HAND-LINING. 85 
I trust I have made the matter quite clear, as, 
strange to say, the proper method of throwing out 
the boat-shaped sinker has not been described in 
any previous work on sca-fishing. 
The other matter, striking, is simpler, but there 
is also a right way and a wrong. Striking 
with a hand-line in any considerable depth 
of water must be no finicking turn of the wrist, 
such as would doubtless serve in emptying a 
shallow pond of small roach ; but what is needed to 
drive the steel well home is a good, smart hauling 
back of quite a yard of line over the gunwale, 
which, as subsequently in hauling the fish, should 
be made to bear the chief brunt. In short, the 
hands should be kept zzszde the boat from the 
moment of hooking the fish ; and it is in this that 
the old hand is at once recognised. The exact 
amount of law to give each fish must depend much 
on its weight and, if known, its probable behaviour, 
as an instance of which may be cited the downward 
boring of the pollack as contrasted with the upward 
spring of the sharks. As a general rule, and always 
supposing the gear can be trusted, the main object 
is to get the fish into the boat, the finer cat-and- 
mouse play of the rod being unquestionably lost 
with the hand-line, though I have seen some skill 
exhibited in playing large fish. I recall the 
capture in 1894 of a 26 lbs. porbeagle shark on 
a hook on single gut by my Cornish boatman, 
George Marshall, of Mevagissey; but George is 
by nature a very clever fisherman, and a great 
advocate of the artistic playing of large fish over 
the gunwale. 
Several contrivances have been devised, mostly, 
I think, by Hearder, of Plymouth, for use in con- 
Striking 
