CH.V.] SEA-FISHING—USE FINE TACKLE. 71 
the matter himself, simply tells any boatman, 
whom chance throws in his way, to have “hooks 
and lines and all that sort of thing” ready, an 
order which the man executes by looking out 
some rusty old tackle kept for summer-visitors,— 
“they don’t know no better,—which he tells 
him are “all right.”. He, taking for granted that 
the boatman’s tackle must be “the correct thing,” 
goes out, perhaps never looks at the hooks, which 
are baited for him by the boatman, and comes 
back with two or three deluded flatfish and pos- 
sibly a conger of a couple of pounds, all that he 
has to shew for several hours’ work, and ten 
or fifteen shillings that the boat has cost him. 
Of course he attributes his want of success to 
wind, or tide, or absence of fish, never dreaming 
that his own carelessness has had anything to do 
with it. 
As a practical proof of the advantage which 
fine tackle has over coarse at this work, the 
following striking instance will suffice:—I was out 
with a brother of mine, and a boatman who had 
been all his life used to the place and fishing, 
being indeed a fisherman by trade. He used 
his own coarse tackle, whilst my brother and I 
fished with our own—good hooks whipped on gut, 
