ment ; and the large and varied exhibition here of rods, 

 lines, arrangements of hooks, winches, and artificial baits of 

 different kinds, tells plainly that the sport in its true sense 

 means the exercise of such skill in the gentle art as can 

 usually be acquired only by years of practice. 



Baits. In sea-fishing the variety of baits used is by no 

 means so great as might be supposed. In the North Sea 

 cod fishery of which we have spoken, the principal bait in 

 request is the common whelk or " buckle," and so great is 

 the demand for them that several small craft from Grimsby 

 are regularly employed in procuring them. The mode of 

 catching them there adopted is by shallow hoop-nets 

 baited with refuse fish, and sunk to the bottom in likely 

 places. In these hoop-nets, the top of which is partly 

 covered with netting, the whelks collect in large numbers, 

 and are caught without difficulty. Another more elaborate 

 method is that called " trotting." The trot is only another 

 name for a long-line of small dimensions ; but instead of 

 having baited hooks, common green shore-crabs are 

 threaded on the snoods or short pieces of line, about 



