Fishing holidays by Gwynn Stephen Lucius 1864-1950

Author:Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fishing
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., limited; New York, The Macmillan company
Published: 1904-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

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x TIDE FISHING 249

and found him fishing the long line on a Sunday, which is an illegal act, the long line being a " fixed engine." It was a new interpretation of the law, and Billy resented it; and now, in the wildest glee, he dodged coyly with the curragh, affected to look away, and generally behaved as if he wished to elude discovery,—praying devoutly all the time that we might hook another fish and land it under the bailifFs nose, before my license was brandished in his face. This we did not do, but we kept the watcher walking up and down for the best part of an hour ; and I am sure Billy would cheerfully have rowed the curragh till dark if he could have kept his foe in a state of unprofitable expectation of another fine.

The capture of sand-eels—again I say, how unlike woVm-fishing—is a sport in itself, as I found one day when I went out to observe the operation. Billy, bare-legged and bare-armed, was knee-deep in a shallow of the main channel. The water was wide about him, but he held a long-bladed knife in one hand, with which he made a swift pass through the water, put down the other hand, and lifted a small, shining, wriggling

creature held between his palm and the blade. It looked like magic; and when I tried the trick it was more than ever unintelligible. However, one soon learnt to plunge the knife straight into the fine sand under the water, and bring the blade, edge foremost, from right to left till it met the very faintest obstruction. Then, keeping the knife in its place, you lowered the other hand, palm down, to meet it, and fetching the blade upward, caught the creature between the edge and the hand. But, needless to say, I was far indeed from attaining the mastery with which Billy could swoop apparently regardless through the water, and at every circle bring up one, or often two or three, ready to drop in the bucket which he held between his knees.

It was play in the summer, but in the chill of spring, when the eels are few and far between, the game becomes cruel work. Fishers prefer then to dig them, as I have seen it done in the Douros channel, at the ebb of springtide, standing out on the farthest limit of the bank, where the sand is half water, and every moment you sink ankle-deep. The remedy is to strike the

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x TIDE FISHING 251

spade in hastily, draw it out, and step on the place where the suction closes up the sand-particles and gives a moment's footing. I have seen the whole sandbank opposite Douros House crowded like a fair-green with people busy at this digging.

Up in the Douros channels is the place specially famous for the white-trout fishing, and we tried it there one evening on our way to Carrig Castle—not so much in the hopes of

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