180 SEA-FISH. 
attraction of baited crab-pots. The extent to which 
these latter are appreciated by all manner of fish 
may be gathered from the fact that large bass and 
conger are often taken in them, so coiled as to be 
unable to escape. 
There remains the consideration of a few fish 
which are commonly taken in boats on the bottom 
tackles already mentioned, or on others closely re- 
sembling them; and of these, the chief are the bass, 
bream, cod, conger, various flat fish, gurnard, 
mackerel, pouting, and whiting. 
One of our most successful bass-fishers is Mr. J. 
C. Wilcocks, now in his seventy-first year, 
if I mistake not; and he recently sent me 
some hints for catching these fish at the heads of 
Poole Harbour (I wasted some of the best years 
of my life formerly over those same Poole bass !), 
which are of general application to bass-fishing from 
boats. I therefore give the gist of them here, and 
as Mr. Wilcocks killed 150 of these fish at Shoreham 
in the course of four seasons, his methods are sure 
to command ready attention. Speaking of fishing 
generally at the mouth of a harbour, he says that 
the living sand-ceel is the only reliable bait, and the 
wicker courge the only satisfactory receptacle in 
which to tow it to the grounds. The bass wait in 
the low water between the haven points for such 
sand-eels and shrimps as may come that way, and 
Mr. Wilcocks anchors his boat in the tideway and 
lets the line drift over the fish. The essential con- 
dition is that the sand-eels shall be lively ; and 
in support of his vote for the courge, he quotes a 
case in which a Shorcham gentleman took his ceis 
to sea in a pail, the result being that they: had lost 
Bass 
