SEA-FISHING IN SIMON'S BAY 199 



while " hand-lining " the fish as best I could. 

 It was impossible, of course, to control his mad 

 rushes in any way. My " crew " rose to the 

 occasion splendidly, got hold of the line in the 

 direction of the reel, and hauled in, hand over 

 hand, while I kept the recovered line clear of 

 everything in the boat, so that the fish could 

 run it out if he wanted to, which he did, fre- 

 quently. By hauling up full speed hand over 

 hand, my companion recovered the reel, still 

 spinning, with plenty of line on the drum,\ 

 after several ineffective attempts, as the reel 

 sank spinning again whenever he slacked the 

 line for a second to grab it. Landing that reel 

 was as exciting a sport as landing any fish, 

 but at last it was in the boat. The next step 

 was to wind up on the reel the eighty yards or 

 so of slack line in the boat, taking care to get 

 no kinks in it, when the fish was taking out 

 line in one direction and the reel in the other. 



At last the line was on the reel and the reel 

 on the butt of the rod ; the fish chose that 

 moment to make a rush across under the bows 

 of the boat, followed by another rush back 

 again across the stern, a manoeuvre which a 

 few minutes before would have defeated us by 

 making a bight of line round the part with 

 which we were hauling the reel up from the 



