Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

2^"ENTANGLEMENT BY APPETITE "—KITING 41London, 1724) into the first silkworm line, and eventually intotelerana and similar tenuities of our day." Entanglement by Appetite," of which a primitive formexists among the Fuegians.i did literally " line upon line,"almost wythe upon wythe multiply its seed, if not quite likethe sand of the sea, yet freely. Proofs of this fecundity existin the varying and world-wide forms of its issue. A strongfamily likeness enables us roughly to divide these descendantsinto two classes.The first (A) where (to quote our leading law case) " thehuman element " is absent, as in night lining, or in " trimmering,"or in its distant and nowadays probably illegal connection,the method of live-baiting for pike with the aid of agoose or a duck, as set forth by T. Barker with his customarygusto.The second (B) where " the human element " is present,as in hand-lining and in its very latest descendant, inventedfor " big game fishing " off Santa CataHna, viz.a Hne attachedto a kite, which device secures the required "skittering"along the surface and from wave to wave of the flying fish-bait.^ There is no hook ; only a piece of whalebone or a stem of sea-weed, witha feather stuck at the end, attached to which is a running knot, which holdsthe bait. As soon as the fish has swallowed feather and bait, the women, forthe men disdain fishing, draw it to the surface and quickly seize it. Cf.Darwin, Jour, of Researches, etc., during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (London,i860), ch. X, p. 213.* " The principall sport to take a Pike is to take a Goose or Gander orDuck, take one of the Pike Lines as I have showed you before ; tye the lineunder the left wing and over the right wing, and about the bodie as a manweareth his belt ; turne the Goose off into a Pond where Pikes are ; there isno doubt of sport with much pleasure betwixt the Goose and the Pike. It isthe greatest pleasure that a noble Gentleman in Shropshire doth give hisfriends for entertainment. There is no question among all this fishing but weshall take a brace of good Pikes."^ For a full description of this method, see Sport on Land and Water, byF. G. Griswold, privately printed (New York, 1916), and The Game Fishes of theWorld, by C. F. Holder (London, 1913). To the kite, which is of the ordinary28-inch type, is allowed 700 feet of old fishing line from off a reel ; the fisherman'shne is tied to the kite about 20 feet from the bait with a piece of cottontwine. When a Tuna fish takes the bait the cotton line breaks, and the kiteis either reeled in or falls into the sea. The Santa Catalina fishing, with itsrecords of enormous Tuna, of Sword fish (the largest 463 lbs.), sometimesfighting for 14 hours, sounding 48 times, and leading the launch for a distanceof 29 miles, and of Giant Bass weighing 493 lbs., fills a British angler withenvious despair, a despair which is heightened when one reads that the regulationtackle prescribed by the Tuna Club is, or was not long ago, a sixteenounce Rod and a line not over No. 24 ! In Mr. Zane Grey's enthralling