March 25, ign.j 
forest and stream. 
THE EOCKFISHER. 
No matter what day of the week it may be, 
there are always men fishing off the rocks. 
Some of them work at night, and spend their 
spare daytime that way. Others do not work 
at all. 1 hey used to, but were failures. Having 
no affairs, they took to rock-fishing, because it 
offered comparative isolation from the busy 
world. How they live is a mystery. A few 
perhaps have small private incomes; others are 
married. All are poor men and, with few ex 
ceptions, good fellows. 
These are the “regulars.” 
1 lie casuals,’ they who spend their days at 
the sport, usually take it up because they are 
men of quiet habit, to whom more strenuous 
sports make no appeal. 
I o the rockfisher with the sport at heart it 
matters not if he has cast his line at one par¬ 
ticular spot half a lifetime, nor what repetition 
ot creatures lie may have caught there, his an¬ 
ticipatory job of yet another day at the same 
old spot is always keen. 
llie evening before an outing his favorite 
author lies neglected. The only topics of con- 
^rsation that interests him are the sport and 
the weather. Will it be fine to-morrow? Will 
the sea be calm? The wind light? A dozen 
times he runs out to look at the sky. A spot 
of ram depresses him, but with the passing of 
the cloud and a clear sky his spirits rise again. 
He takes his battered old fishing-bag out of 
the cupboard. It smells of salt water and stale 
bait. Out come the contents into the lamp- 
ligrht. A rusty old warrior of a knife. It has 
drunk the life blood of many a marine creature. 
A rusty hook with the remnant of an ancient 
bait still clinging to it. He is reminded of 
some incident that occurred last time. A 
battered sinker or two, odd lengths of broken 
line, fish scales. He handles them like a lover 
the trinkets of some old love affair. Each one 
is a link in the chain of his fishing remin 
iscence. And the lines. He considers them. 
he white, the brown, the green. His choice is 
made, a hook and sinker selected. He “snoods” 
them on more or less expertly. All is now 
ready for to-morrow’s operation. But stay, 
how about that tangle. He meant to take it 
out the night of that last excursion but some¬ 
how or other he forgot. He always does. It 
is 3 , large tangle, what is known in the ver- 
nacular as a bunch of grapes.” He gazes at it 
ruefully, and then sets to with the help of a 
P'n. undoing what was the work of an instant. 
It takes him till bedtime. How fortunate are 
those fishers whose wives like taking out 
tangles. 
The day dawns clear. Not a cloud in the 
sky He can hardly wait to light his after¬ 
breakfast pipe before hurrying off to catch a 
train shoreward. 
“How is the sea to-day?” He hangs on the 
guard s answer. 
Calm as a lake.” says the guard. 
Good, his luck is in then. Walking quickly 
down the rocks he passes a man reading the 
paper. The man looks up. What a dull way 
to spend a morning. Very possible the thought 
is mutual. 
More luck. His favorite rock is unoccupied 
He looks upon this rock as his own private 
property. “My rock,” he calls it, and feels 
annoyed if anyone has dared to get there be¬ 
fore him No other rock suits him quite as 
well as this one. 
It is to be doubted whether even the people 
who make it, experience the peculiar joy of 
the rock-fisher in unwinding a thin, sensitive 
thread, the laying of the graceful coils with 
meticulous care upon the cleanest parts of the 
rock, where no limpets .or seaweed will catch 
and tangle them as they flash up on after the 
°i er . t *° ^°^ ow the sinker as it speeds out into 
the blue. When the hook has been baited 
cunningly with a crab, a piece of fish, or any 
other substance dear to the finny stomach, 
there is the exhilaration of swinging the sinker 
round and round the head till it has gathered 
sufficient momentum to carry the line out to 
where the fish are, or where one thinks they 
arc. 
Really only an instant or two, it seems long 
443 
RECORD BAGS 
of Quail are made with 
FRAWCOTTE and KNOC KARMIT 
FEATHERWEIGHT GUNS 
We have the finest assortment, 
especially built for Southern 
Shooting. 12, 16, 20 and in 
28 gauges. 
Von Lengerke <21 Detmold 
Fifth Avenue "Building 
200 FIFTH AVENUE 
Between 23d ® 24th Streets New York City, N. Y. 
THE OIL 
Has reached the HIGHEST degree of efficiency by doing all we 
claim for it, and perfection of quality places it at the SUMMIT of 
all other oils. 
VERTEX 
Stands upon its own merits at the TOP as a metal oil, and after years 
of practical demonstration and severest tests, has proven itself 
entitled to THE NAME 
VERTEX 
See what it will do, page 473. 
WOODCRAFT 
By “Nessmuk.” Cloth, 160 pages. Illustrated. Price, $1.00. 
A book written for the instruction and guidance of those who go for pleasure to the 
woods. Its author, having had a great deal of experience in camp life, has succeeded 
admirably in putting the wisdom so acquired into plain and intelligible English. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK 
