154 SEA-FISH. 
mid-water and the bottom, reverse the proceedings, 
diminish the lead and take in line until the bait 
can occasionally be seen astern. Should both 
these extremes be reached without any recognition 
from the fish, run ashore and stay there, for the fish 
are evidently in no biting humour. Should the 
change of depth, however, prove beneficial, and a 
bite be felt, strike firmly, not by catching 
hold of the line and pulling it back through 
the rings—a man who knows how to use his rod 
and winch need rarely, if ever, touch the line—but 
by a decided backward lift of the rod-top. If the 
fish happen to be a small one, it may be reeled 
up to the net without more ado. Should it, how- 
ever, be of some size, there are two courses to 
pursue, between which there is, I think, little to 
choose. You may either let your boatman stop 
rowing, and coax the fish to the side for him to 
Playing gaff, or he may back water and bring you 
the fish alongside the fish, you reeling in the while 
as hard as you dare. At all costs, keep the fish 
from the rocks, especially if there are lobster-pots 
in the neighbourhood. The cunning with which a 
pollack of large size will wind your line 
round the ropes and break away may be 
discredited by critics of animal instinct, but 
the fisherman’s belief is not to be shaken. The 
grand principle on which to fight this fish is the 
refusal to yield one inch of ground. Should you 
have reason to suspect a faulty knot in your gut- 
cast, you had far better chance it and bluff the fish 
by mastery from the first, for the pollack is no 
brook-fish to tire lightly at the end of a slack line. 
In mid-water, he is nowhere ; but let him once get 
sight of his native pools, his effort is supreme, and 
Striking 
Pollack 
