Four or five knots an hour, is the best rate of sailing for killing coal-fish, and upon a coast where they are abundant, the sport, at times, is excellent.
Like the pike the coal-fish is very indifferent to the tackle used, which is generally very coarse. Not so the mackerel; he requires much delicacy of line and bait to induce him to take.
In light winds, or when the fish are out of humour, I have killed mackerel by substituting a salmon casting line of single gut, for the hempen snoud commonly employed by fishermen, which with a newly-cut bait of phosphoric brilliancy, commonly overcame his resolve against temptation. But there are times when a change of weather, or some inexplicable phenomena of sea or sky, render these fish dull and cautious—for usually it requires but trifling art to kill them.
A little experience is necessary. The bait must be cut from the freshest mackerel, and assimilated in size and shape to the herring-fry, which they generally follow—and the way of the boat must be so regulated, as to preserve the deception by a sufficient velocity, without breaking by its rapidity the mackerel’s hold. The mouth of this fish is particularly tender—and if care be not taken many will drop from the hook before they can be secured on board.—Wild Sports.
Seafowl, s. A bird that lives at sea.
Shooting Seafowl.—To venture after fowl at sea you must have a large boat with good bearings, that will carry plenty of canvass. Rowing after them scarcely ever answers; but when it blows fresh a fast sailing boat may often run in upon geese, and sometimes other birds, before they can take wing; and after a coast has been for some time harassed by the gunning punts, I have seen more birds killed under sail from a common boat, than by any other manner of day shooting. But, to do the business well, a stanchion gun must be fixed in the boat, and this, by all means, contrived so as to go back with the recoil, or you run the risk of staving your boat, and therefore of being really in danger. Recollect when you get on the outside of the harbour an accident is no joke; and you have, as Dr. Johnson observes, but one plank between you and eternity.
A boat for this work should have plenty of bearings, and have as little keel as she can well go to windward with, in order to get, at times, within shot of the mud and sands, and also to run through a harbour at spring tides without getting aground. You should therefore, for this sport, always make choice of a day when the wind is off the land, and a time when the tide is flowing; as you have then no danger of filling your boat with the hollow sea of a lee shore, or running her so fast aground as not to be able to get her off immediately. In following wild fowl under sail, command, as much as you can, a windward berth, in order to bear down on them at pleasure; and if they rise out of shot against wind, as they usually do, luff up directly, and try to head them for a cross shot. As the gun, when on one tack, is in the way of the jib, you must have the man who attends the jib-sheets always in readiness to haul the weather one to windward; but this must be done only just before you want to fire, or you deaden the boat’s way. Take care also to let the sheet be under the barrel of the gun, in order that your line of aim may be clear of every thing. In this pursuit, when the more wind sometimes the more sport, never go with less than three good hands; and be careful in squally weather not to make too fast the mainsheet, as nine-tenths of the misfortunes that we hear of, have occurred from this very circumstance.—Hawker.
Seagreen, a. Resembling the colour of the distant sea, cerulean.
Seagull, s. A sea bird. Vide Gull.
Seahog, s. The porpoise.