DISGOKGEKS. HOW TO CURE WHITING. 53 



Disgorgers will be found very useful, especially to those 

 accustomed to angling. The handle of an old tooth-brush 

 makes a good disgorger by cutting off the bristles and putting 

 a notch in the end. This will do for ordinary fish, but for 

 Congers make one out of a bit of ash or oak or beech, 18 

 inches long and of the thickness of a policeman's staff, plane 

 one end chisel-fashion, and cut a notch in it \ an inch deep. 

 To extract a hook, push the forked end down on the bend of 

 the hook, take a turn of the snood round the disgorger, and 

 force it down until the hook relinquishes its hold, when you 

 will withdraw it easily. For Conger it is often necessary to 

 screw round the disgorger until you can clear the hook vi et 

 armis ; this the strength of hook and snood allows in Conger- 

 gear. The teeth of Silver or common Whiting are very nume- 

 rous and sharp, and the fingers may be easily badly torn in 

 taking them off the hook if the fish has pouched the bait. 

 The Pollack also has numerous teeth, smaller than the Silver 

 Whiting, yet sufficiently large to scratch the fingers consider- 

 ably, and I have constantly got my hands into a very dis- 

 agreeable state after a day's fishing from extracting the hook, 

 which they often gorge as deeply as a Pike, particularly if you 

 are baiting with living Sand- Eels, after which they are perfectly 

 voracious. 



How TO CURE WHITING. 



The following extract from the ' Field,' contributed by 

 W. T., Isle of Wight, is so thoroughly to the purpose that I 

 make no apology for its introduction in the present work ; it is 

 both short and simple : ' As soon as possible, clean, and theri 

 with a sharp short knife, split the fish from throat to tail, taking 

 care in so doing that the knife feels its way by pressing gently 

 along the backbone, thus making a neat cut and avoiding rag- 

 ging the meat of the fish. By the aid of the knife dissect out 

 the backbone to two-thirds of its length towards the tail, and 

 break it off. 



* Sprinkle salt on the inner side of the fish, and lay one 

 over the other in piles of about three dozen. 



' In an hour, if the fish are small, in two hours if they prove 



