FISHING FROM PIERS AND HARBOURS. 133 
keep quite lively until the day’s fishing is done. 
Anglers who visit Southend for a day’s sea-fishing 
could probably kecp the flat fish, the majority of 
their catch in the Thames estuary, alive until their 
return to town, if they would only stow them away 
in an old carpet bag in some wet weed. 
-A word must be said at the conclusion of these 
hints on the subject of the immature flat fish that 
invariably, more particularly in summer, form the 
bulk of a pier catch. It is far more sportsmanlike, 
even though it be not yet insisted on by legislation, 
to return these tiny fish, many of them no bigger 
than laurel leaves, to the water to grow for another 
occasion. The fool, who is usually selfish, argues 
that some one else will catch the fish ; but if every 
action were based on such logic, the greatest good 
of the greatest number would assuredly be in a 
worse way even than it is at present. 
Ifany one hasa mind to try for these, the wariest 
fish in the sea, he must lay in a long, light Grey 
gut line with small pear-shaped plummet, mullet 
a few ragworms, a little macaroni, soft bread, paste 
made with pilchard, or other soft bait adapted to 
the tastes of fish that feed by suction, and last, but 
not least, an inexhaustible supply of patience. 
With these, as well as a short rod and Nottingham 
reel carrying at least 50 yards of fine line, he may 
possibly catch a grey mullet, if not one summer, 
why, the next.1 It is above all necessary to re- 
member that no sea-fish takes the alarm more 
1 T have been more than once accused of exaggerating the diffi- 
culties of catching this fish. Chance, however, apart, it is essentially 
the fish for residents with many opportunities. Thus, there are 
anglers living at Littlehampton who catch between two and three 
hundred in each season. 
