104 SEA-FISH. 
water, such as the fish love to foregather in after 
coming inshore in spring. On the one side is the 
joint estuary of those grand salmon and pike 
waters, the Avon and Stour; on the other, lics 
Poole harbour, an excellent shelter for all manner 
of sea-fish in hard weather. There are several 
patches of rock in the immediate vicinity, and the 
town sewers attract great hordes of flat fish and 
whiting to within five hundred yards of the cnd. 
Yet the fishing is, as I have said, ruined by the 
steamers that ply between this place and the Isle 
of Wight, Swanage, Lulworth Cove and elsewhere ; 
and too many avail themselves of the cheap day- 
tickets to fish without pause throughout the spring 
and summer months, retaining every fish, even 
though it would not turn the beam at an ounce. 
One great attraction of this pier is the inex- 
haustible supply of mussels that cover the 
piles. Ever since I have fished from it, 
when it was shorter than now by half its present 
length, it has been the custom to scrape bushels of 
mussels from the piles week in week out, daily bait 
for half a hundred anglers. Not only are these 
mussels drawn upon by those fishing from the pier 
itself, but they also furnish bait to all who fish in 
boats. I must myself have used quite 2,000 
mussels this summer, counting, that is, all that 
were wasted. Yet there is no end to them, and 
there would be no difficulty in scraping enough for 
a hundred anglers any day of the week. Like other 
molluscs, the mussel reproduces its species very 
rapidly, a provision particularly interesting to the 
Bournemouth amatcur, since these pier mussels 
are, as a rule, his one resource, the only alternative 
being an exceedingly wearisome journey to Poole 
Mussels 
