BASS FISHING AT THE LAND’S END
TWO fishermen strained at the creaking oars, and held the boat in the
tide-race close under the Longships lighthouse, whilst I grasped the
taut line, at the end of which a sand-eel was spinning. We could see the
bass in their play break the surface some twenty yards astern, and every
instant I expected that the bait would be seized. What sport those big
fish would have given in the strong current! But no, the bass refused to
bite at the silvery lure spinning under their very nose. We changed the
bait—tried pilchard, squid, ray’s liver, spider-crab; we varied the
length of the line, the weight of the lead; we trailed the bait along
the edge of the school; in short, we did all we knew. It was of no use.
“They’re not on the feed, sir,” said old Matthey, after two hours of
this exasperating work. There was no gainsaying this palpable truth, but
in my own mind I set the fact down to piscine cussedness. I had come to
Sennen for my holidays in order to try and kill a big bass, and it
seemed as if the bad luck that had dogged me wherever I had gone in
quest of this fish, pursued me still. In West-country phrase, I appeared
to be ill-wished. It was on the top of the spring, and we had fished
with apparently every condition in our favour except the clearness of
the water. “What’s wanted,” said Matthey’s mate as we approached the
wooden slip, “is a bit of a tumble, to stir the bottom and thicken the
water.”
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[Illustration: SENNEN COVE. [_Face page 206._]
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As scarcely a breath of wind was blowing, and the sky looked like brass,
the prospect of rough weather and clouded water seemed very remote. Yet
it turned out not to be so. Well may the fishermen of Sennen Cove, who
no longer have the guardian spirit their forefathers had, to warn them,
watch the sky for premonitory token of storm.
About sundown, on Tuesday the 14th August, a fortnight or so after the
tantalising experience related above, a weather-dog was seen near the
horizon, which made the older fishermen shake their heads and caused
them to be abroad before dawn. Seeing that the glass had fallen to
storm-level and that the seabirds with wild cries were making for the
southern cliffs, the thirteen boats were brought in from their moorings
and everything made snug just in time before the sea became too rough
for any craft in the cove to venture out, except the life-boat. At
daybreak on the Thursday the sands were littered with seaweed; in places
the foam lay in drifts like snow, and for miles inland the farmers must
have heard, in the lulls of the storm, the waves thundering against the
cliffs. It was not until the morning of Saturday that fishing was
possible, even from the shore, and then only at some risk, because of
that treacherous run in the water which from time to time costs the life
of a rock-fisher. I had little hope of success, for the sea was now as
thick as barm, yet I caught a grey mullet of five pounds, and lost
another owing to the hook tearing its hold. After this, being wet
through with the spray, I made tracks for my cottage on the brow of the
cliff.
By Monday the sea had moderated enough to allow us to get Matthey’s boat
afloat, and we ventured out to our old fishing-ground near the Longships
and dropped the killick overboard. The water was in perfect order, and
one might compare it to a river clearing after a spate. What sport! I
kept catching pollack and bream until I was tired of pulling them in;
but, alas! the bass had shifted their quarters, and although we visited
their usual haunts we failed to meet with them. The glass continuing to
rise, we ventured further along the coast, and spent the rest of the
week fishing the three miles of water between the Land’s End and
Porthgwarra. Excellent whiffing-ground this is well known to be, and so
it proved; but unfortunately the week’s sport was marred by a disaster
for which I was entirely to blame. It was on the morning of Thursday,
just after the steamer the _Lady of the Isles_ had passed on her way to
Scilly. Up till then we had had good sport with pollack, five of these
beautiful bronze-coloured fish lying in the basket on the bottom-boards.
