FISHING FROM PIERS AND HARBOURS. 
119 
should be required. At all times very delicate 
creatures, the ordeal of 
being hooked, played and 
unhooked was not calcu- 
lated to act as a tonic; 
and I found to my chagrin 
that not one out of the 
dozens I sometimes caught. 
in the course of a couple 
of hours could be kept 
alive for even an hour or 
so. I tried a bait can 
with wet sand. But 
nature refused to be re- 
produced on so mean a 
scale, and the eels were 
all dead within ten 
minutes of their capture. 
Next I tried a floating 
creel, but some escaped, 
the rest were soon float- 
ing belly upwards. Then, 
thinking to lessen the 
shock of hooking and un- 
hooking, I reduced the 
barb of the roach-hooks 
on which these little fish 
are to be caught, the bait 
being a morsel. of mussel, 
but even this availed not. 
I finally invested in a 
“courge,” an invaluable 
basket cage, pointed at 
either end like a torpedo, 
Counce. 
which enables it to move through the water swiftly 
