SEA FISHING FROM PIERS. 165 



for the practice of angling. As a matter of fact, one would 

 hesitate to indicate any particular spot where the pier fishing is 

 particularly good, because the sport often varies with the season ; 

 but I know of no place within reasonable reach of London where 

 one can better rely upon a bag of some kind, virtually all the year 

 round, than at Deal, situated between Ramsgate and Dover, in 

 Kent. The tide at this place sets past the head of the pier, going 

 either north or south ; and, whilst one state of the tide is better 

 than another, there seems to be no period of it when the fish 

 absolutely decline to feed at all, though the thick water, full of 

 sand in suspension, which prevails after stormy weather, will of 

 course put fish off. 



I have mentioned Deal because I have often fished there, and 

 anglers may now reasonably live in hope that Dover will be restored 

 to them as the first-class angling resort which it once unquestion- 

 ably was. Its decline in this direction was contemporaneous with 

 the building of the Admiralty pier ; and the hope for the future 

 lies in the recent completion of the new pier, which, extending 

 three hundred yards out, may be expected to take the anglers 

 amongst the fish. There are, of course, many other piers round 

 the coast from which fishing may be had, and the methods adapted 

 to one are adapted to all. 



I may say at once that the hand-line fishing which in most 

 cases, though not in all, is the best method when fishing from a 

 boat, is not the proper one to adopt when angling from a pier. 

 The amount of sea room at the disposal of the angler from the 

 boat renders the absence of control he has over the motions of the 

 fish, beyond hauling him neck and crop on board, a matter of 

 indifference. When his line is baited all he has to do is to drop it 



