Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/496

 450

angola

and may be caught on an absolutely placid surface by this fashioned way which is still practised on the Thames and method when the wet fly is useless. (See also Seamany other idvers. The bait shonld be spun slowly, and fishing.) Sways as near the haunts of the fish as possrble, care A itthokities. —H. Cholmondeley-Penkell and other writers. being taken to spin it deep enough. In g Vishinq 2 vols. (Badminton Library). London: Longmans usually trailed behind a boat, just in the way that big G Mg> Kelson. The Salmon Fly.—A. E. Gathorne-Hard. trout Ire fished for. Trolling with the dead gorge bait m The Salmon (Fur, Feather, and Fin Series). London : Longmans. rAeiSuls or GEANBY. The Trmd (Fur, Feather and Fm prohibited on most waters where pike are preserved, as a Series) London: Longmans.—F. M. Halford. Dry l<ly Fts. fish little and big, caught by this cruel method are iZ in Theory and Tradice. Floating Flies and haw to dress them destroyed; but a snap-trolling tackle has been devised London : S^pson Low & Co.-Johd B.ckerdykeGllb / whkh gives very good results. It hooks the fish the all-round Angler. London: L. Upcott A Book on Angling. London: Longmans. F. Day. immediately it seizes it. A leaded spike is forced into Fpancis The British and Irish Salmonidce; The Fishes of Great Britain the bait from head to tail. At the end of the spike is an SAw. London: Honme CoX.-T. E. Priit eye which projects just beyond the tail, and through this Fucs _W Senior, John Bickerbyke, and otheis. Pike ana the gimp of the hook is threaded, and two triangles lie Perch (Fur, Feather, and Fin Series). London: Longmans. G. alongside the bait. The arrangement is shot quickly H Wheeley. Coarse Fish. London : Lawrence & Bullen. ( J- B. ) down into holes between weeds and worked once or twice with a rather sharp sink-and-draw motion Pike flies are AnSfOlSL* the general name of the Portuguese pos not much used, except in some of the Irish ^kes’ but sessions on the west coast of Africa lying south of the take them readily enough on those days when they are equator, and embracing Angola proper, which stretches feeding close to the surface. The haunts of pike, Amy from the mouth of the Congo to the mouth of the be mentioned, are in running water at the beginning o Cunene, and the enclave of Cabinda, immediately north oi the season, while as the year advances they get into the the Congo. Its boundaries are :—On the N., French deeps, hiding away among rushes, reeds, and weed-beds Congo and the Congo Free State ; on the E., the latter and ever ready to pounce out on any passing fish. In tiie British South Africa; on the S., German South-A est Africa, winter they lie in quieter waters, particularly m eddies, and on the W., the Atlantic. Area, 484,370 square miles ; but it may be taken as a pike-fishing maxim that wherever population, estimated at 4,200,000. It embraces part or small fish abound, there will the pike be found. < whole of the basins of the Congo, Kwanza, and Cunene Except for the fact that tackle has been much improved, (flowing west), and of the Kubango and Zambezi (flowing our knowledge and methods of capturing coarse-fish by east). Of these streams the Congo and Kwanza alone . or what is commonly known as bottom-fishing have are navigable at their mouths. The coast-line, partly low, T, coarse- not much advanced during the past halt-century, partly broken by rocky promontories, possesses the ports fish. if one fact concerning these, fish has become of Loanda, Lobito, Benguela, Mossamedes, Porto Alexandre, more strongly emphasized than others, it is that to make and Bahia dos Tigres. There are various mountain a handsome creel of barbel {Barbus vulgaris), tench {linca chains and tablelands running generally parallel to the vulgaris), bream {Abramis brama), or carp ( Cypnnus carpio), coast, as Tala Mugongo (4400 feet), Chella and Vissecua it is necessary to ground-bait very heavily in advance of the (5250 to 6500 feet). In the region of Bailundo are the day’s sport. The best ground-bait consists of worms, and highest points of the province, viz., Lovih (7J80.ieeC> in the best worms come from Nottingham. There