120 SEA-FISH. 
and smoothly when in tow, its chief function. This 
courge comes in excecdingly handy, not alone for 
keeping live bait, but also for keeping alive the fish 
one catches ; nor, for all the wonderful tales I have 
read to the contrary, have I once found the one 
devour the other. It is also advisable to remove 
the dead from time to time, as, although a current 
of water is continually running through the courge, 
death seems in such form to be infectious. The 
living sand-eel, then, hooked through the tail, the 
lip, or the back of the neck, one being about as 
good a$ another, is the most killing bait for drift- 
line fishing, whether from harbour or boat, and for 
bass and pollack. The orthodox way of catching the 
sand-cel is of course with the sean, and I have even 
heard that it will take a fly, but I never saw this. 
The method I have described, however, will be 
found useful at places where, as at Bournemouth, 
there are plenty of launce and no sean; and if itis 
desired to make their capture as sporting as possible, 
without regard to keeping them alive, they may be 
caught on avery light trout-rod and single-gut cast, 
and the bait may be worked through the water like 
a submerged fly. And truly, few fish give more 
play for their size than a sand-cel about six inches 
in Iength. 
What I have called still-fishing for bass from 
Sull. piers is a simpler affair, practised for the 
fishing most part with hand-lines, and consists 
mercly in getting the baited hook or hooks on 
the sand just behind the breaking rollers, for it is 
in the surf that bass are most likely to feed at the 
bottom. As it is only during lively weather that 
there is surf cnough for this work, the right place 
can obviously be reached only in one of two ways, 
