132 SEA-FISH. 
three small hooks on a 23 ft. trace, and costs but 
3d., I believe. 
As already mentioned, it is of importance to 
strike promptly, on which account the rod, or line, 
should be held the whole time, with the line as taut 
as possible, and without shifting the position of the 
lead. Should you strike and miss, it is as well to 
be ready for an immediate repetition of the bite, as 
these fish have, like whiting-pout, the habit of fol- 
lowing up a receding bait. 
There are several excellent baits for this pier 
fishing for flat fish, and few of them will beat a 
strip of fresh sand-smelt, especially for turbot. 
Lugworm, if fresh, is also a first-rate bait; and 
mussel even better, the chances of making a bag 
with the last-named being much increased by 
taking a few turns of yellow cotton over the bait 
and bend of the hook, taking care, however, that 
the cotton does not form any impediment to the 
proper action of the point and barb of the hook. 
Shrimp, either “live” or boiled, is another bait 
that meets with great success on.some piers ; and, 
where the fish run to a good size, small picces of 
fresh herring prove hard to resist. In the Baltic, 
indecd, where I have made very large catches of 
plaice, 30 or 40 in an hour and few under three- 
quarters of a pound, we used nothing but the small 
Baltic herrings, which we bought direct from the 
netsmen at the rate of about six for a penny. 
Flat fish are capable of surviving removal from 
what is commonly described as their “native 
clement” for many hours, so long as their gills are 
kept moist, and it is a good plan, one that I learnt 
in Mccklenburg, to transfer each as soon as caught 
to a small net tethered in the water, in which they 
