MOULDS FOR BOAT-LEADS. 43 



wire, snood or sid-strap, brass swivel, and the snood itself with 

 three hooks looped on over the knot below the swivel, wanting 

 only the line to be bent on to the upper eye of the brass wire. 

 This is on a smaller scale in order to show it entire on the same 

 page. The fishermen dispense with wire, and use served rope 

 yarn instead, worked in through holes in the ends of the lead. 

 Wire is the simplest and most speedy method. This wire or 

 ganging is absolutely necessary, or snood and line would twist 

 together. The knot at the end of the sid-strap is most useful, 

 as you can immediately detach the hooks, either if you have 

 the ill-luck to get foul by a fish sheering across the other lines, 

 or from any other cause ; this removal of the hooks of course 

 facilitates greatly the clearing of an entanglement, and I 

 recommend it for all ground-fishing gear for hand-lining. In 

 fig. 7, d the lead is represented in the position it would occupy 

 when in use (holding the book sideways), and as it is drawn to 

 the surface in the same position, the wire of course offers little 

 or no resistance in passing through the water, and the tackle is 

 drawn up with comparative ease ; but in the Southampton Rig, 

 the wire or whalebone spreader running through the lead at right 

 angles to its upward course, nearly doubles the labour, a matter 

 of no small moment in offing-fishing, although alongshore, using 

 light leads, it does not matter so much. To use this gear, the 

 boat having been anchored, first sound the bottom, and if a good 

 stream of tide is running lift the lead just off the ground ; if 

 loderate, a little higher ; if dead slack, the height of the whole 

 mgth of the trace, by which I mean all the tackle below the 

 iad. The sid-strap should never be quite as strong as the 

 ine, in order that it may break first, by which you will save 

 your lead if you get fast in the bottom. For offing work use 

 twelve feet from lead to lowest hook, alongshore four or five 

 feet. 



Moulds for Boat-Leads can be made in wood, freestone, 

 and ordinary, or moulders' sand from a foundry. The dimen- 

 sions of a mould for a lead of one pound weight will be 4^ 

 inches long, \\ wide, by i|- deep ; for one and a half pound, 

 5^ inches long, i \ wide, and i deep, and others in proportion 

 of greater weight. 