Shortly after, when near the Rundle Stone, I lost a heavy fish, and with
it the spinning-flight, through its boring down and getting entangled in
the weeds, as big pollack are wont to do. Of course, I should have held
on at any cost and not given an inch of line; and this I determined to
do with the next fish that should lay hold of the new eel-tail that was
soon trailing in the wake of the boat. I was exchanging a few words with
old Matthey, who was holding the sheet—we were sailing to and fro the
great tidal stream—when I got into a very heavy fish, to which I held
on like grim death. In less time than it takes to tell, the line snapped
and a bass which had leapt clear of the water twenty yards astern fell
back like a bar of silver into the trough of a wave and disappeared.
What word or words escaped me on witnessing the fish—it was uncommonly
like a salmon—with the broken trace hanging from its open jaws, I do
not remember. At such mortifying moments the tongue is very apt to prove
an unruly member, yet old Matthey never opened his mouth. He was like
one struck dumb, but his face was as long as a fiddle, and the gaff
dropped from his fingers as though it burned them.
With the loss of that fish I really began to despair, and it would have
been almost pardonable if I had taken a trip to Camborne to consult the
wise man there about removing the spell which, all joking apart, I began
to fear hung over me. The following week my chances of success were
reduced to a minimum, for the wind veered round, the water close in
shore became as smooth as it ever is at the Land’s End, and in a few
days was as clear as crystal. The resourceful Matthey recommended me,
under these almost hopeless conditions, to fish from the small rocky
headland that separates the Sennen from the Gwenvor sands.
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[Illustration: PORTHGWARRA. [_Face page 210._]
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“The hotter et es the closer in they comes, and et’s the biggest baas as
hugs the shore.”
“When the corn is in the shock,
The fish is on the rock.”
I suggested, quoting the Cornish proverb.
He smiled, and replied, “Well, et’s meant for pelchurs, but et’s true
enuf for salmin baas.”
Somewhat cheered by the old fellow’s words, I set out after an early
lunch for Roarer Point, as it is called, taking my fishing-tackle with
me. The going was heavy, for the sand, beloved of the launce, is loose;
moreover the sun beat down mercilessly; but there was some compensation
in the scene.
I do not believe the man lives who could have been blind to the beauty
of that sea. In an old Eastern poem a Persian is represented as
beholding from the desert’s edge a boundless plain of turquoise. The
Atlantic on which I looked might have been such a plain, except for the
way it heaved; but it was on the breaking wave that the eye dwelt, and
found relief from the glare of the beach. How deliciously cool the
ever-rising, ever-breaking walls of translucent water looked in contrast
with the glowing sands over which the air shimmered and quivered.
Overhead a gull floated lazily, its snowy plumage showing finely against
the blue vault; and just after I crossed the little stream that trickles
down from Vellandreath, a butterfly—I believe it was a red
admiral—greatly daring, flitted seaward, and passed out of my sight.
At last I reached the little headland, scrambled over the burning rocks,
and gained its extreme point. The water below me was some ten or twelve
feet deep, and being outside the line of the breakers, its surface,
except when a breath of wind caught it, was without a ripple, and the
eye could search every foot of the bottom near the rocks, and for some
distance beyond. When I had baited the hook, I threw the line into the
water towards the Gwenvor sands, where I could see the approach of any
bass that might be coasting towards Sennen Cove, and it might be, watch
it swallow the lure, for—
“The pleasant’st angling, is to see the fish
Cut with his golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.”
Besides the hand-line I had a rod with me, and on this I had rigged a
spinning-flight and launce, intending, when the tide rose about a foot
higher, to make a few casts from the point.
A seaweed, favourite food of the shy mullet, grew on two big boulders
that lay half-buried in the white sand in the water below me. Though
semi-transparent it was clearly visible when the rippled surface
smoothed. Presently a small crab, as if fearful of being seen, scuttled
across the sandy strait between the rocks where rested my tempting bait
of ray’s liver.
My attention was chiefly occupied watching the bait and the water
between it and the shore on which white-crested waves were breaking; but
now and then I looked into a pool at my side. Bright-coloured anemones
starred its sides, delicatest seaweeds spread their fronds in the limpid
water, and a small fish called a pulcronack rested motionless between
two rosy lichen-like patches, apparently intent on something, or as if
it were listening for the steps of the incoming tide.
