BOAT-FISHING. 185 
efficient, although I took no large conger that 
season. This summer I had better opportunities 
for testing it, and, as it stood the strain and teeth of 
conger of very fair size, its excellence cannot be ques- 
tioned. Only, it is larger than it need be for conger. 
The professionals use enormous hooks for this 
fish; but these are quite unnecessary, and the 
amateur will find one of the size figured (p. 55) 
ample for every purpose. On such a hook, I 
have killed conger weighing 40 Ibs. 
The conger come alongshore about June, but 
August is, on the whole, the best month for them. 
Down at Mevagissey, there are excellent conger- 
grounds within a couple of hundred yards of the 
shore, both to the eastward off the Gribbin; and, 
in the opposite direction, down by the Deadman, 
or Dodman. We used to glide out of the little 
harbour with the pilchard-boats, about six in the 
evening, and make straight for the ground nearest 
their pitch for the night, commencing operations 
with fresh mackerel or squid for bait, and, towards 
nine, at the first haul, zunning alongside one of 
them for half-a-dozen pilchards, just removed from 
the strangling meshes. I have brought a few conger 
to book with the rod in those waters, one weighing 
244 lbs. ; but, candidly, I don’t enjoy the fun. In 
the proper sense of the word, the conger gives no 
play; and the strain on the rod, no matter how 
stiff, is such as to render it unfit in a very short 
time. The loss of time is prodigious ; in the time 
it took me to kill that particular fish on the rod, 
I should probably have accounted for three or four 
on the hand-line. And, lastly, in a conger of any- 
thing over a dozen pounds, there is just enough of 
the element of resistance to make the capture of it, 
