Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/271

Rh to drop off the line into a pail, which the angler should place on the bank at a convenient distance from his standing-place. Norfolk "babbers" frequently catch four stone weight of eels to a boat per night, especially in the spawning-grounds. Night-lines are also much used for eels. These are long lines, weighted heavily at each end and in the middle, and garnished with baited hooks one yard apart. "Sniggling," immortalized by Mr. Burnand in his "Happy Thoughts," is one of the most favorite ways of catching eels, and "stichering," a Hampshire method, is perhaps one of the most amusing, though the sticherer probably catches fewer eels than any other eel-hunter. The only apparatus used is an old sickle, worn short and chipped so as to present something of a saw-like edge; this is tied firmly on to a light pole about twelve feet long. Armed with these the sticherers betake themselves to the water-meadows. In the wide, deep drains used for irrigation eels abound, and the object of the sticherer is to thrust the sickle under the eel's body, and, with a sudden hoist, to land him on the bank, from which he is transferred to the bag. That there is every chance, when on a stichering party, of having your eye poked out, or your ear sawn off, of course only adds the necessary amount of danger and pleasurable excitement, without which all sport is tame. Of all forms of eel-capture, however, there is none to compare to spearing, of which there are two methods. The Norfolkmen mostly use "picks" formed of four broad blades, spread out like a fan, between which the eels get wedged. These are mounted on long, slender poles, to enable them to be thrust into the mud, where the "picker" notices the tell-tale bubbles rise which denote the presence of "Anguilla." Eel-spearing of this kind takes place chiefly in winter, but there is another form of this sport called "sun-spearing," which is much sought after in the Irish loughs during the months of June and July. In the early sunny mornings at that time of the year, when the water seems to be principally composed of sunbeams, with a little hydrogen and oxygen added, the sun-spearer sallies forth in any little boat he can lay his hands on. Standing up in the bows, and, if alone, using his spear to propel the boat gently along, he steals over the crystal waters of the lough. Presently he sees the gleam of the "silver" eel as he lies quietly at length on the sandy bottom. The spearer takes aim; there is a sudden "splitting of the atmosphere," as Mark Twain would say, a splash, and either Anguilla comes up writhing on the twelve close-set teeth of the sun-spear, or the spearer has taken a header into ten feet of water. If the latter is a tyro at the apparently simple art of sun-spearing, it may safely be prognosticated that, if he makes acquaintance with the eel he is after, the meeting will be more likely to take place under water than above it.

Eels have the immense merit in the eyes of all careful people that they more than repay any cultivation bestowed upon them. There is always a demand for eels, and they never seem to be out of season.