192 SEA-FISH. 
devices just on the bottom. The gurnard_ will 
hook themselves; indeed, with their enormous 
mouths, they cannot do otherwise, and may be 
added to the bag while you are at lunch. It can- 
not be called sport; but this fish rarely furnishes 
sport, unless a large one is accidentally caught on 
the lightest of gut tackle. Besides taking almost 
any fresh bait that is allowed to linger within reach 
—the gurnard is a lazy fish, rarely exerting itself in 
procuring food—this fish will generally seize a very 
slow spinning bait, and many a time is the dis- 
custed pollack-fisher compelled to reel in perhaps 
fifty yards of line to unhook a miserable gurnard, 
weighing under a pound, which fastened on to the 
spinner as the boat turned and the line slackened 
for a moment. 
The pleasures of mackerel fishing have already 
been alluded to in connection with the chief 
methods by which this fish is captured, 
namely whiffing, or “ plummeting,” and drift-lining. 
At the end of the summer, however, some time in 
August as a rule, the mackerel go to the bottom, 
feeding along with the flat-fish and whiting. There 
is then no better tackle for them than the pater- 
noster, for they may feed at any distance from the 
bottom, usually between 2 and 10 feet, and the 
paternoster searches different depths as does no 
other combination. When the exact depth at which 
they are feeding has been ascertained, I have, it is 
true, improved matters by substituting the chop- 
stick tackle, but as a rule, the paternoster of single 
eut will kill against anything. 
Mackerel are among the few fish in pursuit of 
which it is, owing to their roving habits, unneces- 
sary to take any account of “ marks.” With pouting 
Mackerel 
