Gaff (fishing)

“ A flap of netting suspended some distance inside the mouth of the net serves as a valve. It is easily lifted by the incoming fish, but tends to prevent their escape.
The netting is of hemp, the mesh gradually increasing from one inch at the cod end to about two inches near the mouth, and is preserved with tar.
When fishing, the vessel moves ahead at a steady, slow rate of from two to three miles per hour, dragging the trawl behind it. Smacks always trawl with the tide. If they trawl against the tide, the net is lifted from the ground. ”

“ Most small fish in ponds and streams reflect their surroundings so well, and are coloured and marked in such a way, that they are almost invisible to the large fish, for example pike, that prey upon them. Generally, they reveal their presence by the flash of light reflected from above by their scales, as they turn suddenly to snap at a morsel of food. In the same way, many predatory fish, e.g. the angler fish, resemble their surroundings so closely that the fish for which they are lying in wait swim within easy reach of them without perceiving their danger. ”

“ After some experience, the eye will apprize you when the fish rises to seize the hook; you are doubly prepared to strike, if your line is on the stretch, in which case, you feel, as well as see your prey.
Striking, signifies a sudden jerk of the rod, at the instant the fish has taken the hook, and forms a very important feature in the art of fishing. ”

“ It is no use the angler wearying himself with a heavy nineteen or twenty foot rod. A sixteen or seventeen foot rod is quite enough, remembering the elementary principle that the shortest line which will cover the water is the best. I never now use a gaff on the Ewe. It is quite unnecessary, as there are no steep banks. I never lost a fish for want of a gaff, but many I have hooked have got off during vain attempts to gaff them, even when the gaff has been wielded by an experienced hand. To gaff a kelt involves an almost certain breach of the law, for the kelt is nearly sure to die. ”

“ For an hour a barbel came to net every five minutes; and there was no chance of loss, as the fish simply gulped at the worms and went off with them at once, and the hook had to be removed sometimes with a disgorger. In the very midst of the sport I thought I would make an experiment in the matter of baits. I had my own box of gentles. One, I suppose, never goes afloat or engages in any bottom fishing whatever without this reserve, if the maggots are in season. Hawkins also happened to have a small supply of stale greaves. ”

“ All require for their performance the use of a rod, a line, a hook, and a bait. The first is bottom-fishing, which nearly resembles that mode of sea-fishing with the handline, which we have just described. It consists of angling near the bottom of the water, with worms, gentles, bread, paste, and other animate and inanimate baits; it is the simplest, most common, and most primitive mode of angling, "first learned, and last forgotten."
Trolling is more difficult. It is performed in mid-water, that is, neither at the surface, like fly-fishing, nor at the bottom, as the preceding kind. ”

“ As the dry fly man works upstream and the trout habitually lie facing the current, the careful and quiet angler seldom needs to cast a long line—provided, of course, he is casting practically straight up and actually stalking the fish from behind. But when casting diagonally up and across from either bank, in which manner it may happen that a great deal of the water may be most advantageously worked, the familiar fact that "keeping out of sight" is half the battle in trout-fishing must never be forgotten. ”

“ And when the bass seizes your bait, and you have fixed the hook by one sharp blow, you must be gentle and moderate, only using severe measures where they are absolutely necessary. If the blue-fish comes, and he does not carry away your hook at the first snatch, reel him in as quickly as his indomitable pluck and vigor will permit. He is not game when you are bass-fishing. If the ungainly flounder, exhibiting unexpected activity, shall chase and grasp your bait, lug him out by main force, treating him, though excellent to eat, like the vulgar commoner he is. ”

“ The fish may be seen leaping and splashing in great numbers at the place where the turbid waters of the stream mingle with the clear water of the lake. Small fry are the object of their pursuit, and if a silver-bodied fly is thrown over a moving fish he takes it with a rush almost without fail. It is a most exciting form of fishing, for the fly must be thrown [Pg 22] quickly from a boat or canoe over the fish as he breaks the water in his rush for the minnows, and if he fails to see it further casting is often useless, till another fish repeats the same manœuvre. ”

“ I prefer myself—and so I am sure do all true sportsmen—to give the animal or fish I endeavour to capture a fair chance of escape, or, in other words, fair play, which is the true principle of all sport. In live-bait fishing for jack the same means are used as for perch, only that your cork float must be larger, as must the hook, and this latter must be gimp-fastened, as the jack would make short work of gut. Of course a larger bait is used for jack than for perch, and, indeed, at this period of the year, a large bait is rather “killing” than otherwise. ”

“ Fly-fishing has been designated the royal and aristocratic branch of the angler’s craft, and unquestionably it is the most difficult, the most elegant, and to men of taste, by myriads of degrees the most pleasant and exciting mode of angling. To land a trout of three, four or five pounds weight, and sometimes heavier, with a hook almost invisible, with a gut line almost as delicate and beautiful as a single hair from the raven tresses of a mountain sylph, and with a rod not heavier than a tandem whip, is an achievement requiring no little presence of mind, united to consummate skill. ”

“ The hake, normally a deep-water fish, ventures inshore in pursuit of herrings, pilchards, mackerel.
The ling, turbot, brill, dog fish live entirely upon small fish. The dog fish swarms on certain fishing grounds and is often a serious pest to the drift-net fishermen, destroying their nets as well as the fish that are attached to them.
The whiting, like the cod, feeds upon small fish, and upon crustacea and mollusca. ”

