vi i PREFACE 
The direction, however, in which writers on the 
sport can best serve their readers is undoubtedly 
that of local information; for it is here, in the 
shifting of the fish from one ground to another, 
in the erection of new piers and the destruction 
of old, that the greatest changes take place. A 
paternoster or leger, made up and baited as recom- 
mended by Mr, Wilcocks in his Sea Fisherman, 
would, zz the right place, take fish as well to-day 
as thirty years ago; but so quickly do local con- 
ditions change, so capricious in their movements 
are the fish, that even Mr. Wilcocks might gladly 
accept the latest “marks” from the veriest 
novice. 
The primary importance of up-to-date and ac- 
curate information about the seaside localities 
most visited by amateurs, those more particularly 
within easy reach of town, has not been lost sight 
of in the present manual, but is the subject of 
numerous references, not alone in the Appendix— 
to which many well-known amateur sea-fishermen, 
mostly resident at the coast, and therefore in touch 
with all the latest news, have been so good as to 
contribute—but also throughout the book. 
The Editors have to acknowledge the kindly 
collaboration in the Appendix, the help of the 
Editor of the Frshing Gasette (R. B. Marston, Esq.), 
