“What? on this line? Nothing sometimes.”
“Oh! of course. I often go fishing up the river when we’re at home, and catch nothing. But what do you catch when you have any luck?”
“Lots o’ things,” said Josh; “skates, rays, plaice, brill, soles, john-dories, gurnets—lots of ’em—small conger, and when we’re very lucky p’r’aps a turbot.”
“Oh! I say,” cried the boy, with his eyes sparkling, “shouldn’t I like to see conger too! They’re whopping great chaps, arn’t they, like cod-fish pulled out long?”
“Well, no,” said Will, “they’re more like long ling; but we can’t catch big ones on a line like this—only small.”
“But there are big ones here, arn’t there?”
“Oh, yes!” said Will; “off there among the rocks sometimes, six and seven foot long.”
“But why don’t you catch big ones on a line like that?”
“Line like that!” broke in Josh; “why, a conger would put his teeth through it in a moment. You’re obliged to have a single line for a conger, with a wire-snooded hook and swivels, big hooks bound with wire, something like this here.”
As he spoke he held out the hook, just finished as to its binding on.