“ A slick is the oil of the menhaden floating over the waves, and extended frequently by tide or current a long distance, attracts the bass, by suggesting to them that their prey is near at hand.{154}
Where the water is clear it is customary in rod-fishing, which is the only scientific mode, to use two hooks; the smaller, some two feet below the other is attached to a fine line or gut leader, and denominated without any apparent reason the fly-hook. Many of the best fishermen never use more than one bait, and where the fish are large and plenty, one is sufficient. ”

“ The selection of the hook depends mainly upon the fancy of the fisherman, and partly upon the locality of its destined use. If fish are scarce and shy, select one that will insure striking; if they are abundant, but strong and vigorous, choose one that will hold. In trout-fishing there are two that bear the palm in striking, the sneck bent and the Kirby bent Limerick; in holding a fish after he is struck, my preference is for Warren’s Lake-trout hook, which, however, does not make a handsome fly; for salmon-fishing, the O’Shaunessey Limerick is the general favorite. ”

“ The fish swim against the nets, push their heads through, and then, owing to their gill openings, find that they cannot withdraw their heads, and in this way are caught in enormous numbers. Generally, fishing goes on all night, and in the morning the nets are hauled in, and, together with the attached fish, are thrown into the hold situated amidships. The drifters then return with all possible speed to the fish wharf. While the boats are returning to port, the men draw the nets from the hold and shake them free from any entangled fish. ”

“ Some days the fly is of no use—either owing to a calm, or to a bright sky; and a well-managed trolling-line or two is then the only resort, unless one stops fishing altogether. And if big trout and ferox are wanted, nothing succeeds—indeed nothing will succeed, except very occasionally—but trolling, either with artificial or natural bait. So to be complete you must have the requisite tackle, and we will tell you what is necessary, both for small and large fish, in as few words as we possibly can. ”

“ But many precious minutes have been wasted; the fly has got itself fixed in one of the knots in your landing net. Never mind, break it off; you must get to sterner business. So you take some few more minutes in threading the eye of a small, dark sedge fly, as the fish by now must be at work upon the larger flies. Flop! flop! on the opposite side, under the shadow of the reeds. See that your fly is dry and cocks well; keep out of sight—an absolute essential in evening fishing—and go for that uppermost fish. That was a good rise; was it at your fly? It is hard to see by the waning light. ”

“ A Woods and Forests' man on board told me he had recently caught a similar fish on a small fly rod; it weighed five pounds and leapt like a sea-trout, but no one apparently knows much about the possibilities of fishing here with rod and modern tackle. We then got a hand-line and a cod-hook from the engineer, and baited with squeezed bread, the size of a pigeon's egg, and fished on the bottom, and almost at once had on a heavy fish. It pulled tremendously and got a lot of line out, and wandered up and down the middle of the river; on a salmon rod it would have played long and heavily. ”

“ If you have a short gut line—two or three feet long—it will be well to fasten it to the end of the line and to the other end of the gut attach the snell of the hook. But when seeking many fish which are not very shy, the snell may be fastened directly to the line. In fishing in a gently moving stream no lead may be needed; if the current be quick a little will probably be required to keep the bait near the bottom. In pond-fishing or reaches of a stream which are very quiet a float as well as lead may be convenient. Some veteran anglers still enjoy the bobbing of the float. ”

“ A heavy leaden weight is attached near the hooks, and thus the fisherman feels when his bait is off the ground. He continually jerks them up and down, and is thus aware of a fish the moment it is secured. Although this seems a somewhat tedious process of fishing compared with the immense draughts of the net, it is found in skilful hands to be productive: eight men on the Dogger-bank have taken eighty score of Cod in a day. ”

“ Rod fishing is done in comparatively deep water on the rocky reefs or shelly banks along the keys, from an anchored boat. Any natural bait, as a small fish, crab, crawfish, or conch, will answer, though a small fish, as the mullet, sardine, or anchovy, is the best. When of large size the gag is a very gamy fish, and must be handled very carefully to preserve one's tackle intact. ”

“ Again, where the favorite pool lies close by the overhanging rock, upon some accommodating ledge of which the angler crawls prone to the earth, hiding from the sharp eye of the watchful fish, he can with a long rod jerk out the line, and twitching it over the surface, beguile the prey; while with a shorter one he might be deprived of concealment, and stand confessed a laughing-stock to the fish, dangling a useless line close to the rocky bank. If the water, the wind, or the fish are strong, the rod should be the same ”

“ If the fishes are to be killed for our use, there is no way in which they are put to so little pain as in fly-fishing. The fish rises, takes your fly as though it were his ordinary food; the hook fixes in the hard gristly jaw, where there is little or no sensation. After a few struggles he is hauled on shore, and a tap on the head terminates his life; and so slight is the pain or alarm that he feels from the hook, that I have over and over caught a trout, with the fly still in his mouth which he has broken off in his struggles an hour or even half an hour previously. ”

“ In general, fishes are caught in four ways—by baited hooks, by spears, by traps, and by nets. Special local methods, such as the use of the tamed cormorant [146] in the catching of the ayu, by the Japanese fishermen at Gifu, may be set aside for the moment, and all general methods of fishing come under one of these four classes. Of these methods, the hook, the spear, the seine, the beam-trawl, the gill-net, the purse-net, the sweep-net, the trap and the weir are the most important. The use of the hook is again extremely varied. ”

“ In fishing for the whiting the amateur should use a hand-line about twice as stout as very thick twine, and with two hooks (not over large these latter, as the whiting has not a very large mouth) . Bait one hook with a worm and the other with a “white” bait, to give the fish a choice, as they are fastidious, and it is curious that on some days you will find they will take the one persistently when they will not look at the other. By a white bait I mean a piece of sprat or herring. The white bait takes best when the sea is thick and disturbed, as its glitter is seen by the whiting far off. ”