seems 12° 5' S lat., and Mt. Elonga (7550 feet). South of the something peculiar about the soil of that locality wliicii Kwanza is the volcanic Mt. Caculo-Cabaza (3300 feet). makes the worms specially attractive to the fish, vv hen With the exception of the district of Mossamedes, the coast fishing a baited hole it is good policy to allow the worm districts (the palm country) are unsmted to Europeans. On the and the shot of the float-tackle to lie on the bottom, or a interior plateau, above 3300 feet, the temperature and ramfall, together vith malaria, decrease southwards as far as the lowei very light leger may be used with or without a float. Worms nowadays are not usually crowded on to a hook, course of the Cunene. The mean annual temperature at Sao do Congo is 72°-5 Fahr. ; at Loanda 74 3, and at but quite a small hook is used which is merely caught m Salvador Caconda 670,2. The climate is greatly influenced by the prevailing the tail, head, or middle of the worm. The bait is thus winds which are west, south-west, and S.S.M. Two seasons rendered much more attractive than it would otherwise are distinguished—the cool, from June to September ; and the be, and the fish care little for the visible hook. Success rainy, from October to May. The heaviest rainfall occurs m and is accompanied by violent storms The minerals very largely depends on keeping quiet, and, so far as April comprise copper at Bembe, on the M’Brije and the Cuvo; iron, at possible, out of sight of the fish. Chub {Leuciscus Ociras (on the Lucalla) and in Bailundo ; petroleum in Dande cephalus) may be fished for in many ways; but the and Quinzao ; gold in Lombije and Cassinga ; and mineral salt at Nottingham method, by means of which float-tackle is Quissama. Behind a region of intermingled grassy plains and let down to a swim perhaps 20 yards distant, is one . of palms (especially the Guinea palm, Elms gumeensis) follows a of savannahs proper and low hills with scanty vegetation. the most deadly, and has become a great favourite with region In the south this latter region merges into a barren sandy desert, the modern angler. The line used is exceedingly fine, and with Welwitschia mirahilis and Bauhima. Amongst the cultithe operation a very artistic one. The chub, as is well vated products are the sugar-cane, cotton tree, coflee, and tobacco, known, also rises to a fly, and may be caught by various and the exports include coffee, india-rubber, wax, vegetable oils, nuSTPay, cotton, and ivory. In 1896 the coffee crop baits, such as frogs, slugs, gentles, cockchafers, &c., cast under i weighed 4907 tons, and was valued at £329,550, as compared with the boughs by means of a powerful fly-rod. In fishing for 1149 tons in 1870 ; and in the same year the india-rubber crop roach (Aewciscws rutilus) there has been practically no advance wethed 2245 tons,’ valued at £525,550. The yield of wax was in our knowledge of late years. Tackle-makers provide' valued at £68,450. Industry is not greatly developed; but and the manufacture of tobacco, bricks, and tiles and us with finer gut and better hooks, while the roach bite as distilling, cottons and the salting of fish are carried on In 1896 the shyly as ever. For dace {Leuciscus vulgaris), however, exports reached a total value of £1,025,100 ; and to this must be and sometimes for roach, it has become quite a common added £222,250, as the annual average exportation ot the Gon^o the imports practice in some of the larger rivers to rake the bottom district, or in all £1,247,350 In the same year £368 >;00189J ’5* behind the punt before commencing to fish. This not totalled £766,700, the principal item being textiles ( which £174,900, or nearly one-half came from Lisbon) only thickens the water slightly, which usually brings fish the exports reached £1,768,554, and the imports totalled £1,536 049. up into the swim, but also dislodges a quantity of minute The total commerce of the province has nearly quadrupled since 1870 fish food which serves as a natural ground-bait. Dace, it i.e. it has increased from £827,800 (1870) to £3,304,603 (1899). has been found, rise well to the dry fly, when rising at all, In 1897 the ports of the province were entered and cleared by an