A buzzing noise drew my eyes for a moment to a green-backed fly that had
discovered and settled on the silvery eel, and when I looked at the sea
again two dark objects were coming towards me slowly, as they followed
the line of the broken water in which they were now and again lost to
sight. Owing to the glare I could not at first make the fish out
distinctly, though they were swimming over the whitest of sands; but
when they came within a rod’s length of the bait, I saw what monsters
they were, and instinctively uncoiled some slack line from the wooden
frame on which it was wound. The bass, for such they were, were swimming
about midway between the surface and the bait, and when a few yards from
the luscious morsel, their heads went down, and the next instant only
inches separated them from the liver. What exactly happened at this
critical moment is uncertain, owing to a slight ripple that disturbed
the surface. I could see their blurred dark forms near the rocks, and a
slight twitching shook the line, which I held loosely between my nervous
fingers for fear of alarming them. _Tout vient_, etc., I thought,
expecting to have the line wrenched through my hands, both of which were
ready to grip it as the fish should rush seawards. However, it was not
destined that I should land a bass that afternoon, for presently the
stately fish moved off in the direction of the point, the bigger one in
front; and a more dignified procession of two a chagrined spectator
never beheld. I suppose their suspicion had been aroused, though there
was nothing to suggest it, so deliberate were their movements. This gave
me time to grasp my rod and swing the sand-eel for a cast before the
leading fish showed beyond a conical rock that momentarily hid him.
Crouching, lest he should catch sight of me, I managed to drop the bait
in front of and a little beyond him, and, allowing it to sink, drew it
rapidly through the water so that it passed within a foot of his nose.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more irresistible for a fish
than that silvery bait, the spin of which, though I ought not to say so,
might have satisfied a Thames trout! Did the bass make a rush at it? No,
it simply swerved a little, and swam away in the most leisurely fashion,
the smaller fish following majestically in its wake. They kept their
distance as truly as two torpedo boats, and moved as if directed by a
single mind.
Let those who think that all sea-fish are easily caught, try their skill
and their patience at the Land’s End. I venture to say that, the grey
mullet and the Thames trout excepted, no fish is more difficult to
capture in clear water than the bass, and that the salmon is a fool to
it. To recapitulate my attempts: I had failed in the strong tidal
current near the Longships and the Cowloe rocks; I had hooked and lost a
monster in the Vrose off Tol-Pedn-Penwith; and my experience when
fishing from Roarer Point would have tried the patience of that famous
rock fisherman, St Levan himself.
I was not, however, at the end of my resources, for I could improve on
the fineness of my tackle. Hitherto I had used single salmon-gut. I now
resolved, though not without serious misgiving, to substitute a
sea-trout cast, and, as the next best time to the grey of early dawn—an
hour which has no great charm for me—to fish under cover of night.
The spot I chose was near where the small stream from Vellandreath runs
over the beach, in which, except after heavy rains, it loses itself just
before reaching high-water mark. I was there an hour before sundown. My
hook baited with cuttle-fish lay a yard or two beyond the broken water.
As the tide rose, I moved up the beach and pulled the bait a little
nearer in. There was no sign of any fish, but I was hopeful of success
when the golden track across the ocean should disappear and the light
become sombre. At length the sun dipped below the horizon, the fires it
had awakened in the windows of the cottages died away, and the curve of
sand lost its warm colouring. With the paling in the west, first the
evening star and then the others appeared, the fishing-village twinkled
with glow-worm lights, and the Longships and the Seven Stones’ lightship
exchanged their nightly greetings across the submerged land of
Lyonnesse. When the bells of Sennen ceased ringing, there was scarcely
any sound save the murmur of the waves, which broke in lines of
phosphorescence on the long strand. Now and then I pulled in my line to
see that the bait was free from seaweed; at times I followed a light out
at sea, where some steamer moved in the darkness. Thus the hours passed;
and at eleven o’clock, despairing of success, I was on the point of
going to my lodging. It wanted yet half an hour to high water, however,
and I resolved to stay on.
At irksome times like this one’s thoughts are apt to stray, and a straw
may give them direction. What may have suggested the train of thought,
unless it was the tinkle of the rivulet beside me, I cannot say, but my
mind reverted to the part the sands of Whitsand Bay have played in
history. Here, three centuries ago, the Spaniard landed and burnt the
mill at Vellandreath; here landed Perkin Warbeck, on his ill-starred
expedition; here Stephen; here John, on his return from Ireland; here
Athelstan; here, if tradition be true, those heathen hordes whom King
Arthur and his knights overthrew on Vellandrucher moor; here were drawn
up the galleys. . . .
My historical reverie was interrupted by a slight tug at the line held
loosely in my hand, a tug followed by the drawing of the slack through
my fingers. A bass—it is his way—was running out to sea with the bait
in his mouth. At last! I had jumped to my feet on feeling the fish, and
when the loose line was used up, I suddenly raised the point of the
rod—a sixteen-foot salmon-rod—and drove the hook home. What a rush the
fish made! I put on every ounce of strain I dared, considering the
fineness of the cast, but it seemed to have little or no effect on the
fish, which kept going seawards. I could tell its whereabouts during the
first part of the rush by the jet of phosphorescent water that spurted
from the line, but now I could see nothing except the dark expanse with
its silvery fringe. If the tackle held, I knew the bass could count on
nothing in its favour; for the moorings of the boat and of the storepots
were far outside the limit of my hundred yards of line, and there was no
wreckage now, the fishermen having cleared it away for the sake of the
mullet and pilchard seines. To husband the line left on the reel, I
advanced as far as I dared into the water, my feet sinking deep in the
loose sand. I was rather at a loss to know how to act for the best;
whether to continue the steady strain to the last, or give the fish the
butt before the line was run out. To stand there and be smashed would be
ignominious; so, come what might, I determined to take the offensive.
Grasping the greenheart and the line in both hands, I brought the point
of the rod back over my shoulder slowly, to avoid a jerk, putting on all
the strain I could. Either the fish must yield or the tackle break.
There was a violent struggle, in which the top joint played an important
part, and then suddenly the tension relaxed, and I feared—in fact, had
little doubt—that the gut had snapped, or possibly the hook torn away.
Winding up as quickly as possible, I had recovered some twenty yards
when, to my joy, the reel screamed again. A second time I applied the
butt, and then kept working the fish in. Now he would swim to my left,
now to the right, but I could not see the wave which I feel sure he was
raising. With much difficulty, for he fought all the way, I brought him
to within a few yards of the breakers. How he struggled to maintain his
ground there! evidently regarding the broken water as a zone of the
greatest danger. After a time I thought I might venture to haul him in.
But no, he would not consent to that. Of his own free will he had for
many summers sought the shallows, even foraged amongst the breakers; but
there was a good reason why he should shun them now. Once I had him just
beyond the faintly gleaming arch of a wave, though I could not
distinguish the fish, but only the place where he was struggling inside
rings of incandescent silver. At last his strength was spent, and I
succeeded in dragging him into the grip of a wave which tumbled him
half-way up the shelving beach. With a great effort I extricated my legs
from the quicksand, and throwing my rod aside, rushed at the fish as the
backwash carried him down. I got a hold of him, but lost it, the prickly
dorsal fin wounding my hand badly; then the next wave, which nearly
swept me off my feet—in my desperation I had followed the fish—washed
him in, and though half-blinded by the spray, I succeeded in rolling him
on to the dry sand.
I have killed many bass since, but none so heavy—he weighed fifteen
pounds four ounces—none which made such a gallant fight. It is true
that they were landed under more cheerful conditions, for it must be
owned that that night’s fishing on the edge of the Atlantic was weird
and lonely.
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[Illustration: A HAUNT OF THE RAZOR-BILL. [_Face page
220._]
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